Another trot for the 'Commonwealth of Culture'

Few things glaze the eyes as rapidly as a pundit with a project proposal as a hobby horse. But the recent news that a think-tank has been set up to address the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in Malta later this year prompts me to bring a stallion of mine out of the stable. Heigh-ho, Silver!

In a column last December, I argued that our Commonwealth membership can be developed in interesting ways that dovetail with the most important foreign policy priorities we have.

First, there is the issue of irregular immigration - where we can use our dual membership of the European Union and the Commonwealth to address the development of sub-Saharan Africa where most irregular immigrants passing through the Mediterranean come from.

Second, our ability to address the issue of irregular immigration in this way would also make us useful partners to our southern Mediterranean neighbours, who are also keen to address the issue.

Third, there is a medium-term issue to do with UN reform. Should India and South Africa become permanent members of the UN security council, then Malta's Commonwealth connection to these two countries might help us with UN initiatives we propose.

And an important component common to all these three issues, I had argued, was cultural diplomacy: the building of trust through cultural relations. Whether we are addressing irregular immigration, economic globalisation, trans-nationalism or global security, cultural relations are vital. Deficits in cultural trust and rights are causing some of the turbulence - wars, unjust discrimination and economic exploitation among other factors - associated with these developments. Moreover, the kind of human development programmes needed to address these issues properly require a cultural component together with the economic, political and diplomatic ones.

Therefore, I concluded, Malta should seriously consider its position as host of the 2005 CHOGM to argue for a "Commonwealth of Culture" - an institution, similar to the Commonwealth of Learning, that would develop the kind of attention the Commonwealth needs to devote to cultural diplomacy. If it makes the case persuasively, Malta would be a strong candidate to host the institution.

Since I made that proposal, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has issued a report on "cultural liberty" that documents in considerable detail the global importance of the cultural dimension for human development.

It rejects the idea that cultural diversity necessarily leads to political and economic clashes. But ignoring cultural issues "builds real problems for the future: unemployed, disaffected youth, angry with the status quo and demanding change, often violently".

That states the challenge. But the report also highlights "the vast potential of building a more peaceful, prosperous world by bringing issues of culture to the mainstream of development thinking and practice".

Ducking the challenges, says the report, is not an option. Yet, it points out that since cultural rights have not received much attention till recently, ways of assessing cultural liberty are not as sophisticated as they could be.

The economic pay-off of cultural goods (any work of culture - from "experience-based" events to designs to audio-visual products) is still not easy to measure. Ways of protecting cultural goods through intellectual copyright need further exploration.

However, those difficulties are themselves an opportunity for an institution like a Commonwealth of Culture: it could set itself the task of facilitating cultural diplomacy in the Commonwealth, the flow of cultural goods and the work of a think-tank that explores and experiments with the institutional framework that the protection and assessment of cultural liberty needs.

The Commonwealth is diverse enough so that its research would be of interest to the UNDP. I suspect that a Commonwealth of Culture would also attract the attention of some of our southern Mediterranean neighbours. The UNDP report on cultural liberty has attracted strong attention in countries like Egypt. The latter country is primarily interested, of course, because it hosts the EU's foundation for dialogue between cultures; but together with some other Arab Muslim countries it is interested in any international project that might address what it considers the West's cultural deficits when it comes to understanding Islam and Muslims.

Here, then, is a project that Malta should seriously consider. It builds on the existing goals of foreign policy and creates a synergy between them. If the institution were to be based in Malta, it would also give a medium-term project that would, among other things, open up a new area of expertise in knowledge management - in what is surely a growth area that brings together law, anthropology, development studies and cultural entrepreneurs. And the profile it would give Malta should also boost the cultural identity that the Malta Tourism Authority is increasingly trying to promote.

ranierfsadni@europe.com