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A Report developed by the Ministry of Culture
and Classified Historical Heritage of Senegal for the 8th
Annual Ministerial Meeting of the International Network on Cultural
Policy
Dakar, Senegal, November 20-23, 2005
I. Context
II. Protection and promotion of cultural
diversity in INCP member states
II.1. Minority communities
II.2. Saving traditional practices
II.3. Cultural participation
III. Strategies to Preserve National Cultural
Heritage: the Institutional Shield
III.1. Favourable Legal and Economic Environment
created by Government
III.2. Administrative Systems
III.3. Financial Support
III.4. Non-governmental Public Initiatives
III.5. Safeguards
III.6. Heritage Preservation
III.7. Broadcasting Cultural Activity
III.8. Education
IV. Impacts of cultural policies
IV.1. Economic Impacts
IV.2. International Outreach
V. Constraints and limitations
V.1. Adverse Circumstances
V.2. Lack of Technical and Financial Resources
V.3. Degradation of the International
Environment
VI. Gender and Cultural Diversity
VI.1. Gender Mainstreaming in Cultural
Policies and Practices
VI.2. International Legal Provisions
VI.3. National Legal Provisions
VI.4. Other strategies to integrate gender
awareness in cultural practices
VII. Limitations of gender integration
policies
VIII. Cultural diversity, Social Cohesion
and Sustainable Development: a few practices and avenues for co-operation
VIII.1 Recommendations for
improving the status of women and combating gender
discrimination:
VIII.2. Recommendations for
promoting cultural diversity to ensure social cohesion and sustainable
development
IX. Conclusion
X. Co-ordination and Preparation of the
Report
The International Network on Cultural Policy (INCP) has
decided that the theme of its 8th Annual Ministerial Meeting, scheduled
for November 21-23, 2005 in Dakar, Senegal, will be “Cultural diversity,
social cohesion and sustainable development.” Ministers of the INCP
believed it important to initiate discussions on this theme in view
of the objectives behind the creation of the Network, as well as
the key role it played in building consensus around the adoption
of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the
Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
Among the various approaches proposed for initiating discussions
on this theme, we find those made by Ms. Katerina Stenou, UNESCO’s
Director of the Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural
Dialogue, who suggested a series of relevant questions, at the planning
workshop held in Dakar in February 2005. The questions set forth
by Ms. Stenou are the following: “What are the essential materials
for building a culture of sustainability? Is globalization increasing
or lessening the chances for cultural diversity and its corollary
dialogue of civilizations to flourish? What exactly should be done
for authentic cultural diversity while curbing all manner of cultural
fundamentalism, repression and homogenization?”
In trying to answer these questions that evoke the main issues
around the theme, we have to examine the context of globalization
that we live in, assess its limitations and identify opportunities.
The staggering spread of the New Information and Communications
Technologies has, as we know, turned the world into a global village
characterized by the mobility of people, products, ideas and images.
However, the continued diversity of cultural expressions is under
grave threat from current imbalances in resources for communicating
the various models. This circumstance favours the rich countries’
cultural production and endangers benchmarks of self-recognition
in societies reduced to a mere consumer role.
Yet globalization provides the opportunity and the potential for
balanced cultural dissemination and positive intercultural dialogue.
The New Information and Communications Technologies (NICT) blur
borders and erase our awareness of distance; every place on the
planet is plugged into a real-time cyberworld. The appropriation
of these technologies and involvement in economic, trade, cultural
and intellectual networks provide today’s societies, including African
societies, with new capabilities for reinventing their cultures
and civilizations. They enhance the potential for saving, preserving
and enriching our tangible and intangible cultural heritage. The
international community thus acquires a promising basis for sharing
knowledge and know-how and working together to build a world of
sustainable development.
It must be noted that Senegal is well positioned to make optimal
use of the potential of globalization. Part of Senegambia, the age-old
historic and sociological realm which, according to historian Boubacar
Barry, consists of “the entire Atlantic façade of the sector of
African coast facing due west,” and it lies in an ecologically heterogeneous
zone ranging from desert to forest that has been a scene of convergence
and mingling by various peoples. This area has witnessed human movement
and contact, migration and settlement, political construction and
demolition (the empires of Ghana and Mali and their various successor
kingdoms) and economic, trading and religious, mainly Islamic, networks.
The Senegal and Gambia Rivers have limited the spatial and historic
zone where these societies evolved. Against a shared civilizational
backdrop and existential framework, each people has defined its
social forms and developed its own original culture: Serer, Pulaar,
Soninke, Mandingo, Wolof, Jola, Balant, Baynuk, Manjak, Bassari,
Konagi, etc. History shows that Senegambia’s traditional power,
the exercise and control of which brought the various elements of
society together, established the cultural diversity of its peoples.
