[Reader-list] Web Dossier & Report: "Cultural Diversity or Cultural Freedom?"

[Eric Kluitenberg]

Dear Reader List members,

Below you find a short report I wrote last Fall, following an 
international working conference at De Balie in Amsterdam on the 
theme of "Reclaiming Cultural Diversity". The outcomes of the 
conference were both interesting as well as problematic. Quite 
recently the lenghty report on the conference and a follow-up booklet 
by researcher Joost Smiers, have both been published. They are 
available as pdf download on-line. The report of the conference, 
written by Barbara Murray, is also available in the form of seperate 
web pages per chapter (the text is otherwise too long).

These and other materials are now part of a web dossier on the Balie 
site called "Reclaiming Cultural Diversity".
You can find the web dossier here:
http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=14988


Since we have recently started to put up materials in the form of 
editorially filtered web dossiers I also include some general remarks 
about these dossiers and our ediotorial and copyleft policy around 
them. I hope some of this material will be of value to you.

Kind regards,

eric

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Balie Dossiers:
http://www.debalie.nl/dossierspagina.jsp

De Balie has started to provide access to texts and materials 
collected for programs in its past, as well as registrations, reports 
and essays on the themes dealt with in recent years. These materials 
are grouped around themes that are of particular interest to our 
programs, and we call these collections "dossiers".

Currently the Balie site contains 11 dossiers, and new dossiers are 
already in preparation.

The current themes include: Media Archaeology, Visual Culture, In 
Memoriam: The new Economy, Reclaiming Cultural Diversity, Streaming 
Media, Dlight Dutch Experimental Cinema, dossiers on migration 
issues, globalisation, information politics, and more...

English and Dutch materials are mixed in the dossiers, although a 
substantial part of the texts are published in English, and 
occasionally in other languages. Where possible we publish the 
materials under a creative commons "non-commercial / share alike / 
attribution" license,  provided we receive permission by the authors 
to publish texts under this license.
(License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/nc-sa/1.0/ )

Dossiers that also contain extensive video-collections are:
- Media Archaeology
- Network Society of Control
- Streaming Media

- For an overview of all dossiers:
    http://www.debalie.nl/dossierspagina.jsp


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Cultural Diversity or Cultural Freedom?

A fresh reflection on the international working conference Reclaiming 
Cultural Diversity, at De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, 
Amsterdam, September 25 - 27, 2003

by Eric Kluitenberg


On Saturday morning, on the third day of the conference Jeebesh 
Bagchi, one of the founders of the innovative Sarai new media 
initiative from Delhi, India raised probably the most fundamental 
question of the entire meeting. He wondered if 'we' as we are 
thinking and talking about cultural diversity in the face of the 
homogenising forces of economic globalisation are actually not 
talking about cultural freedom?

It was just one of the many problematic questions raised during this 
three day meeting of minds from 21 countries, who had been gathered 
by researcher Joost Smiers, of the department for art and economics 
of the Utrecht School of the Arts, to reflect on protection 
mechanisms for local cultures and cultural diversity, against the 
ravages of unleashed globalised capitalism (the wording here is 
mine). It might be useful to explore the question raised by Mr. 
Bagchi a bit further to understand exactly what the complexities are 
we are faced with when discussing such sensitive topics as cultural 
diversity and "cultural freedom".

Politically there is an immediate and obvious problem. It is a public 
secret that many national governments are happily exploiting the 
cultural diversity argument to in fact protect national cultural 
industries and economic interests. It leads many advocates of 
cultural diversity, whose genuine democratic intentions I do not wish 
to question in any regard, into an unholy alliance with the worst of 
what the anachronistic nation state has to offer; protectionism and 
isolationism...

