The Impossibility of Cultural Domination
The Impossibility of Cultural Domination
This month coincides with the first anniversary of a
culture related event, the significance of which is all but represented by a
word which is the dividing line between culture and politics and affirms in
strong terms that what is acceptable in world politics is unacceptable in
culture.
On 29 September 2004, the United States rejoined
the organization concerned with world culture UNESCO (acronym of United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The United States had
withdrawn from UNESCO on 31 December 1984, i.e. it remained out of it for almost
twenty years. What was the withdrawl for? What was the return for? Is there
greater significance than the requirements of politics, which in this case can't
be reduced in any narrow political analysis away from the wide domain of
culture? Before we attempt to answer these questions it
would be useful to remember how UNESCO was created and follow up its progress
and identify its features as this may give us reasonable explanations for the
withdrawl and return which may help us understand the general cultural
significance of this story, far from any political polarization. Politics is
changeable, but culture, which represents human civilization, is always in touch
with the essence of man's life and activity. From war to war Looking into the idea of world peace requires that we start with the history of world wars. As UNESCO is one of the channels of the latest ideas of world peace, it is appropriate to return to the roots under these channels, the roots of yearning for peace which rose from the ashes of world wars. The League of Nations was established in 1920
after World War I. It was designed to form an international organization for
world peace to resolve international disputes through arbitration and to promote
all forms of international cooperation. The League was suggested by US president
Woodrow Wilson in his 'Fourteen Points' as part of the peace settlement for
World War I. The 26-article League covenant was incorporated into the Versailles
peace treaty, which the US did not ratify, and ironically, the US did not join
the League because the US senate refused to approve it. The original member
states of the League were 28 and the number eventually rose to 60. Some member
states withdrew from the League and a major power the Soviet Union was expelled
from it. However, the basic principles of the League were logically acceptable.
The member states undertook to preserve the territorial integrity of all, and to
submit international disputes to the League council. They also agreed that
peacekeeping required reducing their national armed forces to such a minimum
that ensured national security. The country which dealt a death blow to the
League was Germany. Nazi Germany followed a policy of armament which ultimately
led to the outbreak of World War II (1939 1945). Human losses in addition to
other losses were tremendous. The US lost 292,000 people, Britain and
Commonwealth countries 544,000, the Soviet Union 1,750,000, France 210,000,
Germany 850,000, Italy 300,000, China 2,200,000 and Japan 1,500,000, i.e. nearly
15 million according to some statistics, to which are added the victims in
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Baltic countries, Scandinavian countries, the
victims of Nazi concentration camps and the quarter of a million victims of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. That makes the total loss of life in World
War II reach as many as twenty million, each with a tragic story. I meant to mention these figures to highlight the
extent of global horror which that war caused. Despite political manoeuvrings,
it was natural to give rise to a strong desire to establish a new international
organization from the wreckage of the failed League of Nations. The United
Nations was thus born to promote the spirit and values of world peace through
mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of international disputes and
international social and economic cooperation. Proposals for establishing the
United Nations were discussed by representatives of the Soviet Union, Britain,
China the US in the autumn of 1944 and the Charter was drawn up at the San
Francisco Conference on 26 June 1945. As the lessons of World War II were bitter and
painful, the international community, whose participation in the UN increased,
realized that political agreements alone did not keep world peace and felt the
need to raise anti-war awareness, i.e. awareness of the logic of peaceful
coexistence, which is by definition a cultural issue. Thus UNESCO was created on 4th November 1946 as a special agency of the UN in terms of its mechanisms for making world peace. In other words, UNESCO addressed culture and intellectuals all over the world rather than politics and extremist politicians among whom were those who waged two world wars in one continent during a single century. How was the approach, and how was the path?