In fact, as all Senegambia scholars agree, destructive violence
has been an external force associated first with the Atlantic slave
trade and later with colonial exploitation. Practised from the sixteenth
to the nineteenth century, the slave trade by its sheer scale finally
overturned the entire social system of these communities and left
them in a general, demographic, economic, political and even an
identity crisis. But the organized, methodical destruction of the
social fabric really started with the colonial system. Through its
system of forced labour and nativeness, the colonial state violently
wrenched local production patterns apart.
The colonial school, which was set up to train an élite that would
serve as helpers in government, business and various services, imposed
the colonizer’s foreign tongue as the working language with no regard
for African languages. The school and the new government divided
society into developed people and natives. The foundations of the
traditional, life-centred education system were undermined;
the channels of intergenerational intellectual and cultural communication
that formed the basis for social continuity were dismantled and
marginalized for a system that created modern classes of rich and
poor, social strata with conflicting interests.
This was why, here as elsewhere, identity building emerged as the
only way to acquire a coherent social structure that could support
accumulation and innovation. In this sense, culture was revealed
as an essential facet of sustainable development. This was clearly
understood by Brazil in its contention that “culture is the
most obvious arena of political change for society.”
A review of INCP member countries’ answers to the questionnaire
on the 8th AMM theme reveals diversity in the make-up of sociolinguistic
groups with the exception of linguistically homogeneous Greece (only
one language). Estonia has over one hundred nationalities, Brazil
more than 180 so-called “indigenous” languages (spoken by less than
0.5% of the population).
However, the most effective vehicle for promoting cultural diversity
seems to be the “cultural environment” used by Sweden that “includes
in principle the entire environment that has been shaped by humans
through the ages covering everything from thousand-year-old Stone
Age settlement sites to modern-day suburbs. It consists also of
the traditions and values that we adopt, consciously or unconsciously,
from previous generations. It is a heritage that comprises not only
concrete objects, buildings, and ancient remains, but also myths,
customs, and intangible traditions.”
The answers provided by states expressed implicit acceptance of
these standards. Members’ reports also revealed various forms of
institutional organization to oversee culture and cultural diversity.
For example, Norway has a Department of Culture and Church Affairs,
Brazil a Ministry of Intangible Heritage, Burkina Faso a Ministry
of Culture, Arts and Tourism. These various names all speak of the
appropriation of the central issue of cultural diversity, and the
problems relating to cultural diversity can be glimpsed through
these different titles.
Almost all answers highlighted the existence of minorities within
every nation. In some cases and for some states, the idea of “community”
has been adopted to describe these minority groups. In Belgium,
cultural initiatives are transferred to these communities, leaving
other matters to the regions and federated entities. Norway follows
the same principle of empowering community will. The Lappish parliament
sets its own priorities and uses them to allocate funds for activities
it considers appropriate. In this country as in almost all others,
the preferred expression is “ethnic and cultural minorities.” In
Croatia, for example, these minorities are divided into 16 social
groups with 7.47% of the population and a “Communities and Ethnic
Minorities Office” channelling government assistance to each of
them.
In all cases, the prime concerns of these social groups are to
protect cultural diversity and strengthen social cohesion. Brazil
prefers “measures targeting, for example, indigenous, traditional
and Afro-Brazilian groups or groups that have historically been
excluded from public policy.” Some countries devise specific terms
and treatments for non-natives, refugees, nomads or recent immigrants.
In Flanders, for example, stories are automatically collected from
new immigrants and recorded with their family histories. In Norway,
“Horizon/MELA,” a government-funded institution, sets out to “explore
new methods of artistic and cultural interaction between Norway
and the ethnic minorities’ countries of origin.” In Greece, a recent
decree is intended to ensure “full protection and recognition for
cultural heritage from all traditions¾Greek or non-Greek¾on Greek
territory.” The concern for protecting and recognizing the heritage
of these communities is strikingly evident.
With the well-known exception of France not recognizing non-linguistic
minorities, we are seeing a generalized emergence of a common trend
to preserve ethnic minorities’ cultural and artistic heritage. Even
though, as some answers implied, this policy is limited to a few
countries, all of them want to preserve traditional practices that,
as Belgium remarked, “strengthen social cohesion, create a social
bond and raise awareness (pride of residents).” The nightmare is
watching these traditional practices vanish or deteriorate with
every passing year. In this respect, minority languages require
special attention. The French answered that “for the first time,
the family survey associated with the March ’99 general census included
a language component that showed how regional languages were scarcely
handed down any more in the family setting,” although 5.5 million
people out of a total 61.4 million had learned a regional language
in childhood, usually along with the French language.
Linguistic heritage is covered fairly exhaustively in the answers
except for Belgium, where, “since the language census was cancelled
(1962), we cannot tell what languages are being used … or the number
of speakers,” and Norway, which does not record linguistic ancestry.