Yet, when considering the concept of "cultural freedom" even more 
grim memories come to bear. The "freedom" claimed for a culture in 
distress has often been the instrument for many reactionary political 
movements to rally a critical mass of supporters to a desperate 
cause. Nationalism has always flourished with the idea of an identity 
under threat that needs protection, if not available by civilised 
means, then by any means possible. In Europe the ferocity of the 
manifold conflicts on the Balkans, and particularly the break-up of 
Yugoslavia have imprinted the fatality of this kind of cultural 
discourse and its exploitation by reactionary political forces upon 
our memory.

In its milder expressions this reliance on the 'imagined' cultural 
ties might lead to a cultural conservatism that attempts to lock out 
everything that has originated from beyond its imaginary cultural 
boundaries. In the Baltic States for instance, cultural tensions are 
still high between the new nationals and the large Russian speaking 
communities. Language, so often the cherished object of 
preservationists of cultural diversity, here is the object and 
instrument of intense political controversy. The cultural (i.e. 
linguistic) divides even translate here into a second rate 
citizenship. Yet, cultural freedom is the biggest price the 
reappeared Baltic nations have (rightfully) won in their independence 
struggle from the former Soviet Union.

What this cursory examination shows is just how quickly the debate 
about cultural diversity can end up in murky waters. None of the 
participants in the conference could be accused of sharing even the 
faintest of kinships with the regressive cultural politics pointed at 
above. Why then take this risky concept as the starting point, not 
only of this particular working conference, but also of an 
international debate that should lead to the drafting, acceptation, 
and implementation of an international convention for the protection 
of cultural diversity?

Here we see the dilemma that most participants faced. Culture, and in 
particular cultural markets - the commodified expressions of cultural 
forms - have become an explicit topic in the on-going free-trade 
negotiations that are spearheaded by international organisations such 
as the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Current legal instruments 
(most notably the so-called "cultural exemption" in the WTO) are weak 
and volatile protection mechanisms for cultural diversity. In a 
society saturated with media and information technologies cultural 
products increasingly take centre-stage in processes of economic and 
social exchange. Yet, the channels of distribution for these 
exchanges are simultaneously increasingly homogenised and 
concentrated in the hands of ever fewer media conglomerates. One of 
the few points that found consensus amongst conference participants 
was that the opening of cultural markets as proposed by the WTO would 
greatly intensify this trend and homogenise the distribution channels 
of culture even further.

Experience shows that in a monopoly or oligarchy, the diversity of 
cultural products and services on offer dramatically decreases. The 
danger is immediate, as the liberalisation of cultural markets by all 
signatory nations of the current round of free trade negotiations in 
the WTO is persistently on the agenda (in the so-called Doha-round, 
due to deliver such an agreement already in 2005). So what to do then?

The protagonists of the International Network for Cultural Diversity 
(www.incd.net) opt, above all, for a pragmatic approach. Rather than 
finding a satisfying answer to the many unresolved questions (such 
as; what does cultural diversity mean in different contexts? what 
counts as culture in the notion of cultural diversity? which kind of 
protection mechanisms work at all in which particular political 
and/or economic context? is content regulation of cultural production 
not the ultimate excuse for censorship by authoritative states? and 
even more so in the case of the internet, for unwarranted regulation 
per se?). Rather, the INCD suggests that the luxury of time to debate 
these issues to their final resolution is simply not available. 
Action needs to be taken now, if we are to have the time in the 
future at all to bring these issues to their resolution.

Cultural Diversity was often named in "one breath" (a Dutch saying) 
with democracy and democratisation. The main point for many was 
access for the broadest possible public to the broadest imaginable 
range of cultural offerings. The INCD group proposed that the 
democratic states of this world had to take the lead and set the 
example for others to follow: protection to set these high moral 
stakes. But we were left with a nagging question; can the state 
really be trusted in this?

____________

This "fast report" was written for the webzine "The Power of Culture":
http://kvc.minbuza.nl/uk/index.html


Eric Kluitenberg is a cultural and media theorist, and is head of the 
media program of De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics in 
Amsterdam.