Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Reasearch position paper 3voice to minorities (ethnic, religious, linguistic and territorial) as well as majoritycultures: it is about promoting tolerance and celebrating difference. Europe’sHindu, Moslem, Jewish, gay and Roma/Gypsy communities and its Asian andAfrican diasporic populations are also part of the rich mosaic of culturesin Europe. Their contribution to Europe’s cultural diversity should also beacknowledged.Forging a European culture area based on Christianity and the legacy of classicalcivilisation can only diminish attempts to promote cultural democracy and pluralism.The conclusion of this report is that the European Union should concern itselfless with “unity”, or even “unity in diversity” and focus instead on promoting culturaldiversity in its own right. It should let the peoples of Europe make their ownconnections as far as defining what Europe’s heritage entails. This is surely whatthe principle of subsidiarity requires anyway. Just as there is not one but several“Europes”, so there is no one single “European culture” but rather a plurality ofEuropean cultures. To recognise this is the first step towards encouraging moreinclusive, democratic, pluralistic and above all “bottom-up” perspectives onEuropean culture and it means to the heterogeneous and mongrelised peoples ofEurope.ReferencesAdonnino Pietro, 1985, A People’s Europe: reports from the ad hoc Committee,Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 7/85, Luxembourg: OOPEC.Ahrweiler, Hélène, 1993, Roots and trends in European culture, in S. García (ed.),European Identity and the Search for Legitimacy, London: Pinter and RoyalInstitute of International Affairs.Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin, 1998, Islam and Euro-identity, Demos Collection,No. 13, special issue “EuroVisions: new dimensions of European integration”.Anderson, Benedict, 1983, Imagined Communities, London: Verso.Back, Les and Anoop Nayak (eds.), 1993, Invisible Europeans? Black People inthe New Europe, Birmingham: AFFOR.Bainbridge, Timothy and Anthony Teasdale, 1995, The Penguin Companion toEuropean Union, Harmondsworth: Penguin.Bochardt, Klaus-Dieter, 1995, European Integration. The Origins and Growth ofthe European Union, Brussels: OOPEC.Brugmans, Henri, 1987, L’Europe: une civilisation commune, un destin, une vocation,in H. Brugmans (ed.), Europe. Rêve-Aventure-Réalité, Brussels: Elsevier.Collins, Richard, 1993, Audiovisual and Broadcasting Policy in the EuropeanCommunity, European Dossier Series No. 23, London: University of NorthLondon Press.119