The variety of strategies for preserving linguistic heritage reveals
numerous initiatives that indicate a clear awareness of the political
and social issues around this matter. In Mexico, for example, the
National Institute of Arts (INBA) urges creators to use their indigenous
languages in literature and music.
Governments agree on the connection between developing cultural
policies and the constant aim of disseminating cultural expressions,
beginning with disadvantaged aboriginal groups. The principle of
“cultural participation” is promoted in compliance with Article
27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that
everyone has the right to participate in cultural life. So it is
with Belgium’s “Art and Life Tours,” which are designed to “introduce
a system to support the dissemination and facilitate the distribution
of quality productions and increased access through a democratized
admission policy.” In a country like Croatia, an agency called the
“Culture Club” represents over forty associations and in two years
has organized more than five hundred activities all over that country.
In the end, these are considerations of national cultural policy
that are essentially summed up in Mexico’s answer: respect for freedom
of expression and creation, affirmation of cultural diversity, equal
access to cultural goods and services, nationalization of cultural
goods and services and balanced cultural development.
As pointed out in France’s answer to the questionnaire, “it is
up to states to create a favourable environment for the creation
and expression of the diversity of national cultures in terms of
producing and disseminating cultural goods and services.” Others
have let customary law govern relations among members of protected
communities. In various regions of Mexico, for example, “dispute
resolution processes are governed by what is termed ‘indigenous
law’ or by certain state laws based on the customs of these peoples,
as is the case in the states of Oaxaca, Quintana Roo and Sierra
Norte de Puebla.” This traditional approach to justice expresses
the following general principle: “The idea of justice is based on
distinct cultural parameters and usually given effect with community
support.” This attitude shows respect for the bases of human societies.
Generally speaking, the governments’ answers assign a major role
to the positive law that set out broad provisions to show determination
to afford minority cultures freedom of expression. This concern
is enshrined in the basic laws of countries such as Mexico, Norway
and Sweden.
The administrative provisions for intangible heritage adopted by
some countries differentiate between heritage repositories (living
cultural treasures), forms of popular expression (masterpieces of
oral and intangible heritage) and cultural spaces (physical spaces
where activities are held). This heritage is being given a descriptive
inventory.
To secure a consistent and optimal result for the plan to defend
national cultures, the cross-cutting nature of culture makes
it necessary to consolidate scattered initiatives in a few public
institutions. In Norway, this form of interdepartmental co-operation
has been built around the law to preserve national cultural heritage:
Norway’s Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs is asked to administer
the part of the act that covers the illegal import and export of
cultural objects, while the Ministry of the Environment handles
all its other provisions. In South Africa, the tax incentives issue
involves the departments of Trade and Industry, Arts and Culture,
Communications and Education, as well as the National Film and Video
Board and other agencies.
Building the cultural environment involves financial commitments
beyond law enforcement. States allocate grants and other forms of
financial support to the national cultural heritage defence policy.
In some fortunate, significant cases, tax incentives allow private
businesses to work with governments in these areas with what is
known as indirect official assistance. Called “patronage” in Brazil,
this provides tax relief to individuals and companies that support
cultural projects with gifts or sponsorships. In some cases, tax-exempt
business profits are given to cultural and artistic projects. Greece
recycles taxes to support cultural activities.
The state can use its national cultural defence strategies to help
set up frameworks and agencies to finish its job. These agencies
may even be asked to design certain aspects of cultural policy.
For example, Croatia has the “Croatian Council on Cultural Assets”
that is not a physical arm of the department but reviews general
and sometimes controversial issues. It makes recommendations for
identifying and preserving cultural assets. In Brazil, the “Living
culture/Culture issues” program works with the Ministry of Communications
in a network producing and disseminating cultural goods: gifts of
digital culture kits, the production and dissemination of cultural
content, etc.
Civil society also plays an active role in defending cultural heritage.
In Norway, for example, “since the 1980s, a number of initiatives
to foster cultural diversity have been implemented and small institutions
created, often at the behest of various minorities.”
In some cases, the request to protect a cultural asset may come
from the people. In Belgium, five hundred signatures can lodge a
listing application. Associative groups like the Coalition for Cultural
Diversity represent numerous associations, fifty in France, from
various backgrounds, set up to host meetings and privileged interactions.
Some assets are prohibited from leaving a country. In Croatia,
this provision affects both publicly and privately owned cultural
goods. Note that the idea of treasure or masterpiece covers intangible
heritage like carnivals and other grassroots festivals, pilgrimages
and cultural practices, etc. A Norwegian statute of May 18, 1990,
regulates place names and procedures for naming geographic locations
and controls the spelling of these names. This statute also governs
the simultaneous use of place names in the minority Lappish and
Kven Finnish languages.
The campaign to protect and restore cultural heritage assigns special
significance to the New Information and Communications Technologies.
