Cultural identity is not a problem for the general
public for the educated. Whose upbringing has often included virtually
inevitable elements of cultural alienation?
The elite must return to their culture to understand it more
effectively, and experience it as a living reality in order to find their roots
in it. Seen from this angel, cultural identity should be asserted primarily in
the schools and universities. Elite, often education in other school and
sometimes unsure of its identity, must be helped into awareness of its own heritage,
and its eyes opened to the fact that culture is not merely folklore.
The question of each group of nation’s cultural
identity, which is at the meeting-point of culture and communication, shows the
importance of language both as a vehicle of communication and as part of the
cultural heritage. Linguistic richness imposes not only a respect for the many
languages existing but also a complex and costly adaptation of the
communication network to the different linguistic areas. As well as the use of
many language by the communication media in order to avoid standardization.
Language policy therefore constitutes one of the thorniest and most important
issues in the formulation of communication policies.
Culture, which was not something separate from
consciousness of the community’s identity. Was probably regarded first and
foremost as a factor making for a stronger sense of national individuality: but
the quest for cultural identity was, in all cases combined with sympathetic
receptivity to the other cultures of the region and of the world. And,
ultimately, to all that is universally human which ruled out cultural
isolationism and entailed the disavowal of chauvinistic assertions of
distinctive nationhood.
The fate of modern societies is enacted on stage which now
encompasses the planet. Societies which until a few decades ago were able to
live in almost total ignorance of each other are today in increasingly’ close
and regular contact. There is a growing interplay of reciprocal influences:
interdependence is a reality in man’% fields of human activity.
Yet, while this independence is undoubtedly a source
of mutual enrichment receptivity. new initiatives and creativity, it is also a
cause of frustration to the extent that it is accompanied by worsening
conditions for certain people. And feelings of growing uncertainly and
increased vulnerability. Sensitivity of changes, wherever they occur in the world,
is becoming acute.
It is perhaps in the field of culture that the
contradictory demands of new world relationships are most readily discernible. Communication
between human beings is becoming global in its scope, and the quantity of
knowledge and information available is constantly increasing. With the
development of computer technology, the possibilities of collecting this
knowledge and information, of storing them and transferring them from one point
on the planet to another, are also continually expending.
These exchanges and contacts are accompanied by a
growing tendency towards a standardization of tastes and behaviour. And a
homogenization of certain patterns of life, thought and action, of production
and consumption propagated by the uniform dissemination of the same television
series, the same musical rhythms, the same clothes, and the same escapists
dreams.
This growing conformity, which seems to follow an
internal logic of its own, is gradually invading more and more areas of human
activity. In its turn it generates distortions, since it tends to promote
whatever conforms to it, and to destroy everything that resists it. Whale
sectors of creativity are thus repressed and society’s multitude in their
individuality and their distinctive structure. Carried to the extreme, this
logic could lead to the ossification of mankind, since diversity if accepted on
a footing of complete equality, is an essential and fertile source of vitality
for both individual societies and the whole world.
However, as a kind of reaction of this trend, a
renewed, explosive affirmation of individuality is emerging. Communities
everywhere -- ethnic and national, rural and urban, cultural and religious -*
are assenting their originality and endeavouring to take in hand, and defend
with vigour those features by reference to which their identity is defined.
The will to affirm and defend cultural identity,
appears now one, of the major driving forces of history. Far from representing
withdrawal into an immutable, self-enclosed past, it fosters a lively original
and constantly renewed synthesis. A sense of culture identity thus appears more
and more to be sine qua non of progress for individuals, groups and nations; it
is the force that animates and .underpins the collective will, Mobilizes inner
resources, and turn necessary change into creative adaptation.
It is today recognized that the notion of cultural
identity Les. At the very heart of development problems, but it is only recently
that this fact has own acceptance by the international community only in the last
ten years that our understanding of development, its paths and alms, has
broadened and deepened. Originally equated with simple, liner economic growth
-- vital. certainly, in so far as an increase in the production of material
goods makes a decisive contribution to the improvement of people’s living
conditions, when such goods are equitably distributed -- development has
increasingly been seen to be an infinitely more complex, comprehensive and
multidimensional process, which is effective only if it is based on the will of
each society to full itself, and only if it truly exercise each society’s
underlying identity.
Genuine development can only be generated from
within, willed conducted by all the vital forces of the nation. It should
therefore, encompass all aspects of life and involve all the energies of a
community within which each individual, each occupational category and each
social group has its part to play in the general effort. And has its share in
resulting benefits.
As so often happens this growing awareness of the
true nature of development was largely brought about by the setbacks experienced
in development and industrialized countries like India.
The development countries, tempted to catch up
with the industrialized countries by following the same path, have sometimes endeavoured to adopt approaches to development which, seeking to achieve raid economic
progress by often inappropriate men’s. Did not always produce the expected
results. Or even brought new constraints which not only reproduced but
aggravated those which had handicapped the industrialized countries.
At the same time, the industrialized societies,
considered to be the most developed, have also come to realize the very serious
problems caused by economic growth seen as an end in itself. Damage to the
natural environment is exacerbated by new constraints which threaten man’s very
existence as a social being attached to a community with which he can fully identify.
The whole international community is thus, today,
in different ways, increasingly coming to accept the idea of integrated .development
in which economic, social and cultural factors are commonly linked and
contribute together to progress. Culture which is connected with all
expressions of life and which, of every human being and every people, is the
expression of their highest values and their very sense of life emerges as the
factor which is to guide and humanize economic growth and technical progress.
Communications technology has made such strides in
the last few years that it has revolutionized life and development in both
industrialized and developing societies. Increasingly, people are encountering
other cultures in their everyday lives, discovering other values, observing
attitudes unfamiliar to them, and thereby coming to know the any faces of
mankind. And son through direct satellite television broadcasting, it will be
possible to transmit knowledge globally, and the irruption of other cultures
into every home will be a permanent fact.
Whether the role of the new instruments is
beneficial or harmful, will depend on the way in which they are used by
mankind. It seems indispensable to integrate the communications media into
culture polices, for it would be vain to pretend that the media only raise
problems of technical order. They are bound to have repercussions on political
attitudes, on social behaviour, on ways of thinking, and thus on culture in .he
broadest sense.
If development is the concern of all institutions
of the United Nations system, cultural questions devolve exclusively on UNESCO.
Which has for some years, been making an original contribution to the problem
of cultural development by launching and promoting the idea of “cultural
policy”.
An inter-governmental conference on
cultural policy was held by UNESCO in Venice, in 1970, and subsequently, a
number of regional conferences met in order to deepen and continue, in their
specific contexts. The process of reflection begun by the international
community, and the accelerate the evolution from a elitist concept of culture
to that of cultural action committed to development, which would promote the fulfilment of individuals and communities.