Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiessocial norm requires a rethinking of the processes, mechanisms, and relationshipsnecessary for democratic policy development in diverse societies.Mr Bennett’s conclusions return us to the issue of citizenship and the nature ofdemocratic public policy in culturally diverse societies. The conclusions, in fact,focus the activity on one of the central concerns of the Council of Europe as awhole. At the end of the second world war the Organisation was invested with thetask of protecting and sustaining the most crucial elements of the European commonheritage: democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Perhaps one of themost critical challenges with respect to this historic role has been finding a way toreconcile democratic public policy with the condition of cultural diversity.Cultural diversity invests national cultural policy with the responsibility to definethe new conditions of equity and fairness for cultural participation. The reportillustrates the fact that to make democracy possible in our new environment, wewill have to re-configure the political meaning of citizenship to take account of theoverwhelming importance of the cultural dimension.I am honoured to work for an organisation, which has the courage to confront thevital and pressing issue of developing democratic cultural policy for culturaldiversity. I am grateful to the national administrations of those states representedin the study to have provided such intellectually competent and personally committedauthors of the national reports. And I am extremely heartened to note thatthis report gives clear focus to the fact that our current history of radical institutionalchange is giving birth to a formidable partnership: that between academictheory and political pragmatism. This report illustrates that it is a partnership withenormous potential to realise the goal of securing a just and democratic environmentfor all peoples and all cultures.VERA BOLTHO,Head of the Cultural Policy and Action Departmentof the Council of Europe__________1. The Republic of Montenegro is one of the two republics of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.6