Countries like France have devised programs called “digital sites”
with three aims: digital creation, access to culture and digitization
of heritage. Brazil has gone so far as to create digital networks
to “offer the various communities that make up Brazilian society
materials enabling them to take initiatives and change the reality
around them.” The NICTs are increasingly essential in terms of conservation
and digitization for ready access to heritage resources. NICTs create
interactions and dialogues between communities in a country and
between different countries and cultures and they even generate
new forms of heritage artistic expression.
The idea is to ensure access to the collective memory for everyone.
The media pay special attention to the promotion of cultural events,
communication and information. Radio stations and other information
media are therefore advised to make major commitments to cultural
programming and foster the integration of minorities by highlighting
their heritage and identity. France has extended the principle of
representativeness of all social groups to work teams in the media.
At the same time, the emphasis in public service programming, again
in France, is on promoting the values of integration, and one television
channel, France 5, is asked to “monitor interactions among the various
elements of the population and broadcast programming about the inclusion
of foreigners.” Other public channels have cultural missions written
into their specifications. Croatia reports that “the various productions
in the area of arts, literature and social sciences, identity and
cultural history are generally broadcast on Croatian television
Channel 1 and Radio Three.” In Mexico, the Radio Educacion station
founded 35 years ago and a public channel, Television 22, are tasked
with promoting cultural broadcasting and intercultural dialogue.
In Greece, the public ERT radio network regularly broadcasts programming
in the main languages used by immigrant worker communities.
This major component is enlisted from the standpoint of cultural
initiation. In Belgium, 35 hours are devoted to learning about cultural
diversity, and teachers and some staff from medical-legal counselling
centres receive training “focussed on the youth cultures of various
social groups and the approach of cultural diversities.” These arrangements
were extended to higher education by the decree of March 31, 2004,
with aims that included teaching about cultural and artistic heritage
and encouraging mobility and inter-community and international co-operation.
Students collect oral histories as part of their research. This
practice grew considerably in Belgium starting in the 1960s, and
fifteen thousand of these stories can already be read on-line. They
have also been recycled, for example in evenings of readings.
Mexico is conducting an original experiment in intercultural education
extending to universities with an emphasis on mother-tongue literacy
from kindergarten to the end of elementary school. We see the same
arrangements in Greece as part of “inter-curriculum education” given
in intercultural schools under the aegis of the Ministry of National
Education and Religious Affairs. Intercultural schools are defined
as having at least 45% of their student bodies made up of repatriated
Greeks or foreigners. In Estonia, students from the country’s minorities
can get two classroom sessions a week on their language and culture
in addition to the general program.
Most answers reveal a problem with quantifying these impacts. Cultural
policy is related to economic policy even if the effects are not
intended from the outset. The effects of a good cultural policy
can be felt in the cultural industries. For example, in France in
2002, “the sales of producers and publishers in the various cultural
industries, valued at the price to the public, were more than 30
billion euros,” and “the consumption of associated goods and services
by households was nearly 20 million euros.” In Norway, the cultural
industries account for about 3% of GDP and 3.9% of the labour force.
In Mexico, the last figure is similar (4% of the labour force) but
the cultural industries account for 6.7% of GDP. Tax incentives
often come with obligations for recipients to spend much of the
money saved in the country, which ensures job creation and promotes
economic development.
Out of a desire to transcend territorial barriers, a massive movement
of works and all kinds of cultural products creates an all-encompassing
flow of exchanges.
Some group actions occur in a framework of bilateral or multilateral
co-operation on heritage conservation. For example, Belgium, Spain,
France and the Netherlands have decided to form a common front to
secure recognition for “the processional giants and dragons of Western
Europe” as masterpieces of humanity’s oral and intangible heritage.
Similarly, Sweden, Finland and Norway have a joint strategy for
the computerized standardization of the Lappish tongue under the
aegis of the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials. This initiative
prompted Microsoft to offer to include Lappish diacritics in its
Windows XP operating system in the fall of 2004.
Many European projects link a number of states or institutions
in various countries. We could cite projects such as the:
- Conservation, Restoration, Innovation Systems for image capture
and Digital Archiving to enhance Training, Education and lifelong
Learning (CRISATEL) with its focus on researching and restoring
museum exhibits;
- SCULPTOR linking the University of Southampton and the École
Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris;
- Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe
(MICHAEL) on digitized multilingual heritage inventory;
- Ministerial Network for Valorizing Activities in Digitisation
(MINERVA), with its recommendations and directives about digitization,
and;
- the European “eTen” program offering potential for research,
web surfing and unique multilingual access through many national
portals to digitized cultural collections.
Conflicts over language have arisen, as was the case in twentieth-century
Belgium between Flemish and French speakers. These conflicts were
resolved by a series of constitutional reforms granting autonomy
to each of the communities. In Mexico, a conflict that erupted in
January 1994 between the government and indigenous peoples of the
Lancandon primeval forest and peaks of Chiapas culminated in a revised
constitution with a new article founding “the system of regional
autonomy in the states in the federation made up of a number of
ethnic groups” (1999). In Brazil, settlement occurred historically
on the basis of interethnic friction and the expropriation of indigenous
groups has often created violent tensions.
