Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesparticularly when political differences and issues of self-government are involved.It is axiomatic in anthropological research that identity-formation is a dualistic andoppositional process, and that people define their identity by asserting who theyare not. 1 Forging new boundaries of inclusion necessarily entails creating boundariesof exclusion. It is difficult for the Commission to nurture a sense of fellowfeelingand patriotism among European Union citizens without reinforcing oldstereotypes and “Us” and “Them” dualisms. This problem is compounded by thefact that the category of “foreigners” (that is those non-European Union citizensresident within the Union) is often conflated with terms like “aliens”, “illegalimmigrants”, “asylum seekers”, “estracommunitari” and other categories of“undesirable”. It is not difficult to see how promoting European culture could,inadvertently, help to fuel racism and xenophobia and the articulation of whatStolcke (1995) calls “new rhetorics of exclusion”.In a globalising world in which Europe’s youth are increasingly embracing thepossibilities for self-fashioning through consumption, attempts to constructEuropean identity through the mobilisation of a set of enduring core “Europeanvalues” and artefacts make little sense. The European Union’s conception ofEuropean culture, with its eurocentric and high-culture bias, simply highlights thedistance between European Union elites and the peoples of Europe they seek tounite. What, then, could be done to reverse this danger and promote best practicein European Union cultural policy?Where European Union cultural action has been most successful is where it hasfocused on small, pragmatic interventions rather than its more ambitious plans toconstruct a “European culture area”. Such initiatives include town-twinning andeducational exchange (Socrates); the promotion of minority languages; the translationof literary works; enhancing public access to museum and galleries; encouragingmobility of workers and practitioners in the fields of culture; and fundinginitiatives to boost Europe’s film industry. While all these are important, muchmore needs to be done. New thinking is required with respect to cultural diversity.The eurocentric assumptions underlying European Union cultural policy need tobe challenged. European culture should not be conceived simply as a canon ofartistic and literary works representing, as Matthew Arnold would have it, “thebest” from the cultural heritage of each member state. A policy of promoting a“Europe of the regions” is not the answer either. Europe’s nations and regions arenot culturally homogenous and European Union policy should give greater recognitionto their diversity and cosmopolitan character. Furthermore, it should berecognised that culture is not static or confined to matters of heritage, tourism, themedia and entertainment industries and the arts. 2 European cultures are engaged ina constant process of negotiation, exchange and syncretism from which newformations of culture and identity are emerging. These so-called “cultures ofhybridity” include Turkish-Germans, Afro-Caribbean Britons, Dutch-Mollucans,French-Vietnamese and Italian-Moroccans. Cultural democracy is about giving__________1. For useful reflection on this point see MacDonald, 1993; Shore, 1993.2. This point is also raised in European Commission, 1996.118