Conversations II
ROBERTO TOSCANO
Ramin Jahanbegloo: Multiculturalism is a term which spread in the West during the 1960s to indicate respect, tolerance and defence of cultural minorities. Multiculturalism has generated a political ideology supporting an inclusive citizenship towards ‘different’ cultures. Yet, after being adopted as official policy in many countries in Europe and in North America, it seems to have generated more negative than positive effects (fragmenting the society, separating the minorities and fostering cultural relativism). At its place, today we talk of interculturality as a theory that emphasizes what lies in between different cultures. How would you distinguish between multiculturalism and interculturality? Do you see an originality in the global expression of interculturality?
Roberto Toscano: The starting point in this discourse should be the task (political, social, but also moral) that globalization confronts us with: how to live together while being different.
Historically, we have witnessed two opposite answers to this fundamental challenge. On one side, we have what we could call ‘assimilationism’ – the abstraction from, and denial of, differences in culture and tradition in favour of the recognition of the rights of Man and the status of the Citizen. It is apparently a noble, progressive formula, and one that seems the most apt to build strong and cohesive societies whose members – whatever their origins, their race, their religious beliefs, and even their social status – are united in their identification with the nation state. If I say ‘apparently’ it is because, much as we might find this formula (deriving from the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic legal codification) intellectually attractive, we need to recognize that it prompts two basic objections.
In the first place, some people and groups just do not want to be assimilated, but rather cherish their specific cultural identities and demand their recognition and respect. Second, and more significant, is the fact that the Universal Man that assimilationist ideology proclaims has in practice the disturbing tendency to show the characteristics of a very precise national culture, so that universalism turns out to be the ideological glorification and practical generalization of one very special mode of humanity. More serious still is that often the rhetoric of assimilation cannot succeed in covering up the uncomfortable reality of persistent social and economic difference, if not discrimination. Hence the ‘surprise’ of anomic violence on the part of groups of individuals whose parents or even grandparents had been long ago, supposedly, assimilated into full citizenship.
The other solution that historically has been proposed in theory and tried in practice, multiculturalism, does not deny difference, but – in what seems to be a more pluralistic and at the same time more realistic approach – recognizes it and reflects it into both public policy and administrative/political structures. Distinct groups within the same polity are allowed to develop their own institutions and their own representative leadership as well as to maintain legitimate spaces of cultural difference. Here too, however, the theory does not quite coincide with the practice. First of all, one should not forget that horizontal differentiation never comes without vertical differentiation, and maybe it is useful to recall that ‘separate but equal’ was a slogan of anti-integration racists in the United States of the 1950s. The pluralistic flourishing of different communities tends to turn into a proliferation of ghettos that become hotbeds of resentment and radical politics, if not terrorism. Besides, multiculturalism, because of its defensive, essentially closed, posture tends to stimulate a sort of permanent claim of victimhood, a claim of recognition and redress of wrongs historically suffered, of course with a total removal of wrongs historically visited upon other groups. As a part of this defensive, victimhood-focused attitude, we also see very problematic claims of a sort of exemption of one’s own values, especially religious, from criticism, with disturbing challenges to freedom of speech, often arbitrarily equated with offence and hate-mongering. The positive dream of multiculturalism thus turns, in practice, into conflictual tribalism.
Interculturalism attempts a different, less ideological and more pragmatic answer to this challenge. It starts from a rejection of essentialist definitions of identity, be it the single identity of the Universal Man, or the distinct identities stressed by culturalists. The theoretical premise – and one I think which can be supported by anthropology, history, and even linguistics – is that identity is not a fixed entity, but rather the product of constant change. That, to use Latin, identity is not about idem (absence of change, an impossibility both in nature and in culture) but rather ipse (continuation of the subject even in the presence of change). And, more important still, that change is the product of constant exchanges with difference. ‘Purity’, therefore, is an ideological construct, and the idea of reconstructing an identity that was lost because of contamination by external influence and intrusion is nothing but reactionary utopia.
Interculturalism, instead, goes beyond the recognition of difference by stressing that cultures are inherently cross-cultural. In itself this would entail only the recognition of a fact, but interculturalism is not only a tool of interpretation, but also a policy option. That constant exchange, in fact, is never free of contradictions and tensions, and is constantly threatened by both centripetal (the nostalgia for unity) and centrifugal (the appeal of belligerent difference) has not only to be recognized, but also nurtured culturally and fostered politically. Citizenship does not entail homogeneity in the cultural field, nor in that of values, but only the respect of common constitutional and legal norms. Although each society will find its own balance in this permanent tension between commonality and difference, the essential point is that the tension itself should never be abandoned in the artificial pursuit of a ‘final solution’ as both assimilationism and multiculturalism try to do. What is important to stress, moreover, is that this tension is not a problem to be overcome, but is rather the necessary premise of creativity, change and human freedom.
Interculturality does not as yet possess the conceptual and effective means to understand and handle the problems of the public sphere, when different cultures express cultural values radically conflictual between them. One can say that the troubles of interculturality result from two deficits – an insufficient reflexivity inside the single cultures and the lack of a relational interface between the different cultures. How can we go beyond the fragilities of interculturality?
The fragilities of interculturality, as you aptly say, are evident, especially in situations of social discomfort and political instability. Let me go back to the concept of identity. Interculturality (and coexistence of different groups) is only compatible with plural identities, as thinkers from Amin Maalouf to Amartya Sen have convincingly stressed. The problem is that whenever one of the many identities that define human beings is denied and repressed, that identity becomes not only overriding within both the mental world and the political options of individuals and groups, but often embarks upon idolatric and violent paths. Culture is thus perceived as a defensive bulwark, when not a tool that allows for the continuation of war with other means.