In 2000, to prevent conflicts, the Estonian government adopted
a state program for integration with Estonian society in the period
2000-2007. In Burkina Faso and generally on the western edge of
Africa, the tradition of joking kinship and marriage represents
an effective approach to conflict prevention and tension control.
But the most serious threat to cultural heritage lies in armed
conflict. “The war in Croatia and the transition process affected
museums in many ways: physical damage, destruction and theft of
property, staff reductions and a sharp drop in visitor numbers.”
Such situations had already prompted UNESCO to adopt a Convention
for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
(The Hague, May 14, 1954) joined later by Council of Europe conventions
to protect archeological and architectural heritage, etc.
Governments have to provide the institutional and financial resources
for heritage protection but also for follow-up¾monitoring the implementation
of conservation and protection measures. Croatia has set up an agency
called the “Cultural Heritage Protection Inspectorate” to oversee
the enforcement of legal provisions and the performance of measures
to conserve and restore cultural property.
Shortfalls in strategies for cultural heritage protection stem
from poor use of the new technologies. The digital divide deprives
most people of access to cultural information. Greece acknowledges
that it is “behind other members of the European Union in developing
a strong information society.” It would be desirable to have the
international co-operation discussed earlier enshrined in a homogeneous
cultural environment to reflect the “equal opportunity” principle
within national borders.
The context of poverty and the attractiveness of gain have raised
commercial aims above heritage protection. As regards the dissemination
of creations, for example, we see an explosion in commercial radio
stations that undermines useful initiatives in cultural information
and public education. Generally speaking, the cultural industries
are not seen as attractive investments because they are not profit-oriented.
Only a few sectors like film and music survive this indifference.
Culture as a means of reducing inequalities or discrimination based
on gender, social class, race, occupation, etc., also concerns INCP
member states. Gender discrimination is seen as mistreatment of
men and women based on sex. There is a general sense the world over
that women are most affected by this gender inequality. Differentiated
treatment limits their access to resources and entrenches the male
hold on power in the home, community and state.
The examples provided by countries are helpful for studying awareness
of the gender issue in cultural policies and the materials needed
to protect and promote cultural diversity and build sustainable
development that excludes all forms of gender discrimination. By
highlighting certain answers, we can identify practices to use as
templates for future reforms in INCP countries. After revisiting
the context where thinking began about recognizing gender as an
analytical category in policies and programs, we go on to look at
the historical multiple track and growth of this institutionalization
compared with feminist campaigns, thoughts about development and
the renewal of gender paradigms and discussion.
The third part will review various approaches, strategies and actions
developed by states¾through legal protection, basic research, education,
training, publication and communications¾to combat discrimination
against women and institutionalize gender. We will conclude by airing
various states’ perspectives and recommendations on gender.
For a long time, thinking about gender was conditioned by Western
feminist movements that focussed on philosophical, conceptual and
methodological issues reflecting the nature of their societies.
Especially in the 1980s, women from the South (Africa, Latin and
Central America, Asia and the Caribbean) began to get interested
in analysing social relations between the sexes. Their interest
coincided with the emergence of the gender concept that enabled
the thinking process to proceed without biological assumptions and
acknowledge the male-female relationship in the social/gender structure.
African intellectuals, for example, initiated a philosophical debate
that helped to decolonize overly Western approaches to gender and
adapt them to the African setting. But the process led beyond the
feminist challenge to concrete action on behalf of the under-represented
or belittled sex. This was the perspective that saw the introduction
of institutional frameworks for “women in development” and new departmental
structures¾Ministry of Women, Women’s Affairs Secretariat, Women’s
Bureau, etc. With the emergence of pro-women policies and actions
within the framework of the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985),
these institutions were buttressed by international aid and backed
up in the field by NGOs to get women out of their state of material,
social and cultural destitution.
The overall objective here is “sustainable development”
to offer women a fairer, more egalitarian, cohesive and democratic
society. The implicit assumption in references to this matter is
that the integration of “women in development” is built
around gender equity and equality. This was the historical, philosophical
and epistemological context in which the question arose of institutionalizing
the gender viewpoint and including it in all government policies
and programs.
The United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985) paved the way for
legitimizing the approach to gender and facilitated the adoption
of laws and legal instruments at the international¾the UN Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(1979)¾and national levels.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW/CEDEF), adopted and ready for signing, ratification
and support by the General Assembly in its Resolution 34/180 of
December 18, 1979, has been the most important international legal
instrument protecting interests specific to the female sex.
In Europe itself, Article 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights
of the European Union states that “equality between men and
women must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work and
pay. The principle of equality shall not prevent the maintenance
or adoption of measures providing for specific advantages in favour
of the under-represented sex.”
