How can intercultural dialogue be promoted? This chapter examines cultural interactions and the barriers to dialogue such as stereotyping and intolerance. It argues that the perceived traits or identities that can lead to isolation and stereotyping can also be the bases for dialogue. The success of intercultural dialogue is dependent on the ability to listen with empathy. Support should continue to be given to networks and initiatives for intercultural and interfaith dialogue at all levels. It is important to ensure the full involvement of new partners, especially women and young people.
Intercultural dialogue is the only enduring response to identity-based and racial tensions. Without the promotion of such dialogue, diversity could be experienced as a restriction of identity or an unbridgeable difference constraining interaction between ethnic, cultural or religious communities. The cultural challenge facing each multicultural society is to balance respect for cultural difference with the promotion of shared values.
In many countries, people report having multiple identities. However, the tension between different identities can become the driving force for a renewal of national unity. This is based on an understanding of social cohesion that integrates the diversity of its cultural components. The key to successful intercultural dialogue lies in the acknowledgement of the equal dignity of participants.
Challenges to building intercultural dialogue include: building intercultural competencies, promoting interfaith dialogue, and reconciling conflicting memories.
- Intercultural dialogue requires intercultural competencies – the ability to engage effectively and appropriately when interacting with those who are linguistically and culturally different.
- Interfaith dialogue is a crucial dimension of international understanding, and thus of conflict resolution. Misunderstanding and ignorance of religion heighten tensions.
- Divergent memories have been the source of many conflicts throughout history. The different forms of institutional memory preservation and transmission tend to embody alternative views of the past, each with its own logic, protocols and perspectives.
There is a need for continued reflection on ways to establish genuine intercultural dialogue today. This includes the development of appropriate skills, support for initiatives and networks of all kinds and the involvement of many new actors. Action should be taken to:
- Enable communities and groups subject to discrimination and stigmatisation to participate in the framing of projects designed to counter cultural stereotyping. Various strategies exist, such as increasing contact between members of different groups, introducing intercultural competencies into school curricula, and cultural festivals.
- Develop real and virtual spaces and provide facilities for cultural interaction, especially in contexts of inter-community conflict. Informal networks, at the local or community level, can play a valuable role in reconciling different viewpoints, particularly when they involve normally excluded groups such as women and children.
- Showcase ‘places of memory’ that serve to symbolise and promote reconciliation between communities within an overall process of cultural rapprochement. Robben Island Prison in South Africa demonstrates the educational potential of such sites.
