What is an intercultural city

Ramin Jahanbegloo

Every culture is capable of being at the same time national and global. Interculturality is a multifarious phenomenon in all cultures. Interculturality connects human beings to various cultures and traditions. 'Inter-' refers to an experiential core of existence and subjective involvement in different cultures. Post-industrial societies in Europe and North America have been increasingly confronted with the phenomenon of long-term migrants settling in a host country in search of political freedom or economic welfare. Over the last decades, due to the inevitable process of political and social globalization, this phenomenon has reached a considerable size. Furthermore, there has been a considerably growing movement of population between European countries as the result of the enlargement of the EU and between the EU and North America as the result of economic globalization. According to the International Organization for Migration there are over 65 million migrants in Europe. Since 2000, Spain has absorbed around 4 million immigrants, adding 10% to its population. However, this migration has not lead necessarily to a better understanding of shared values and respect for cultural differences, both of which are essential for the future of democratic development in Europe. It should be pointed here that by democratic development, we should understand not only political participation of migrants at European, national, regional and local levels, but also the exercise of their rights such as freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion.  As such, diversity because of its nature and speed of change has become a challenge for European democracies, that eventually because of their democratic shortcomings choose the way of violence. Drawing on the fact that migrants are from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, we need to understand that the process of integration of migrants which is formulated through models like French “assimilation” or Dutch “multiculturalism” have given way to intolerance and more strict immigration laws in both countries. Curiously and despite their differences, the two countries have had similar problems with immigrant unrest and deepening cultural divides, and violence has erupted in both countries. Assimilation is always a matter of degree, of course. But it is also a matter of cultural accommodation and democratic inclusiveness. In other words, respect for diversity and democratic inclusiveness is a two-way process which helps to create bonds among different communities. Some of the anti-assimilation feeling in European countries may be due to the rising number of immigrants but it is also generated by the absence of mechanisms of inter-cultural dialogue and accommodation for the promotion of diversity. As it is well-nigh impossible to present an ideal model of integration, it is even more urgent to reconsider the analytical framework for the evaluation of the challenge of diversity. The big challenge for all European countries is to bring together the respect for diversity and the respect for human rights. As such, if European countries want to overcome the migration crisis and identify the shortcomings of their respective assimilation policies, they must think twice about using the advantages of globalization (for example: intercultural dialogue) while remaining critical to its disadvantages (for example: inequality between the centre and the peripheries). However, what is essential to understand is that to have the right balance between diversity and integration, which is aimed at eliminating exclusion in a society, migration has to go along with dialogue and mutual respect among different communities. The key here to integrate different cultural and religious minorities is the ability of the society to enable the immigrants to become active members of their new societies. Finally, when assessing diversity, we need to remember that although violence related to diversity is a clear sign of absence of dialogue, it should not be confused with capacities of conviviality and solidarity in different cultures. No cultural tradition or religious belief can serve as “excuse” for violence, but no state should practice racism and exclusion against cultural traditions and believers of certain religion in the name of democracy. Democracy is also a substantial promise to produce a fair distribution of opportunities for all. In principle, Euro-democracy needs to satisfy the generic qualities of any modern political democracy by facilitating access to citizenship and public sphere and removing restrictions on the exercise of individual freedom of those who are lawful residents. It goes without saying that the politics of integration and accommodation needs the adoption of a culture of dialogue which stresses tolerance and embraces the belief that all cultural viewpoints are equally valid in the democratic debate. Following this line of thought we can say that the debate over citizenship and civil rights go hand in hand with that on the moral promise and deliberative virtues of intercultural dialogue. Equalization of citizenship is not only a matter of rights; it is also a matter of mentalities. The basic premise here is the symmetrical encounter between two self-conscious citizens from two different religious and cultural backgrounds recognizing each other as equals. However, in many EU countries the sentiments of fear and concerns of the immigrants and non-immigrants have replaced the process of dialogue and recognition. The immigrants resent the exclusion and suspicion they feel subjected to, and the non-immigrants resent the perceived deterioration of their own religious and cultural values. Unlike in the United States and Canada with its sizeable Muslim population, the 20 million Muslims in the European Union pose a serious cultural and political threat. One of the major causes of European anxiety about Muslim immigrants has to do with religion. Although European governments are right to worry about the danger posed by militant Islam, their anxiety in the European context is exaggerated and largely arises from the misunderstanding of two points: on the one hand, underestimating the role of Islamic history and culture in the making of modern Europe, and on the other hand, exaggerating the Muslim theological reasoning about political matters. However, what is troublesome about Islam for ordinary Europeans is not that it represents a religious view of the world, but that they are completely unfamiliar with its historical and cultural principles. No need to add that in the framework of an intercultural dialogue Islam and Muslims pose no danger and no major problem for European culture. Both Europe and Islam continue to be among the main pillars of human civilization. By recognizing this fact both Europe and Islam could engage in a dialogical exchange in order to bring common solutions to issues such as fundamentalism, terrorism, racism and integration and especially to be partners in belief, in action and in citizenship. If Muslims feel involved in the European destiny and Europe has nothing to fear from Islam, the result of a dialogue between the two would be not only an acknowledgement of the “otherness” of Muslims, but also the acceptance of the legitimacy of the cultural diversity of Europe. As such, one can be a Muslim living in Europe as well as a European Muslim. There is no contradiction in either of these two terms, and one should not be asked and forced to choose one against another. Let us not forget that the price of a plural and democratic Europe is neither a strategy of fear nor a politics of hatred. It is a political culture of moderation and deliberation.