Council of Europe member states were advised to take preventive
action against workplace sexual harassment and its consequences,
which jeopardize the principles of dignity and equality.
The current EU strategy as defined by the Commission in 2000 is
based on “gender mainstreaming”¾integrating the gender dimension
in all community policies and actions¾and identifying specific actions
favouring women to eliminate persistent structural inequalities.
The creation of the Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for
Women and Men in 1982 provided an institutional framework for monitoring
the promotion of equal opportunity. In 1996, European Union member
states were advised to take a cross-cutting approach to gender in
all community, regional and national activities. This was the perspective
in which the EQUAL initiative was adopted on April 14, 2000 to foster
member states’ co-operation to implement new ways of combating all
forms of labour market exclusion, discrimination and inequality.
In the Americas, the Organization of American States was one of
the first international or regional bodies to develop legal processes
for promoting women’s rights. The Convention of the Nationality
of Women, which was signed at the seventh international conference
of American states in December 1933, was the first treaty in history
to oppose all discrimination based on gender or nationality in practice
and in law. The Inter-American Convention on the
Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women,
or Belém do Pará Convention, which came into force on March 5, 1995,
has become a landmark in the fight against gender violence. It relies
on member states’ co-operation to develop the necessary mechanisms,
policies, programs and plans to prevent, punish and eliminate violence
against women.
On the African continent, the 1986 African Charter on Human and
Peoples' Rights is silent about women. Admittedly, Article 2 of
the African Cultural Charter adopted and ratified in September 1990
makes “access to education and culture for all citizens”
one of its chief objectives. However, the addition of a protocol
on women’s rights came solely through feminist pressure. Other legal
provisions to promote and guarantee economic, social and cultural
rights were adopted to implement equality in law.
Generally speaking, all INCP countries agreed on the need for programs
to promote women and their social status but also to enhance their
economic, social, political and cultural rights. Respondent countries’
specific policies for women’s access to culture seem relatively
recent.
We also have to revisit one of the most significant achievements
of International Women's Year (1975) and the United Nations Decade
for Women (1975-1985)¾the creation by governments or senior administrators
of national agencies called “departments,” “secretariats of state,”
“women’s commissions” or “branches” for the promotion of women.
Most countries have adopted these as their main strategy for guiding
cultural intervention.
However, countries have their own specific concepts of gender equality.
For France, the fight against all discrimination against women
offers no solution other than gender parity. That country, persuaded
this approach will “foster universal access to culture and artistic
expression,” has developed “legislative tools to promote
male-female parity … facilitating access to this right with the
creation of the High Authority to Combat Discrimination and Support
Equality.” In Greece, “women’s equal participation in public,
professional, social and cultural life has been a recognized general
political objective since the 1980s.” Enforcement of this principle
falls under the aegis of a “general secretariat for (gender) equality
… under the Department of the Interior.”
In a Latin American country like Brazil, the Civil Code was reformed
in 2001 to eliminate laws discriminating against women and recognize
that they had the same rights as men. The constitution further prohibits
unequal pay based on gender. Brazil appoints a Special Secretary
for Women’s Issues who works closely with the Secretariat to Promote
Racial Equality, born of the realization that black women were suffering
more racial and sexual discrimination.
Mexico has a federal statute to prevent and eliminate discrimination
that was passed by Congress on April 11, 2003. When it comes to
culture, it has the CONACULTA(National Council for Culture and Art)through
the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), which is responsible
for implementing measures to promote women.
In Asia, the People’s Republic of China has laws for women that
enshrine gender equity rights. The Chinese constitution states clearly
that “women enjoy equal rights with men in all areas of political,
economic, cultural, social and family life.”
In 1992, that country enacted and implemented the " Law
of the People’s Republic of China respecting the protection of women’s
rights and interests.” This protection consists of legislative
provisions to punish all gender discrimination and violence to or
persecution of women.
In Africa, the examples of Senegal and South Africa clearly show
the different treatment of the women’s rights issue.
In South Africa, women’s status changed fast with the 1996 passage
of the new constitution that made the country a united, non-racial
and non-sexist democracy. Having endured servile status under apartheid
law and patriarchal tradition, South African women won full citizenship
as the racist regime ended. This change for women produced a voluntary
government policy to promote them and a series of statutes and processes
to afford them legal protection.
Senegal has ratified most of the conventions, resolutions and recommendations
to improve women’s status. Senegal government action has reflected
the strategies outlined for the United Nations Decade for Women
in Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and, finally,
Beijing (1995).
