Solidarity of Differences

Ramin Jahanbegloo

Albert Camus, the French writer and philosopher, said in a famous talk to the Dominicans in Paris, that “dialogue is only possible between people who remain what they are, and who speak the truth.  There is no point in dialogue if there is no truth.  The only basis upon which I may build communion with the believers of other faiths and more is the shared search for the truth”.  These words of Camus echo loudly today in a world of rapidly mutating societies and cultures. However, when Camus discusses the question of a “shared search for the truth” he is emphasizing on the fact that there is no point in dialogue if there is no truth or truthful interlocutors. Also what Camus is saying is that the only basis upon which we can build a community of dialogue with the representatives of other traditions and cultures is the shared search for truth. In a world which has lost confidence in the power of truth, believing that together we may live in the truth can heal intolerances and violent confrontations. In the words of Havel, “Truth prevails for those who live in truth.” Many liberals applauded him at the time, but they do not have the same, strong concept of truth to challenge the issues such as violence, corruption and fundamentalism today. People thought that post- Cold War promised a brave new world of happiness and moral responsibility, but they are suddenly beginning to realize it is a highly manipulative and very dangerous world. And when you see the dangers, suddenly you see the enormous significance of giving freedom to the truth without any responsibility. “Living in truth,” is an admirable and necessary concept that Havel proposes to us. While it is not definable as a specific activity, it can best be defined as a revolt against manipulation by the existing system. So, although living in truth is not a political act at all, it is the starting point of every political act in society. So the real sphere of dialogue is where there is a moral battle between living in truth and living a lie.

Living in truth underpins a moral attitude toward the global issue of diversity and respect of differences. It is the act of refusing to participate in the everyday lies that are the cornerstones of religious and secular fundamentalisms and intolerances. Living in truth is therefore a strategy which calls for a dialogue among individuals and cultures that is both aimed at breaking the vicious circle of hatred and indifference and at avoiding the destructive effect of violent action. Challenging indifference and violence brings us to the question as how to identify the space of cultural diversity  by encompassing a recognition of the part played by the civil society in struggling for social and political pluralism. How to think about value pluralism and respond to cultural differences lies at the heart of the space carved out by the politics of diversity. What politics of diversity asks for is not just the simple act of toleration, but affirming differences for their own sake and as a way of facilitating a sense of solidarity and sharedness. It involves more than “live and let live” philosophy. The politics of diversity starts from the premise that the affirmation of the oneness of humanity goes hand in hand with the right of cultural pluralism and the right to cultural differences. The central idea expressed here is that the sense of belonging to one world culture suggests the idea of intercultural dialogue and an accommodation and management of cultural, religious and ethnic differences. In other words, each culture and tradition can only maintain its identity within a context where there is a concern about the human culture as a whole. That is to say, diversity can only flourish in a space where there is a general recognition of its value. Based on this point, we can say with Gandhi that “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive”. Cultural diversity presupposes ways of living together and participating in the cultural life of one’s choice. The idea of cultural pluralism or interculturality is, therefore, linked to that of global differences. The concept of culture itself seems to have expanded to influence that of identity. As a result interculturality does not simply begin where a state’s frontier ends, and respect for cultural identity may entail rights for groups as well as for individuals. Today, a kaleidoscopic vision of the world has taken the place of a linear monolithic discourse, giving rise to perpetual changes in the relational thought that shapes our common cultural heritage. This common cultural heritage appears as a vast web of interconnections, all of which are linked in an event of co-being.

The mutuality of differences makes dialogue a necessity in our world, for it is  present in exchanges at all levels of being: at a cultural level as multiculturalism, at an identity level as border identities, and at the level of knowledge as a spectrum of interpretations. If we agree that dialogue implies some kind of mutual exchange of views, we can probably concentrate our attention on the dialogical side of diversity. Diversity, of course, can never be celebrated without an ethical-hermeneutical dialogue where partners seek a cross-cultural learning. It is on this level that we need to free ourselves from misunderstandings emanating from prejudicial attitudes poisoned by a presumption of superiority. The question is neither to idealize nor to reject the ‘other’. We must overcome deformations that usually go under the name of ‘Orientalism’ or ‘Occidentalism’. Both Orientalism and Occidentalism are styles of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinctions made between ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident’. Both Orientalism and Occidentalism go out of the borders of diversity, because they dehumanize the other, representing him as evil. Unlike these two situations, wherein the desire of revenge is accompanied by the attitude of returning injustice for injustice, within the diversified ethical-hermeneutical dialogue, confrontation and contestation are not ends in themselves, but are put in the service of ethical harmony and healing. Let me add here that the celebration of diversity is an antidote to terror wars and culture clashes. It is a global effort in a world threatened by a cultural divide. It is a challenge not only for international but also intra-national relations.