It is much more realistic to think of European civilization in the plural rather than singular. There are many European cultures but only one Europe and Europe is a good idea! Europe is a journey, not a destination. Like democracy, it is an unfinished project. We are deluding ourselves if we claim to have arrived at an achieved European civilization. Civilization like democracy is an ideal worth striving for. Like a torch in a relay marathon, the process of civilization has been passed on from hand to hand, from one culture to another. This means at the same time that the pluralistic idea of civilization tends to set the scene for a border-crossing between multiple centers the world-constitutive capacity of a global process gives way to a trans-civilizational dynamic and a growing awareness of the complex interrelationship between cultural and religious traditions of thought. That is to say, every civilization is irremediably incomplete, it needs the others. Only gods are sel-sufficient and can be seen as alone. There is, therefore, a permanent conflict between civilization and isolation. Every civilization is permanently threatened by the idea that it is autarchic and is able satisfy itself alone. But in the history of human civilization, no culture ever appeared except in a community of other cultures. What is universal to every civilization, and basic to human race, is that from the very beginning all civilizations enter into a network of intercivilizational relationships. This is why civilizations have struggled all through the ages to be recognized as civilizations. To have this recognition, civilizations have repeatedly solicited the respect of others either by conforming or by distinguishing themselves from the others. It is, therefore, clear that all inter-civilizational coexistence is a demand of recognition and a search for respect by others. Even civilizations which turned into barbaric tyrannies and used savage violence as their modus vivendi tried to win the respect of others. This recognition of superiority has always been accompanied by the hatred of others who are different. Every civilization which refused to depend on others, dreamed of itself as a god. Thus, the refusal to admit one’s incompleteness has always ended in violence and massacre. As such, the only way for cultures to creatively construct a common future is to have a dialogue together instead of retreating in an exclusive identity paradigm or abandoning their cultural heritage in the face of a uniformizing political and economic globalization. For this to be possible, two conditions must be present in every culture: first a readiness to seek in the dialogue with other cultures, and, second, general agreement on the aim of constructing a "common shared values" beyond the legitimate diversity of the cultures. That is to say, different cultures can see the world in very different ways while sharing norms that are universal. Cultures with shared common values naturally look to the universal, and hence mutuality and solidarity, while the process of dialogue among them thrives on diversity, and hence encourages difference. Dialogue of cultures is a philosophical and hence an urgent political task for our world.   Dialogue opens the minds and ends resistance to change in cultures. But it also extends the scope of the debate on the idea of “culture” itself. Dialogical understanding as the true matrix of hermeneutical encounter always generates a logic of on-going differentiation and negotiation that seeks to authorize a new approach to the phenomenon of civilization as a process of human self-consciousness. We can see from this that, living in a tradition of thought is accompanied automatically with a sense of shared values with other members of the same community but it has also to do with what we might call a universal impulse, in the sense that its orientation toward its own life experience is based on the understanding of other communities as different experiences of the same shared life. This idea of shared life binds members of different communities together in various ways, though this bind is not the result of a recognition that other communities and cultures are or must be like each other. But it goes without saying that our situatedness in a specific culture or tradition is indistinguishable from an effort to subsume one’s individual history in a common history of humanity. This common history stands before us as our common destiny and through its presence our shared fate is called forth, put into play, discussed and revised. Through this give and take something comes into being that had not existed before and that exists from this shared destiny. It is coming- into- history of a human destiny that is common to us. We can say, then, that that the discovery of a common fate is a productive result of the dialogical process of cultures and traditions. Each culture discovers oneself in the other cultures and other cultures in oneself by seeing at the same something common and something distinct. As such, there a sense of solidarity is created not only because of the consciousness of similarities, but also because of the dissimilarities and differences that exist between human cultures. In fact, dissimilarities potentially bring every culture to an awareness of solidarity with other cultures. This awareness is not only based on knowledge of the Other but also on a reciprocal empathy. Dialogue with the Other is a dialogue with the self. In other words, every culture sees the other culture as an event and an openness. The presence of the other culture is vital for creating new possibilities and so a new horizon of truth is brought forward by the encounter with the other cultures. Therefore, each culture can serve as a corrective to the other cultures. The solidarity that emerges from a dialogue of cultures will always be accompanied with a horizon of a shared life and what we have in common as humans.