The government has also shown a willingness to enforce the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW/CEDEF), which it ratified in May 2001. Senegal has also looked
for gender bias in certain constitutional clauses, the Public Service
Act and its family, labour, social security, land, taxation, nationality
and environmental codes. Certain key articles of the constitution
now mention “men and women” when dealing with protection from gender
discrimination. Action against gender violence includes a prohibition
on female genital mutilation, which has been an offence since February
1999. Article 7 of the new constitution states that “everyone
has the right to life, liberty, security, the free development of
personality and physical integrity including protection against
all physical mutilation.” Article 8, recognizes women’s civil,
political social and cultural rights as strengthened by Article
17, where “the state guarantees families in general and in rural
environments in particular, including women, the right to betterment
of their living conditions and access to health and welfare.”
As regards education, already an acknowledged right, the new Article
22, states that “all children, boys and girls, anywhere on the
national territory have the right to attend school.” As well,
the family Civil Code includes favourable provisions that
offer protection against forced or early marriage and arbitrary
divorce and provide equal inheritance for widows and, where there
is desertion, the spousal obligation to maintain the family.
The answers given on gender and cultural diversity reveal, beyond
legal protection, other strategies to integrate gender awareness
in cultural practices:
- equal access to culture, information, awareness, education
and communications;
- equal access to cultural life;
- generalized female literacy, especially in the countries
of the South where the female illiteracy rate is highest;
- strategies to promote and present the artistic expressions
of women;
- funding for cultural or research projects on gender
issues;
- information, advocacy and awareness building to change
traditional attitudes; and
- - discriminatory practices against women.
Programs and policies promoting women are still inadequate, even
where rights are formally acknowledged, especially in the cultural
realm. Except for Mexico, countries’ legal practices do not appear
to be advancing cultural rights. As a rule, the aims of cultural
policies fail to consider women’s specific needs, which unfortunately
suggests a lack of budgetary responsibility.
- Gender equality in cultural institutions is still inadequately
monitored
Countries have problems deciding whether including gender in cultural
policies has resulted in profound changes to women’s position in
the artistic community. In Sweden, even though “all national
cultural institutions are obliged to produce an annual report of
achievements to ensure greater equality between men and women, [the]
state commissions are currently trying to find out how gender issues
can be more visible in museums and dance, musical and theatrical
institutions…[and] in the film industry.”
- Persistent gender inequality
A study of contrasts between women’s legal status and actual experience
in various INCP countries reveals persistent gender inequality.
In Switzerland, for example, there is theoretically no sexual discrimination
in education and professional life: however, “as regards equal
pay and hiring opportunities, differences persist in real life.”
- Persistent traditional cultural practices and sexist
stereotypes
Although no country referred in its answers to customs that encourage
discrimination against women, traditional practices often dominate
in areas that are important to women, such as marriage, divorce
and inheritance.
- Women’s poor access to ruling and decision-making forums
Women are often shut out of power systems or under-represented
on decision-making bodies (executive, legislative, basic communities,
union and employer organizations) and lack the means to assert their
rights.
- Women’s economic weakness
Women’s economic weakness reduces their role in certain cultural
activities.
- Ignorance of women’s rights
Men’s and women’s ignorance of the provisions for women’s rights
and the complexity of legal proceedings, and the lack of a body
to monitor and sound the alarm on respect for women’s basic recognized
rights, are all factors that marginalize women in their access to
knowledge and culture.
Our review of answers to the questionnaire enabled us generally
and with specific reference to the gender issue to highlight a few
best practices in the INCP for promoting cultural diversity.
Based on our review and having made a number of recommendations,
we would now like to describe some avenues for co-operation among
member states for a harmonized strategy to protect cultural diversity
and thus strengthen social cohesion in view of sustainable development.
- Increase women’s access to cultural events and institutions;
- Increase their capacities to produce and combat the
insecurity of cultural players;
- Foster women’s access to the new technologies and art
trades generally reserved for men;
- Promote women’s access to decision-making bodies;
- Provide a discussion forum for gender issues related
to culture;
- Familiarize women with the legislative provisions protecting
them;
- Provide financial support for research on gender and
cultural diversity issues;
- Strengthen and diversify publications on gender and
their worldwide distribution;
- Create a cell to evaluate and co-ordinate gender policies
within the INCP;
- Encourage North-South co-operation for a better approach
to integrating gender awareness.
- Preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage
Archeological and architectural heritage, moveable cultural heritage
and intangible cultural heritage, as well as historical and traditional
sites, must continue to have legal and administrative protection.
Preserving tangible and intangible cultural heritage would call
for co-operative cultural policy arrangements among International
Network (INCP) members. For example, West African countries should
share the blessings of pleasant relationships.
This is a mythical relational form that makes mutual assistance
among “relations” mandatory, especially not getting mad.
If tension arises, a discovered cousinship instantly banishes
any misunderstanding. Connections using respect for pleasant cousinship
are part of intangible heritage and occur on a number of levels.
- Promote art and artists
The creation of networks to synergize the work of organizers, NGOs,
groups of artists and resource persons to promote intercultural
co-operation in arts and culture. Norway could benefit others, especially
in the South, with the expertise of its DSV network.
