In view of the EU-Africa summit in Valletta, it would be interesting to look upon the implications of the diversity of culture in Western society.
The framework for dealing with cultural differences which was adopted by the West some years ago seems to have failed.
Many of the world’s problems have their roots in the failure of this framework, as it lacked effective communication with other cultures.
The rise of right-wing parties, such as the BNP in the UK, Marine Le Pen’s French National Front and the recent success of the Polish Peasant Party show how the Europeans are getting edgy on the problem of multiculturalism. Lack of social cohesion in the European Union paved the way for less multicultural policies and uneasiness.
David Cameron, echoing the views of Angela Merkel, commented as follows lately: “We have never encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society in which they feel to belong. We’ve tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”
Multiculturalism can be interpreted as a demographic condition resulting from human mobility. Intercultural communication was greatly intensified as a result of globalisation. On entering a new cultural environment, migrants are faced with two choices: whether they wish to maintain affiliation with the culture of origin or whether they prefer to forge relations with the dominant culture of the new society they are entering.
Social psychologists claim that the more quickly the migrants integrate, the more they succeed in maintaining relations with both their country of origin and with the host culture where they are living. Education can play an important part on this issue. Educating the migrants in getting to know the culture of the local inhabitants can become beneficial to them. On the other hand, even the locals should learn about the intercultural relations. But is that enough?
Last week, a conference was held in London by the British Council’s think-tank, Counterpoint. The aim of the event was to make cultural relations more relevant to the 21st century. Delegates from around the world debated issues such as religion and multiculturalism.
The question remains how the bridge between Africa and the West will be built
According to a director of the British Council UK, many of the major issues stressing the world today are in some sense often fundamentally cultural. He is of the opinion that cultural relations were traditionally associated with the exchange of educational materials and ideas but a new approach is needed.
“I think one of the things we’re doing is to try to broaden out that definition to something which has much more to do with the whole range of intercultural communication issues between cultures and between faiths,” he comments.
Ziauddin Sardar, a prominent British writer on Islamic affairs, believes many of the world’s problems such as the rise of fundamentalism and terrorism, the debt crises and poverty in Africa can be attributed to a failure of cultural relations on the part of western countries.
He says we have failed to relate to other cultures and to understand their desires and to what difference is all about and to provide space for difference to exist.
“The only relationship we seem to understand is the relationship of power, where we dictate things,” Sardar says. He thinks we need a new understanding of the world, a new understanding of what culture means and a new understanding of how we should relate to each other.
The question remains how the bridge between Africa and the West will be built. Will this EU-Africa Valletta summit leave its mark as the Bush-Gorbachev Malta summit in 1989 did when the Cold War ended? Let us hope and pray.
Tony Mifsud is doing the communications course at the University of Malta.