Accepting difference outside oneself is possible only if one recognizes difference within. The wound of denied identity unleashes a belligerent closing of minds toward the Other and makes intercultural coexistence fragile. That is why it is impossible to separate the discourse of interculturality from that of democracy and pluralism. Conversely, interculturality-cum-dictatorship is a contradiction in terms, since non-democratic power abhors pluralism. At the same time, there can be no interculturality in a situation of anarchy, where the absence of commonly recognized rules destroys coexistence and even the minimal foundation for dialogue and recognition of diversity.
Interculturality is understood as the recognition of the fact that we are in a world which has become heterogeneous and plural. But this recognition for more plurality and heterogeneity is also looking for a global democracy. What kind of interculturality will guide the development of such a democracy?
I said that interculturality demands democracy, but it is also true that democracy demands interculturality. There seems to be little doubt that nowadays we have to rethink democracy, in the sense that we are facing a double challenge. The first is the crisis of traditional representative democracy: political parties, once characterized by well-defined ideological choice, tend to become, everywhere, instruments of populist patronage. The second is the fact that what you call ‘global democracy’ is nowhere to be seen. Democratic institutions (I am talking here about representative democracy, and not the direct democracy of the Greek polis) were developed by and within the nation state, and they have trouble being projected to a global level. We are beginning to see a global civil society, with a proliferation of NGOs that are often influential and are playing a significant role in shaping global rules. But if we look for a ‘global polity’ all we see is still a predominance, if not a monopoly, of nation-states. Even the most democratic body within the multilateral system, the General Assembly of the United Nations, is characterized by ‘one country/one vote’ and not ‘one man/one vote’.
World government is not for tomorrow, and to tell you the truth, I do not believe it would be desirable, insofar as it would entail a dangerous trend toward hegemonic, non-pluralistic unity. Definitely, the Universal man/citizen of a world community would end up showing the characteristics, and especially the cultural traits and the values, of the most powerful among the founding fathers of the purported novel world polity.
Intercultural learning is related to global citizenship, by which we take into account the cultural diversity within our world and our societies for developing cohesion and solidarity in diversity. But intercultural learning is also conceived as an ethical approach, a political volition and an institutional configuration based on sharing attitudes of loyalty and respect towards each other. How do you think European integration is involved today in this process? What are the main challenges for European countries in the development of intercultural solidarity and cohesion?
It has become fashionable, in Europe, to be sceptical about European integration. ‘Eurosceptics’ are proliferating in many member countries, and Euroscepticism is often a significant plank of the political platform of several parties and movements. It would be absurd to deny the difficulties and the contradictions, in particular in the implementation of the double goal of enlargement and deepening of the Union. And yet, as Galileo said about the earth as a refutation of those who wanted him to abjure his cosmic theory: Eppur si muove (Yet, it does move).
We might have problems in defining what Europe is, what being a European citizen means, and yet the accomplishments have been amazing, and not only from an economic point of view.
Let us talk identity. Actually, European integration is in itself an intercultural project. It is neither assimilationist nor multiculturalist, but cross-cultural. As the Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari (now the mayor of Venice, a cross-cultural city par excellence given its historical dialogue with the Orient) has written, Europe is neither a unified bloc nor a sequence of separate islands, but an archipelago.
Young Europeans, after generations of being nurtured in essentialist culturalism and bellicose nationalism, are more and more not only thinking, but living in a cross-cultural European mode. As an example, I will just mention the Erasmus programme, one that includes in the normal academic itinerary of students one or more semesters in the university of another EU country.
The ‘traditional enmities’ – starting from that between France and Germany – are truly a thing of the past. And I will add a personal recollection. When I was in elementary school in Italy in the 1950s, my school books were filled with images of moustached Austrian soldiers sticking their bayonets into the bellies of Italian Risorgimento patriots. For Italians today, Austria is just a beautiful, friendly, sister country!
You are currently the president of the Intercultura Foundation which was established in 2007 by the Italian AFS. In which way has the Intercultura Foundation been active in extending a dialogue among cultures and stimulating self-awareness and critical reflection about the diversity of the world’s cultures?
The Intercultura Foundation is a recent spin-off of the Intercultura Association, which in turn is derived from, and still connected with, AFS, an American-originated, but now a truly international organization of student exchanges of a very special kind. AFS and Intercultura give high school students (average age around 17) the opportunity not only to attend a school in a foreign country, but to live with a local family.
It is an experience which cannot but exert a very powerful influence on the world view of young students, turning them into convinced ‘interculturalists’, not out of any ideology or idealized view of the world and of human nature (such as one can derive from good books and good preachers) but on the basis of a direct experience. Those young people know difference, recognize difference, appreciate difference, and yet at the same time are better able to define their own identity, their own culture. The habit of recognition and appreciation of difference, if it comes early in life, becomes a deeply ingrained attitude which will then inspire the professional, political and ethical profile of those exchange students.
The foundation tries to make theoretical sense out of this practice. It does so by promoting studies on intercultural learning and in general linking academic research to the practice of the Intercultura Association. Last year we organized a major conference on Italian identity since we are convinced that the issue plays a pivotal role in determining the acceptance or the rejection of an intercultural approach to difference.
Another recent initiative has been the promotion of a study on the attitudes of Italian youth toward difference – a study which has revealed signs of a rather pessimist and fearful view which should be addressed by better knowledge (what was often revealed was a very insufficient knowledge of the facts, starting from those related to immigration) and a more systematic promotion of intercultural education.
Indeed, we are especially planning to promote studies and to organize seminars and conferences on the issue of immigration, since it is no longer the case (as was traditional for Italy, a country of emigration) that we meet difference only outside our borders. With immigration, difference has come to Italy, and we should learn how to deal with it in an intercultural, dialogic mode.
