Formation and mission of the Rainbow Platform
The Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue, the Rainbow Platform, was initiated in 2006 by ECF (European Cultural Foundation) and EFAH (European Forum for Arts and Heritage). It counts over 200 civil society organisations and their individual members engaged in intercultural action throughout Europe - at local, national and international level. The Platform aims to contribute to three levels of change in Europe: social (democratic inclusion and greater equality), structural (within organisations and constituencies), and policy changes.
Our core principle is that cross-sectoral cooperation leads to better policy– we want to learn and share across wide areas of expertise. We believe that the divisions in practice and thought must be overcome, from education to social and youth policies, from home affairs and justice - including issues of migration and human rights- to arts and culture.
The Platform’s first year of work culminated in the Rainbow Paper ( “Practice Makes perfect: A Learning Framework for Intercultural Dialogue.” ). It presented common view from across the Platform. After a very successful presentation at the opening event of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue in January 2008 we began work to take the ‘emerging principles’ to the next level of recommendations. This Rainbow Paper II is the result.
Discussion
what is wiki syntax? my gallery works with palestinians arabs in israel' and israeli jewes/ i belive that the arabs in israel preffer to be called palestinans/ their is a good dailog between artists on bouth sides/ i belive art specialy art more then any other platform will bring peace to the world/
One can only agree with the sentiments above, it has been observed many times that artists create their work to be shared with all of humanity. (Who realy cares that Picasso was Spanish or Van Gogh Dutch?)The major inhibiting factor is the art gallery and museum as it limits the audience only to those that visit these institutions. Getting art into the public domain seems to be the biggest obstical. One way around this would be to access commercial media structures, particularly billboards and banners to display art for extended periods in public areas. This method is used by Art for Humanity in South Africa to great effect. Picasso once said that a painting will not stop a bullet, the artist Bill Kelly said that a painting might stop a bullet from being fired.
I can agree with you when you say “that artists create their work to be shared with all of humanity”.
But would Picasso or Van Gogh or Portinari paint diffently if he grew upp somewhere else? It is of course relevant where they come from.
And not least the effect and motivation it can have on peoples lives refering to icons that they can relate to.
In reply to Tova Osman, Jan Jordan and Luciana Haugen: Good to hear such strong convictions about the role of art in intercultural dialogue. Could you go a step further and translate them into recommendations? For example, the suggestion of getting art more into the public domain: who could this be addressed to and how? And what does art have to be like to fulfill an intercultural dialogue purpose?
Dear Luciana,
Yes identity and culture will influnce all aspects of an artists and any persons' work. But once the work is done the history of the artist is mostly of academic interest. Obviously the more one knows about the artist and the work the more valuable the work becomes, etc. But what interest me is the work and what the work achieves. The most basic example might be the Mona Lisa, Louvre, Paris. When visiting this painting it is interesting to note that the viewers include members of all nationalities, regions, races etc from accross the globe and that they are there infront of the painting of their own free will.
Sabine, please have a look at www.afh.org.za, we have the art reproduced on big out door vynil banners which we place in schools, on billboards, outside taxi ranks, train stations and so on, this is to target the outdoor public. Posters we use to target the indoor public, clinics, offices etc. The books is for the reading public and the exhibitions for those that influence public opinion and include the discicion makers in society, they tend to like being seen at exhibition openings. The messages we employ to mobilise the artists but once the project ie. the art/poetry has been done it realy is the values we associate with good art and poetry that is important. Messages change but humanitiy's values seem to remain the same, particularly those values we associate with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. AFH tends to work with artists whose work is allready in public collections and poets whom have published. This is because of the seriousness of the issues we deal with and cultural heritage is important as it implies sustainability. All of the above takes major fundraising efforts on my behalf and great assistance by my students, but in terms of what we achieve is very cost effective. All good art communicates accross cultural boundaries and therefor enters into intercultural dialogue. Who decides what is good art? I would maintain those institutions society puts in place to look after its cultural heritage, i.e. art museums by and large gets it mostly right. For that reason we approach these institutions to recommend artist we then invite to participate in our projects. We do include a small number of younger artists in our projects for reasons of professional developement. Thanks for the feedback but also need to mention that my religion seems to be art, it embraces creativity. Jan.
We are the NGOs group call KUD Pozitive from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Our organization participate the initiative of preparing the Rainbow paper and Rainbow platform from the beginning. We coordinate and run the intercultural project Divided God, which start in the beginning of the 2007. In the project cooperate the young people from five different Cities and Countries: Ljubljana/Slovenia, Mostar / Bosnia and Herzegovina, Novi Sad/ Serbia, Berlin / Germany and Istanbul /Turkey. Because we thought that can be a god example, useful also for the similar organization and initiative, we want to present it to the others. It can contribute to a new partnerships and further cooperation.
I will present the project in the few lines. Full information you can get on the web portal of the project www.pozitiv.si/dividedgod. The project deals with intercultural dialogue with focus on religion. Our question was: does the religion contribute to the tolerance and provide solution of contemporary cultural conflicts? Or maybe in some cases and in some extend, actually generate this problems? The questions, concern intercultural dialog and role of the religion in it, is of a great importance for young people. It is related with all the fields of the social life, especially with educational system and position of the youth and the future that belongs to them. The participation of young people in the intercultural dialogue is also of a great importance for older generation as well as for policies of local and state governments. There can’t be real intercultural dialogue without the dialogue between the generations! The lack of these dialogue and negative consequence of it, we experienced in divided cities that we visited! In project Divided God we successfully establish this dialogue. Many of the experts from the fields of humanistic studies, public workers, artists, politicians, even priests and other people of good will, join the project and our researches.
