Negotiating Diversity: Challenges to Cultural Expression and Policies in the Corporate Era 

Beirut, May 11-13, 2006

Conference to explore the relevance of the concept "Cultural Diversity" for the Arab World in the context of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Organized in cooperation with the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity.

Detailed Program

Outline

Ongoing cultural change in the world demonstrates the inadequacy of the traditional concept of cultures as bounded and fairly static units. As differences in lifestyles, values, consumption patterns and social practices converge and new ones appear, cultural globalization seems to be both a story of loss and destruction, as well as of gain and creativity.

It however becomes more a story of loss and destruction when all the possibilities that globalization might entail, are reduced to the enforcement of a neo-liberal worldview, based on the enforcement of capitalist values related to the market: open markets, unlimited consumption, efficiency, growth and progress.

Ambivalent feelings towards globalization therefore should not be belittled as naïve nostalgia about the loss of “local culture.” The question is neither resistance to globalization nor incompatibility with globalization as such. Due to experiences on the ground, cultural globalization in the Middle East however is perceived as a continuation of the relationship between the “West” and the “Orient,” which has been historically shaped by colonialism, imperialism and the quest for hegemony. In this context, globalization processes despite their ability to shrink distances and create linkages, are perceived to perpetuate and further engender asymmetries and marginalization.

This conference seeks to explore the concept of “cultural diversity.” Some might argue that “cultural diversity” is a concept born in the “West” out of bad conscience, with no or little relevance to its former colonies where the question is rather how to create modern cultures in which citizens can recognize themselves. Some might further argue that the concept “puts people into drawers” and provides legitimacy to particularistic demands that are diametric to the ideas of equity and common humanity, thereby reinforcing the exclusionist desire for cultural traditions and identities.

However, the fact that the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity has been negotiated with considerable resistance is a hint that it might be more than a merely theoretical enterprise, and that there are interests at stake that are worth a closer look. As domestic markets are increasingly dominated by low-cost imports, and local creativity is confronted with the economic pressure of big corporations which dominate the fields of arts and media with mass production, the promoters of cultural diversity are trying to understand how cultural globalization in the corporate era can be organized in a fair and participatory way, based on the right to expression and access to diverse cultural sources. The challenge from a democratic and human rights-oriented perspective is hence how to ensure diverse content and expression, as well as how to achieve diverse ownership and decision-making when it comes to cultural life.

Despite a long tradition of criticizing negative effects of globalization processes in the Arab world, there is an obvious lack of Arab representation in international networks and initiatives that promote cultural diversity. There is only limited research on the effects of international trade agreements on cultural production in the region, and little public discussion on the 2005 UNESCO convention on cultural diversity. Against this backdrop, the conference is intended to gather concrete information and expertise for further reference, and to stir an interdisciplinary debate with a focus on the Arab world.

Program

Thursday, May 11, 2006      Al-Madina Theater

17:30 Welcome and Opening

Kirsten Maas, Director, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Middle East Office

17:45 – 20:00
Managing Cultural Diversity

“Managing cultural diversity is one of the central challenges of our time” conclude the authors of the 2004 United Nations Human Development Report, referring to issues such as the under-representation of minorities in the media, the enforcement of majority languages in educational systems, discrimination against women in the application of customary laws, and the commercialization of cultural expression. In order to be heard, claims for cultural rights need to comply with internationally acknowledged human rights standards. The process of drawing the line for how far these rights should go, of defining standards, and of what should be done to implement those standards, however is becoming more complex as the voices which are participating in this debate increase in diversity.

• How do we conceptualize this diversity in terms of rights and participation?

• What are the main issues at stake in the Arab world – a vast region rich in confessional and ethnic groups, languages and cultural practices?

Moderator:

Pierre Abi -Saab
(Editeur, Magazine Zawaya; Al-Hayat, Pages Culturelles)
 

Speakers:

Iliya Harik: Violence, cultural identity, and democracy
(Director, International Resource Center for Democracy & Professor Emeritus of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington)

Jeebesh Bagchi: Cultural Diversity, Rights, Liberty or Freedoms – What is at Stake?
(Media Practitioner and Researcher; Co-founder, Sarai New Media Initiative at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New-Delhi)

Zeyneb Farhat: Local, regional and international cultural resistance: cultural diversity from a southern viewpoint

(Directrice de Programme, l'Espace El Teatro, Tunis: Présidente de la Coalition Tunisienne pour la Diversité Culturelle)

Friday, May 12, 2006
Crown Plaza Hotel

09:45 – 12:45
Diversity, Identity and Freedom of Expression

Through the emergence of global media and corporations and continuous foreign intervention, people around the world find themselves increasingly exposed to influences beyond their control. In the Arab world, the concept of “cultural invasion” has become a prominent term in debates about globalization. In the national arena, this concept has implications for local cultural creators who are perceived as “agents of the West” because they adapt forms of expression that do not comply with cultural norms. It also affects educators who are seeking to promote diversity in cultural and / or religious education. In the international arena, cases such as the Danish cartoons remind us that if freedom of expression is to be applied as a universal principle, more people will want to participate in the debate about its scope and limits.