- Arrange for greater media co-operation
As Belgium put it, “Public broadcasters are called to play an educational
and cultural role.” So it strikes us as worthwhile to develop co-operative
processes and shared projects in the INCP along the lines of the
Franco-German ARTE cultural TV channel.
- Co-operation in developing cultural industries and businesses
In this area, France sets an example by welcoming other countries
with the Cannes Festival and providing production support with advances
against receipts, the Fonds Sud and assistance to foreign-language
films.
Overall, we feel it is important for the INCP to enhance the visibility
of coordination strategies on cultural policies, after first harmonizing
them. In this regard, Ministers could incorporate the following
questions into their talking points:
- How to make the best possible use of opportunities offered by
the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity
of Cultural Expressions:
– with regard to policies that strengthen social cohesion at the
national level and as part of international cooperation?
– with regard to intra-INCP cooperation to secure the economic
potential of cultural heritage as a factor in sustainable development?
- How to ensure better organization and accountability of civil
society and the effective networking of its structures nationally
and internationally?
- What avenues should be explored to improve:
– the development of institutional cooperation?
– the strengthening of decentralized cooperation?
- Is creating an INCP observatory on the harmonization and coordination
of cultural policies useful?
A team of researchers and experts established by the Senegalese
Ministry of Culture and Classified Historical Heritage co-ordinated
and prepared Senegal’s study on Cultural Diversity, Social Cohesion
and Sustainable Development.
Dr. Moustapha Tambadou, M.A. in Modern Literature
(Université de Dakar), Ph.D. in Literature (Université de Franche-Comté,
Besançon, France). Former Editor-in-Chief (1983-2001) of Ethiopiques,
he has written many literary reviews and articles on cultural issues
published in scientific journals. He has co-ordinated the organization
of symposiums and international forums and the publication of collective
works. An expert in cultural policies and strategies and in the
development of creative industries, Moustapha Tambadou is currently
serving as Technical Advisor at the Ministry of Culture and Classified
Historical Heritage.
Professor Hamady Bocoum, Ph.D. in Prehistory and
Archaeology, researcher with the Fundamental Institute of Black
Africa at Cheikh Anta Diop (IFAN-CAD). He is the author of distinguished
scientific publications on the preservation and presentation of
Africa’s cultural, material and immaterial heritage. Dr. Bocoum
is the Director of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture
and Classified Historical Heritage.
and included:
Dr. Ndeye Sokhna Guèye, Archeologist, ethno-archeologist
and specialist in ceramography, and specialist in Medieval History.
M.A. in Prehistory (Université de Dakar, Senegal), Ph.D. in Literature
(Université de Paris X, Nanterre). She has written numerous studies
and articles, particularly on ceramic handicrafts and its relationship
with globalization and gender issues and African cultural heritage
in its relationship with museums. Dr. Ndèye Sokhna Guèye is currently
Co-ordinator of the SEPHIS (South-South Exchange Programme for Research
on the History of Development) Program at CODESRIA (Council for
the Development of Social Science Research in Africa).
Mr. Alioune BADIANE, artist and teacher by profession,
but also an art critic. He is currently the Director of Arts. He
has held a variety of positions at the Ministry of Culture since
1981. Both successively and cumulatively, these positions have seen
Alioune BADIANE involved in many studies, reports, research and
activities related to cultural policy.
Professor Yousssouph Mbargane GUISSE, researcher
with the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa at Cheikh Anta Diop,
Université de Dakar, where he is the Head of the Humanities Department.
As a socio-anthropologist, he is interested in the socio-cultural
aspects of the development of African societies. He has published
numerous scientific papers and articles on contemporary problems,
social and cultural change that have an impact on young people,
family and workers. He has served as an expert in evaluating national
and sub-regional cultural policies.
Mr. Aliou LY, Professor of Literature and former
member of the Senegal National Assembly. Mr. Ly is currently Chief
of the Culture Division at the General Secretariat of the Senegalese
National Commission for UNESCO.
Professor Oumar NDAO Assistant at the Department
of Modern Literature (Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Dakar). He is
a specialist in Comparative Literature, African Literature, North
African Literature and Discourse Analysis. As a playwright, he wrote
and directed Hôtel de la Paix (1992), Grand-Dakar
Usine (1995) Feu rouge (1998) and scripts for
the “Sound and Light Show” for the Ministry of Culture and Classified
Historical Heritage. Mr. NDAO is the former Secretary General of
the cultural labour union Syndicat national des acteurs culturels
(SYNAC) and is the Artistic Director of the “Faro theatre” company.
The entire team wishes to express its warmest thanks to Ms. Katerina
Stenou, Director, Division of Cultural Policies and Intercultural
Dialogue, UNESCO, and Ms. Julie Boyer and Ms. Giuliana Natale, INCP
Liaison Bureau, for their distinguished contribution.
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