Conditions and excuses Dr Abdulsalam Almasaddi, the Arab intellectual, professor of linguistics at the Tunisian University, outlined the philosophy on which UNESCO was based in a single well-turned phrase. "The search for civilized harmony through cultural differences". This phrase acknowledges cultural diversity and equal respect for the cultures of all nations on our planet. This broad concept in brief is: renunciation of domination the approach which UNESCO has taken since its inception. In this regard Dr Almasaddi says. "Successive directors-general of this international organization have attempted to put this philosophy into practice and considered it a sort of an unknown charter. When Ahmad Mokhtar Mbou became director-general on 14th November 1974 he followed his predecessors' policy. He was probably overzealous because he came from Africa, the continent which paid the highest tax of colonialism. He was from Senegal, a country with a rich heritage, charged by history with the task of reconciling differences: his people are predominantly Muslims, with French the official language." What Dr Almasaddi said was undoubtedly true, but it's not confined to Mokhtar Mbou, but extends to his successors. Let's consider US' reasons for the withdrawl and its conditions for return. The US withdrew from UNSECO on grounds of its "over bureaucracy and financial mismanagement". The US was the contributor of almost a quarter of UNESCO's budget. This may be understandable with the logic behind it being the greater the payment, the bigger the influence; however, this is different as far as UNESCO is concerned; its resolutions are passed by majority voting, and this majority comes mainly from Third World countries in addition to some European countries with celebrated cultural and civilized weight. The reasons given by the US seemed to apply the logic of politics to culture, where influence is for the strongest. But there was another side of the story as indicated by the US condition for rejoining UNESCO, but that was not related to the latter's philosophy itself. Prior to its return to UNESCO, the US raised its objection to the report entitled "Our Creative Diversity". Let's consider this report. New international ethics In last month's Editorial, which looked at the
issue of reform from the perspective of culture, I referred to the report
entitled "Our Creative Diversity" issued by the UN International Culture and
Development Committee (1995), a translation of which entitled "Creative Human
Diversity" has been published by the Supreme Council for Culture in Egypt. It
was the vision conveyed in this important report that made me think up the idea
that cultural reform can't be brought about unless we are aware that culture in
its wider sense is not that of the elite alone, but is the sum total of a
community's diverse cultures, heritage, present and future aspirations. Respect
for cultural diversity is the essence of this important UNESCO report which was
the outcome of painstakating research by a group of distinguished thinkers from
around the world who investigated culture worldwide and outlined their vision in
this report which serves as an international charter of culture and the starting
point for various local cultures and sets out guidelines for respect for
cultural diversity within the same community and among other communities. That
might have been the basis for including a section in the report concerning the
new international ethics. The section starts with an extract from a speech given
by a participant at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de
Janeiro: "The world is our village, if a fire breaks out in one house, all
ceilings in the village will be in danger. If anyone embarks on rebuilding, his
effort will be totally symbolic. Solidarity must be the spirit of the age, and
everyone must shoulder their public responsibility". In answer to the initial
question: "Why are we in need of new international ethics?" he says: to create
such conditions that help all humans worldwide live a decent life; huge human
efforts and long-term changes in policies are necessary. That is a difficult
task in the light of the many development-related problems the world is facing
which need urgent solutions. But, as Arnold Toynbee put it: "Our age is the only
generation since the dawn of history in which mankind has ever had the
conviction that the advantages of civilization can be available to the entire
human race." According to the report, searching for new international ethics applies
equally well to all those involved in world affairs, depending on the ability of
people and governments to give up narrow personal interests and agree that the
interests of mankind as a whole lie in accepting a set of common rights and
duties. In the eyes of politics and narrow-minded politicians this vision looks
utopian of course, but they look fair and logical in the eyes of culture and
intellectuals. Hence the key role culture plays in the search for new
international ethics, as envisaged by the report, as this approach is in itself
a cultural activity which poses a number of questions: Who are we? What is our
aim? What is the relationship between us and others and among all human beings?
Those questions are essential ingredients of culture. Any attempt to formulate
international ethics should take into consideration such things as people's
moral experiments, past history and spiritual inclinations which all
nations-small and large-enjoy. Accordingly, cultural treatment offers all humans
equal opportunities to search for these new international ethics, a broad
outline of which in given in the report as follows:
The above were some ingredients of the new
international ethics suggested by the UNESCO report which the US was not
satisfied with upon considering rejoining the international organization. What
is the deep meaning of this? What are its implications? Upon informing UNESCO of its dissatisfaction with
'Our Creative Diversity' report, the US made its return conditional upon being a
member of the executive office which acts as an administrative council, thus
avoiding the surprises of voting. Some less populous member states were
pressurized into withdrawing their nominations. Subsequently, the US resumed
offering its 22% of UNESCO's budget, being $ 610m for the years 2004 and 2005.
Before attempting to grasp the meaning of the US'
rejoining UNESCO along with its ideological objections, administration
conditions, and financial contribution, which is definitely large, let's see
what was UNESCO's performance like for twenty years without the US.
Despite the huge financial gap created by the US'
withdrawal from UNESCO, that didn't stop its notable activities worldwide,
particularly its successful projects to preserve heritage, historic landmarks,
archaeological sites and cultural and environmental reserves in poorer countries
in particular. Furthermore, UNESCO worked towards rewriting the history of
science worldwide, thus recognizing the contributions of many scholars outside
the West with ancient cultural backgrounds-Chinese, Indian, Arab and Persian who
were alienated. The most remarkable theoretical cultural
contribution was its adherence to the concept of cultural exclusivity at
conferences and forums, which made scores of countries, including major Arab
countries and countries of the South known as "The Group of Seventy Seven",
adopt this concept. The result of that successful effort was the production of
the above-mentioned report. The US withdrew from UNESCO because it wanted to treat culture on the same footing as politics, i.e. translating its economic power into influence and domination, and its return implied its insistence on administrative influence. However, despite its objection to the philosophy of diversity, its return shows that there are wise people in the US who believe that international cultural effort can't be subject to the mechanisms of international political action. Culture is related to peoples' civilized, spiritual, psychological, and historical heritage, which can't be judged by the usual political criteria and balances of power or so we wish!
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