• Which strategies of resistance against cultural domination are adopted in the Arab World? How do feelings of political and social marginalization reflect on the cultural realm?

• How does the concept of “cultural invasion” affect efforts to promote diversity in cultural expression and education?

• Who is granted access to the public sphere? Can the acceptable limits of freedom of expression and respect for cultural identity still be regarded as domestic issues, falling within the domain of the nation-state?

Moderator:

Theodor Hanf
(Director, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for Socio-Cultural Research in Freiburg; Director, UNESCO-Institute Centre des Sciences de l'Homme in Byblos)

Speakers

Mona Abaza: Egypt's changing consumer culture: resistance and accommodation
(Associate Professor of Sociology, American University of Cairo)

Moncef Ben Abdeljelil: The contested professor-questions of diversity in religious education
(Associate Professor, Agha Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, London)

Armando Salvatore: Dialogue, Diversity, What Next? Normative Struggles in the Global Public Sphere
(Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen, Project on Humanism in the Era of Globalization; Mediterranean Foundation Naples, Program on the Mediterranean, Europe, and Islam: Actors in Dialogue)

14:45– 18:00
Culture under Pressure: The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity –  a Counterweight to International Trade Agreements?

Saturday, May 13, 2006       Crown Plaza Hotel

10:00 – 11:00

Cultural Policies Revisited

The inclusion of culture into international trade agreements jeopardizes the entire principle of the right of countries to apply cultural policies and to support domestic cultural production — including foreign ownership limits for broadcasters, regulatory systems for television and radio including quotas for national content, subsidies and tax credits reserved for domestically-owned cultural enterprises, screen quotas for national cinema, and numerous other matters that have major implications for the culture sector and the media.

The Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Middle East Office has commissioned a study in order to prepare a ground of discussion for the following questions:

• What are the main cultural goods produced in the region?

• What roles do the state and civil society play towards cultural production and cultural policies in the region?

• What strategies of cooperation can be developed?

Moderator:
Layla Al-Zubaidi
(Heinrich Böll Foundation, Middle East Office)

Presentation of study: "Cultural goods in the Arab Mashreq: diversity at the test of the market"

Maud Stephan
(Professeur, Université Libanaise, Documentation et Bibliothéconomie)

Leila Rezk
(Director, Dialogue XXI, Beirut)
 

11:00 – 13:00
Challenges for Diversity and Cultural Production in the Region

As state institutions in the Arab world hardly have the means, capacities and legal frameworks at their disposal to support diverse domestic cultural production and as cultural creators find themselves marginalized and often dependant on foreign funding, promoting cultural diversity here encounters specific challenges. What are the specific challenges and constraints from the perspectives of civil society activists and cultural creators in the different sectors of cultural production, including cinema, the media and music?

Moderator:
Manal Khader
(journalist and actor, Beirut)

Speakers

Hania Mroue: Promoting Arab Cinema
(Director, Beirut Development & Cinema)

Bassel Kassem: Challenges to the production and distribution of Arab music
(Director, Irab - Arab Association for Music, Beirut)
Promoting Arab Cinema

Abed Azrié: Creating diversity in the Arts
(Author, Composer and Singer, France/Syria)
 

14:30 – 17:30
Panel & Floor Discussion: Promoting Cultural Diversity

 The contributors to this discussion are activists and cultural creators who are engaged in promoting cultural diversity world-wide and in the Arab world. The discussion will focus on the challenge of mobilization to ensure that countries in the region retain the right to have cultural policies, ratify the UNESCO convention, refrain from liberalization commitments on culture in trade negotiations, and work together to achieve both a space for domestic cultural content created within each country, as well as increasing the circulation of locally-produced cultural content across the region: What can civil society in general and coalitions and cultural professional organizations in particular do to foster cultural diversity in the region?

Moderator:
Robert Pilon
(Executive Vice President, Canadian Coalition for Cultural Diversity; Spokesperson, International Liaison Committee of Coalitions of Cultural Diversity)

Discussants:

Ibrahim El Moallem
(President, Egyptian Publishers’ Association)

El Hassan Neffali
(Président, Syndicat National des Professionels du Théâtre; Coalition Marocaine pour la diversité Culturelle)

Ghassan Koteit
(Teacher, Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts; Activist in Fondation Cinema Liban)

End of Conference

Iliya Harik

Violence, Cultural Identity, and Negotiated Diversity

Ludwig Laher

Why an Exception for Culture? -Risks Posed by International Trade Regulations.

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