Divided God (Second part): The project runs in the form of youth exchanges, professional symposiums and web communication. It includes video research – workshops, lectures, theoretical and public discussions. Until now we carry out the exchanges in the all the participated cities. More than 30 /thirty/ video productions were created; we are in the process of editing 10 /ten/ more productions. The complete video production and a publication containing the evaluations of the participants, academic articles and texts will be presented on the final Symposium, here in Ljubljana at the end of June 2008. We are fortune that we find the willingness and support by several foundations and institutions. The most important and first was European Cultural Foundation. We found the co financers also on the local level, but not on the governmental and similar public competitions. It can be - in some way, significant and maybe also explain the relation and limits of intercultural dialog and campaign of the Intercultural Year 2008 itself. The project from the fields of intercultural dialogue, especially if is based on the research of the role of religions (in the contemporary conflicts), cant be politically correct…So it is out of the political interest and oppose to the political expectation and outcomes of the dialogues…This can be one of the reason way is initiative of Rainbow platform important. To show other angle of the problem and give opportunity to be heard the people and target groups touched of the problems call intercultural misunderstandings and clash of political interest and profit…
Dear Drago, based on this project experience, could you formulate some recommendations to other organisations such as you own or to public bodies - on intergenerational dialogue, inter-religious dialogue or the need for (national) public funding?
First, I should congratulate the group for its excellent work. This is a refreshingly good product. Bravo.
Yet in Part I, there are places where the tone is just a little off-key for an advocacy document of this kind. It's good to use informal language, but it isn't right to be too 'familiar' or colloquial. I shall indicate where I think this is the case… There are far too many scare quotes, i.e. words in “xxx”. This is an affectation, much practiced by newspapers such as Le Monde in France, but which should be kept to a minimum – scare quotes ONLY for words that need explaining, please (also, please decide whether to use single or double and be consistent, i.e. “xxx” or 'xxx')
But these are details. More importantly, in this first section, immediately after the first sentence there should more information about the diverse composition of the Platform. Next, immediately after the next sentence, there should be a short definition of what is meant by 'intercultural action'. It is bad to make the reader wait till page 3 to know what you are talking about! Also, the link between 'intecultural action' and the 'three levels of change' must be made clearly, at the moment it isn't at all obvious, but will emerge once you've explained what terrain you're in. This will mean bringing up some of the material you've now got in the 'Terms' section, I think.
Dear Sabine,
I will try to formulate some kind of recommendations based on the experience and some “find-outs” I see in the project so far.
The first thing concerns the tools how to approach the project. The discussions and debates are not enough, it has to come afterwards. Team work is needed and practical work organized in workshops can be appropriate medium to establish dialogue between the investigators and the theme of their investigation.
It has to include the target groups, that are related with the problems (and conflict situations) and consequences. In today’s world all kind of social conflicts exist and not one of them that doesn’t tackle the young people. Are they equal partners in the salvation of those conflicts? Or elder (politicians, priests, and similar representatives) talk and decide in their names? We passed trough the divided cities in ex-Yugoslavia where the continuation of the conflicts and indoctrination of young people trough the school systems (History, religious educations…) is the main occupation of the daily policy to preserve the continuity of past ideologies. The intergenerational dialogue is unavoidable and needed! But if you want to proclaim it, you have to use it also in the project itself. Other way is unconvincing and merely hypothetical. We try to build the project like a “laboratory”, where the result of the experiment will prove our research. Because (we put it this way): If we don’t succeed in our project (with chosen, “normal”, culturally mixed young people and good willing and sincerely interested elder participants) there is no hope left!
This dialogue in project was basic. It gave the opportunity for both sides to learn from each other. And this is not just a phrase! Nowadays experts have nearly all the answers for all kind of social problems and conflicts but in real life it doesn’t help much. This “academic” knowledge didn’t prevent or predict any of the recent “intercultural” tragedies … Dialogue means equality, to be open and to listen also to the unprofessional people that “don’t know” and “are not right”. Their questions, answers and statements must be encountered! After all, the reality of this world – if we are little bit “provocative”, is composed of all political issues that work, also with extreme ones, and they act maybe in first place …
Another experience I mentioned in my first online contribution concerning the political – governmental interests and willingness to support or ignore the different NGO’s projects concerning the intercultural dialogue, especially those that are connected with religion. For the participating countries in the project (the Berlin is an exception), it became as the problem. To research the religious topics and some open intercultural problems automatically leads in the confrontation with the state policy, which has – more or less - some kind of agreement with the state recognized and accepted, ‘major’ religion. This is unfortunately truth of the past communist countries and in Turkey as well. The worst thing is if you start with some kind of the atheistic stand point (that is probably the only possible “tolerant” position for communication) you can have the problem from all sides. The religions can accept the existence of the other religion (wit patronage treatment), but hardly the atheist (for example in Islamic countries the atheism is forbidden). This conclusion is connected with, and probably explains also the failure / fiasco of nearly all public funding.
This significance has its own meaning. In fact, real independence means also independence of the supporters and their expectations. On the other hand the state money, also the money from some companies, can become an obstacle that leads in the (self) censured, “politically correct” behavior. Also abuse can be inflicted from the side of hidden political interests that are by these means creating alibis of fictitious democracy and intercultural dialogue as well.