Can Cultures Integrate?

Cultural heritage can reveal itself in a variety of ways. Some of these are trivial — the way you drink your coffee, the type of clothing you wear — while others are far more emblamatic, and are reflected in the manner in which you act in society or the devotion you show to a particular religion. Multiple cultures in a single area can become problematic, as recent (and ancient) history strongly proves. For example, one of the most significant factors behind the decrease in violence in Iraq has to do with ethnic homogenization; neighborhoods that once comprised a mixture of Sunni and Shiites have evolved, through murder and migration, into unvarying blocks consisting of only one sect or another. These different sects are killing each other less, it seems, because they are no longer coming into contact with one another so often.

Everybody has, at some point, a little bit of frustration coming from facing “the other”: the Roma person bagging on the street, the neighbor listening to loud music or the guy who owns a black limousine without working one day of his life. Each of us is unique, one can find differences at each level of life. It is the label of belonging to another culture, another religion, another country, that makes us acknowledge the differences around us. I am aware that differences in cultures determine different views on life, but the labels we have as Romanians, Hungarians, Americans or Indians are the ones strengthening the difference.

Civic engagement is a matter of human potential. In culturally diverse communities cleavages are deconstructing the cooperation potential, but at the same time, they enhance each cultural group’s social capital. What are the possibilities, if any, of merging these potentials? In my view, there are two types of policies capable of enabling social capital and therefore civic engagement in culturally diverse societies.

First, educational policies in the field of civic culture could, through promoting acceptance and cooperation, build a strong community at local level. However, the main assumption here should be the willingness to cooperate, to accept and in the worst case, just to tolerate the one different from you.

Second, cultural policies are able to enhance civic behaviors through advancing knowledge of similarities and differences. The importance EU gives to cultural policies at national level determines at least to some extent a new trend in cultural projects and products. Will they make a difference? This question is difficult to answer. Cultural policies can create the framework for cultural acceptance, but they cannot erase the mental history of people. Labels are there to let us know we are different, but they can also make us remember the history, the wars and the crimes. The cultural policies only can develop strategies in order to overcome the historical gap between cultures of yesterday and where we are now.

The citizen is the ultimate unit that forms the state. Citizens influence decision-making by the most important instrument democracy allows: the right to vote. Citizens make a community, they form the society, and this society takes on its own individual characteristics, defined by a variety of factors. Among those features, religion has long beena tremendously significant factor. Except a brief interlude, in which political ideology (Communism vs. Capitalism) seemed to constitute the greatest threat to world stability, many of the greatest conflicts of human history have stemmed from religious belief. Furthermore, much of the cultural progress — writing, thinking, art, architecture — of our time is rooted in religion. Taking all this into account, it would be naïve and foolish to think that we can easily alter religious culture in order to merge multiple communities together. People’s beliefs cannot be changed; they can only be understood.

Civic engagement is at great value for communities. It brings out the power citizens can have, power that is a shared asset of communities and not a matter of personal values. However, the volunteering and civic potential of one community is a matter of personal values, an individual feature. These two together can enhance citizenship and create social networks in order to influence decision-making.

An individualistic approach to the citizenship would give each citizen the sense of herself, creating a public space for the individual alone, a space for self expression within the community. An integrative approach aims at building bridges between the self and the other, creating a common place for living together, a sense of citizenship and community. Community involves a sense of belonging. When dealing with cultures, negotiation is difficult. Can we indeed negotiate culture?

Join the debate: Take part in the Citizens of Europe OpenForum. For more information: www.citizens-of-europe.eu