CULTURAL activists, cultural workers, researchers and policymakers from Mali and Algeria to Singapore, and Limpopo to Cape Town, gathered in Joburg recently for the much-anticipated Diversity Conference.
Their mission was to chart the way forward for the activation of the Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Department of Arts and Culture, Arterial Network and the founding members of the U40 Africa Network held a dynamic two-day event aimed primarily at creating a South African civil society working group to bring civil society and the government together in realising the aims of the convention.
Delegate Mike van Graan, a key speaker at the convention and executive director of the African Arts Institute and secretary general of the Arterial Network, gave a strong, broad global south perspective critique of the convention and gave recommendations on how the convention could work for civil society. In challenging why the global south countries should sign up in support of the convention, he explained that the “deal” of the convention was essentially that, in exchange for supporting a few wealthy countries to maintain some market share in the global creative economy by supporting the convention, the poorer countries of the global south would benefit from investment in their creative industries by wealthier countries. He said the markets of the north would then be opened preferentially to creative goods and services from the south and an International Fund for Cultural Diversity would be established to fund projects that promoted the cultural diversity aims of the convention.
He astutely challenged whether the “deal” had worked. “Certainly, for wealthier countries with highly developed creative industries, but a resounding ‘no’ for the following reasons: the International Fund for Cultural Diversity established in terms of the convention to promote cultural diversity has raised just more than $4.2 million since the convention came into force in 2005, six years ago!
“It’s a joke. It’s not even close to the marketing budget of even one average Hollywood movie; it certainly will not make any difference in promoting substantial creative diversity globally. Secondly, while many countries choose more direct forms of investment in countries rather than through the fund, often such investment comes with strings attached that benefit the donor country or its practitioners more, or mine Africa’s raw talent for the economic benefit of the countries in the north (much like raw materials extracted from Africa, beneficiated abroad, and sold back to Africa at higher prices, with the earned income accruing to the beneficiating countries).
“And the world is a very different place now to the 1990s, so that while free trade economics led to the emergence of the convention promoting cultural diversity, the events of 9/11 created huge security concerns in the global north, so that ‘cultural diversity’ has actually come to be seen as a security threat! Increasingly in the past few years, we have seen the rise of nationalist governments in Europe that have decried multiculturalism within their countries, demanding that all communities now embrace the essential values of being British or German or French.
“So, we have witnessed the banning certain apparel associated with ‘the other’ in so-called democracies. The hypocrisy of such countries is revealed in their use of cultural diversity language at a global level to maintain market share in the creative economy, but at national level they are demanding what they claim to be against globally: homogeneity!”
Van Graan said that with the world being such a different place compared with the 1990s, when free marketeers thought their time had come, the world economy now, as we know, is in crisis. “In such contexts, there is a rise in nationalist fervour and immigrants are turned against as the ones who are stealing the jobs of the locals, so that we have seen rising xenophobia in the global north.” Not only did this contradict the cultural diversity convention, but also severely affected the mobility of artists from the global south and thereby their accessing global north markets.
“Even when artists are invited and their expenses are to be fully covered, government officials refuse visas for fear of economic refugees, for people from the south must inevitably be seeking to live in their land of milk and honey! With the battle for a legal instrument in the form of the convention to use in trade negotiations having been won, many countries in the north appear to have moved on, preferring – in a post-9/11 world – less to emphasise cultural diversity, and more to promote intercultural dialogue and cultural diplomacy, so that, again, it would appear to be the economic and security needs of the north that determine the cultural agenda.”
The biggest threats then to cultural diversity and the convention emanate from the north, explained Van Graan. “It is economic recession on the one hand and security interests on the other that have led to greater nationalism, less respect for cultural diversity and more homogeneity.”
In the past decade an estimated $3.2 trillion has been spent on the so-called war on terror, while less than a third of that has been spent on pursuing the Millennium Development Goals. “We spend more time, resources and energy on symptoms rather than causes,” said Van Graan. He warned that if the convention failed, it would not simply be because of the self-serving hypocrisy of the global north, but also because of the lack of vision and the absence of political will on the part of many governments in the global south which have failed to implement policies and strategies to take advantage of the convention to which they have signed up, and have failed to hold accountable countries in the north for fear of compromising aid or investment in other sectors.
Article 11 of the convention obliges governments to “acknowledge the fundamental role of civil society in protecting and promoting the diversity of cultural expressions. Parties shall encourage the active participation of civil society in their efforts to achieve the objectives of this convention.”
In this context Van Graan said it was now up to civil society to organise itself, to equip itself with the theoretical and critical discourse tools to engage in the debates, to develop the vision, policy proposals and strategies to realise the essential aims of the convention, which are to ensure a plurality of voices, to preserve and promote cultural democracy, to project the views, values and insights of those on the underside of history into the global market of ideas through music, theatre, film, visual art, literature and dance.
“Sometimes we will work in partnership with our governments, sometimes in parallel, sometimes despite our governments, but we have a common interest in ensuring the four-yearly reports to Unesco on the pursuit of the convention reflects best practice within civil society and government strategies.”
l For news of the U40 Africa Network and the SA Civil Society Working Group, see www.diversityconvention.co.za or e-mail info@ diversityconvention.co.za. For blogs see ww.arterialnetwork.org and www.artsinafrica.com - Cape Times