Now the question to ask is: does the enhancement of cultural diversity militate against the recognition of national identity? If we understand by nationalism, a pre-political common ground that is based on some religious, cultural or linguistic identity and is independent of the polity, we can say that there has always been a need for difference in the context of modern and contemporary nationalistic movements. However, it is often the case that a national identity of a community represents a call for recognition. To be able to live in the register of dignity, a national identity should be so defined that it includes all its citizens and makes it possible for them to identify with it. It should leave sufficient space for other identities in order to help them find their own creative adaptation and to take part in the institutional changes while remaining themselves. In other words, there cannot be a genuinely democratic decision-making process without a sharing identity space among different cultures in one community and among communities. To manage a politics of diversity, a society needs to work out and to negotiate different cultural identities by finding a logic of togetherness which functions as a creative compromise between different communities. Therefore, instead of accentuating the virtues of an atomistic freedom,  politics of diversity emphasizes on the ways in which citizens of a society can have a more important role in the public sphere by opening the mental frontiers between representatives of different cultures. At the heart of this politics of diversity, we can find an ethos of mutual understanding which promotes the cultivation of shared values between the citizens. Most importantly, an ethos of mutual understanding cultivates a common sense of belonging to an interculturally constituted common culture, which both unites different cultural and religious identities and respect their diversities. That is to say, we should not underestimate the ability of human beings to conduct a dialogue across the cultural boundaries.

Furthermore, an intercultural interaction can only emerge from a culture of dialogue which tends to spring up in every pluralistic society where the appreciation of cultural plurality enables the citizens to understand and judge other cultures while not feeling threatened and endangered by them. Since different cultures represent different visions of the good life and grasp only a part of the totality of human destiny, they each need the other to understand the meaning of human life. No culture is able to represent the full truth of human life. This does not mean that respect human freedom and individual rights equally and they deserve the same respect, but it means that no culture as highly humanistic as it appears is self-contained and can live without other cultures. There is no such thing as a “civilized closed culture” which protects jealously its identity against the influence of others. Simply because, a culture that fears other cultures cannot enter a dialogue with them is in no way in dialogue with its own past, present and future. Therefore, to be in conversation with other cultures requires that each culture open itself up to others while being engaged in a self- critical dialogue with itself. The process of mutual understanding allows one culture to enhance one’s self understanding of one’s values as well as the criteria by which one culture critiques other cultures. It develops bonds of commonality among the citizens with distinctive identities in one culture, while promoting solidarity among different cultures. As such the openness to the plurality of values in one’s public space allows citizens of a culture to be open to a much wider array of possible common values in the global arena. Therefore, while aware of the rootedness of individuals in certain cultural, linguistic or religious identities, the politics of diversity is attuned to an intercultural dynamic of cultural exchange. For clarity’s sake, we can call such a perspective an “intercultural sense of belonging”.

The sense of belonging is the primary attachment of a person to a certain cultural identity. By having an intercultural sense of belonging, an individual can emphasize on the malleable and flexible nature of this primary inheritance. Hence, when encountering representatives of other cultures and faiths, the intercultural subject is capable of a better sense of self-interpretation and fallibility of moral sources. Admittedly we are dealing here with a human agency that is comfortable with a world of plural religious and cultural identities and could easily lead a cosmopolitan life. The ability to tolerate and work with others who are different from oneself as an attitude of citizenship, but also a sense of identity are qualities that an accountable and just democracy should depend on. In fact, in a dialogue-centric democracy, the politics of diversity is an adequate framework or resolving disputes between the majority and the minority groups. As such, mutual respect, critical attitude towards government, public common sense help to create forums for shared political and social deliberation and solidarity. The aim here is not only to meet norms of justice and individual freedom, but also to avoid violence. Moreover, successful forms of celebrating and managing diversity also involve promoting democratic and intercultural citizenship virtues. That is to say, showing respect for diversity is the greatest virtue of democratic citizenship in a pluralistic society. But it is also true that an “intercultural sense of belonging” requires a meta-national identity that co-exists with numerous other identities based on religion, ethnic, race, language and gender. One could question how tight the connection really is between having a meta-national citizenship and being motivated to act as a responsible citizen of a democratic society. For example, being a citizen of the European community and having a strong identification with the shared political identity of Europe has not undermined the motivation among the French, the Dutch or the Germans to act as citizens of their respective countries. It goes without saying that the good function of the politics of diversity does not depend on the quality of citizens, but on the design of democratic institutions. One might even go so far as to say that a spirit of impartial, tolerant and intercultural citizenship requires a different principle of governance. Participating in a non-violent arrangement of power-sharing creates commitments towards the common good of all identities. This is why cultural border-crossing refers not only to the opportunity to explore and experiment with other cultures, but also to question the political beliefs and practices of their own. In this sense a culture of dialogue as a non-violent form of social organization is as essential to the development of human beings as the dialogue among cultures which facilitates mutual civilizational intelligibility and promotes human solidarity. In order to maintain the climate of diversity each culture should remain open to the influence of others. As such the very idea of living one’s life in one’s culture presupposes learning to live with others from other cultures. In a more differentiated world, where racial, ethnic, religious and sexual differences are constantly present in our daily living, diversity is not only about culturally embedded differences, but also and mainly about the solidarity of differences. This solidarity is based on the obvious, but taken for granted, fact that all human beings and cultures share common values by virtue of belonging to humanity. That is to say, although each culture modifies the idea of humanity, it can never altogether eliminate it. To eliminate it is to destroy itself. It goes without saying that human identities are never one and indivisible, but always plural and hybrid. That is why the very violence of identity politics is always done in the name of one identity or nationality and never as a humanist action. But the recognition of differences is built up on the transcultural components of each identity, worked out in relation to an idea of humanity. As Walt Whitman writes in his Leaves of Grass: “ I am large, I contain multitudes.” The enlargement of individual horizons is one of the characteristics of a transcultural identity. The reaction of monocultural fanatics to this view would be one of alarm and horror. According to them, there is only a single culture which represents the main route to self-identity and there is no such thing as a common heritage of the transcultural. But reaching out through the pathways of diversity to what one can call a plural life-experience does not mean turning one’s back on one’s culture of origin. We live in a world that is irreversibly plural and a foundation for the harmonious coexistence of differences can be found in a mutual respect for diversity. Such mutuality is based on the sharing of convergent moral values. And this assumes at least a non-violent and peaceful relationship, as the one Bertrand Russell reflected on at the end of his life when he wrote: “There could be a happy world, where cooperation was more in evidence than competition….and where to promote joy is more respected than to produce mountains of corpses. Do not say this is impossible: it is not.” (The Last Testament of Bertrand Russell, The Independent, November 24, 1993).