To think of history as possibility is to recognize inter-cultural dialogue as possibility. It is to recognize that even if inter-cultural dialogue cannot do everything, it can achieve some things.  The point is clear: we cannot celebrate diversity if we do not have personal and institutional accommodations to ethnic and religious differences. Obviously these accommodations need drastic shifts in some attitudes and beliefs of people in Europe, because it seeks to challenge the prevailing assumption that it is only migrants, meaning those who are ethnically, racially, linguistically and socioeconomically different from what is considered the “mainstream”, who should always conform in order to be fully titled citizens. We need an alternative perspective: that in order to solve the problems of migration and to celebrate diversity there should be a process of mutual understanding and collaborative learning. Needless to say that a dialogical and comprehensive approach to the question of diversity necessitates an effort to change institutional norms in some European countries that grant unearned privileges to some citizens over others and challenging racist ideologies that insist that some citizens are inherently superior to others. It goes without saying that a deliberative and egalitarian social and political environment allows for diversity of opinion and confrontation of beliefs and behaviors. However, creating awareness around barriers of fear and mental ghettos helps to establish dialogical practices among different ethnic and religious communities while exploring common grounds for an empathetic pluralism. This experience, also called “politics of inclusion” is based on a moral contract between the host society and a particular cultural or ethnic community. Its aim is simultaneous integration and recognition of different cultures, a patchwork of nationalities developing their cultures while at the same time contributing to the development of the common society. This certainly leads to a greater involvement of migrants in the work of society and to the better functioning of democracy.

One needs to talk about the impact of migration on the sense of place and identity within contemporary cities. Intercultural contact and communications are hallmarks of every global society. This intercultural contact in the last few decades has been made possible due to advances in communication technologies and migrations. People from one cultural community may now migrate to another location for employment, business, education or even long-term residencies. This movement of people ultimately creates the concept of an intercultural city, a term that encapsulates the spirit of cultural diversity, and an epitome of the fluidity of ideas.