It is on philosophical grounds like this that we can think about diversity and about the possibility of realizing solidarity among differences in a worldwide moral community. The challenge is to have multiple identities beyond national prejudices and cultural and religious intolerances without loosing one’s home. This openness might appear disturbing to many of us, but we must all resist the all-too familiar temptation to mark otherhood as fundamentally threatening to selfhood. Certainly we should not underestimate the power of the nationalist sentiments, potentially exclusive, even if represented as temporarily liberating. Exclusiveness starts with cohesion and organization, but it always ends with violence. Since as Nietzsche knew, the will to power is a will not only to be but also to be more. However, the more a society is morally weak and in failure, the more it seems to search for its future redemption in exclusiveness and religious and nationalistic prejudices. But for how long can the promise last, without transcultural aspiration and moral commitment to humanity? What is the priority of loyalties, values and responsibilities within a monocultural society left alone in a world of diversity? Would a Muslim, Jewish or a Hindu fundamentalist prefer to die rather than see his/her cultural abandon its ideological “purity”?  Interestingly, the arbitrariness of belonging in a plural world cannot deter anguish and violence of fundamentalist attitudes. As Georg Simmel affirmed nearly a century ago that: “Groups, and especially minorities, which live in conflict… often reject approaches or tolerance from the other side. The closed nature of their opposition, without which they cannot fight on, would be blurred.” (Quoted in Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge University Press, 1990,p.175). Thus, it would be wrong to think that politics of diversity is simply an ideological substitute for fundamentalist roots and homes of hatred and prejudice. For diversity reflects all the geopolitical havocs of our time and represents at the same time the need to transcend them. Still, one may ask: how far can diversity go without creating violence among individuals and cultures? Could a society have a genuine diversity with commitment to all the differences that give shape to it? No doubt, as long as there is no desire for empathic difference, politics of diversity cannot stimulate the care and cultivation of roots. As a matter of fact it is difference not from others but mainly from oneself that can serve as a pathway to politics of diversity. As Simone Weil affirms in Waiting for God: “It is necessary to uproot oneself. Cut down the tree and make a cross and carry it forever after.” (Simone Weil: Waiting for God, New York, Harper, 1973, p.7). Certainly very few cultures in our world can, like Simone Weil suggested, so deeply uproot themselves, and carry their sense of belonging as a cross. However, diversity when suitably defined as solidarity of differences should be based not on dogmatically asserted values but on critical and open-minded dialogue. Though a cultural sense of belonging is the necessary precondition of human flourishing, no cultural practice would last long if it denies its members a measure of dissent and a right to difference. As such, democracy is a culture of dissent, even if it does not imply respect for the cultures of the inhuman. Acts of inhumanity like torture, ethnic cleansing, clitoridectomy etc. are unacceptable practices to the human community of ethics. This is why we accept certain moral values as fundamental and basic values, even though they are surely not self-evident and beyond criticism.  Thanks to the shared sense of belonging to humanity, all cultures share and understand these values as common life experiences. From a transcultural perspective, no culture can exhaust the full range of human possibilities. Therefore, no one culture is the final arbiter and legislator of all moral values, and it certainly cannot impose its own life experience to others. Far from being a universally hegemonic view, the transcultural perspective gives all cultures and individuals the unique historical opportunity to pluralize human identity. Furthermore, when we understand human identity from this standpoint, we do not assume that others are either basically like us (and our friends) or different from us (and therefore our enemies). When allowed to enjoy its licence to diversity under a dialogical harmony, a society is likely to generate radically novel ways of structuring intercultural relations that cannot but deepen the cross-cultural responsibility and shared humanity. This reminds us that distinguishing between a society that recognizes no social and cultural diversity and a society where the acceptance of differences is accompanied by concrete forms of intercultural communication and solidarity is a fundamental challenge of life in common, a challenge that has yet to be successfully confronted.