For a Diverse and Plural Millenium
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Pluralistic and Diverse Approaches in the Construction of an Inclusive Globalization
Irene León
Only the creation of pluralistic and diverse societies based on the principles of equality, autonomy of peoples and individuals, on the acknowledgement of universal citizenship, and the independence from any colonial or neocolonial imposition, will make it possible for humanity to progress towards a more advanced civilization, which is the challenge of this new millennium.
Only the development of open, inclusive ways of thought that acknowledge the diverse worldviews of peoples, their multiple forms of expression, of knowledge, of creative and artistic production, will lead to the necessary break from single thought (pensée unique), that is imposed through the supremacy of the values of a dominant minority assuming them as universal.
The necessary break from the idea that a unique model - that of globalized neo-liberalism, that which has capital as its god, that of exclusion as a rule and not as an exception - and the emergence of alternative models based on equality among individuals, that eradicate the gaps of structural racism, will open the way to universal reconciliation based on the value of everyone, of peoples, and collectivities.
After centuries of history based on the submission of majorities to the will and interests of a minority, pluralistic and diverse thought cannot appear by spontaneous generation, but has to be the result of a collective process of building consensus.
In this process, it must be acknowledged that in the Americas, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance not only affect a minority, as it is claimed. On the contrary, it affects ancient indigenous peoples composed of millions of individuals, and that are the center of our powerful civilizations, that resist and fight back, and that is why they are alive.
It affects people of African descent who have syncretized the African and the local and have invented a new universe, new and old, that has belonged here for five centuries.
It affects millions of people categorized in sub-ethnic groups, as a result of multiple combinations and with hierarchies among them according to the proximity or distance, real or fictitious, from the white norm.
It affects millions of people who, following the flow of globalization, migrate from the periphery to the international and local centers; those who being natives in their homelands become the “others”, the “foreigners” who in many contexts are considered undesirable.
It affects those who have to run away, or who are forced to do so in order to escape from bullets, and therefore must settle in other lands which do not always express solidarity.
It affects, in brief, majorities everywhere, who are labeled as minorities for different reasons: gender, sexual orientation, religious options, ways of life, age, and other circumstances; and for whom, when added to poverty, exclusions are multiplied.
Thus, the darts of discrimination, racism, and intolerance affect almost every person in the world. They are like poison that rarely comes alone, due to the fact that they are generally combined with other forms of discrimination and exclusion.
These are the reasons why the issues posed by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance, organized by the UN, touch the core of these complexities in the Americas.
The issues posed by the Forum of the Americas for Diversity and Pluralism (Quito, Ecuador, March 2001), in the current context of globalization, are related to the survival itself of most ethnic groups and cultures, peoples and nationalities, and with the creation of a collective plan for the future, where racism and discrimination stop eroding individual and collective human relationships.
In fact, the social movements of recent decades have laid the foundation for a future based on integral and harmonic worldviews that have nurtured our cultural heritage throughout the centuries. Also, in the proposal for the future, visions of diversity and pluralism, where the recognition of peoples, the diversity of ways of life and options, the equality between genders, and the search for the construction of human dignity, have been integrated fully and not just in a rhetorical way.
A proposal where globalization is no longer the nightmare of a uniform and homogeneous world, as proclaimed by the market and its authoritarian single thought, but rather a polychrome picture that expresses the multiplicity of peoples and cultures, the diverse development alternatives and the multiple ways of thinking and acting.
Wtih our eyes on the future, we, organizations and movements from different places participating in the process of this Conference, propose the mandatory exercise of practising diversity and pluralism among us, acknowledging that this is the best basis for the construction of sustainable democracies, based on our proposals and practices, especially as this new millennium of resistance and struggles for what is ours begins.
For this part of the world split by racism, this Conference call cannot be a moment nor an event, but an opportunity: to highlight that racism is not only a problem of black people, nor an innate trauma of indigenous people; that xenophobia is not an ill-adaptation of immigrants to their new contexts; and, that intolerance is not that of “minority” groups that dare to have their own beliefs, ways of life, and cultures, but of those who, generally with authoritarian criteria, do not accept the existence of a diverse world, with equal rights for everyone, who promote racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism.
This is the opportunity to visibilize that the antithesis of racism, xenophobia and discrimination, are the proposals of a pluralistic, diverse, multi-cultural and holistic future that, as everything possible, begins at home. This is what convenes us here, the urgency to act so that endo-racism does not corrode us from the inside; so that based on self-knowledge, the affirmation of identities, we will continue with the exercise of arriving at consensual proposals and alternatives, based on the recognition of the universality of human rights, in their interdependence and indivisibility, which implies that all the individual and collective, the civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights, the right to development, must be enforced unconditionally by governments and institutions; at the same level for everyone.
The challenges of the major common agenda are at play here: the rights of indigenous peoples and nationalities, which once again has to do with the “s” of peoples, demanded with such force in the framework of the Decade, and that in the context of the World Conference that convenes us, should be corresponded by a real space for the governments of these peoples in the community of nations.
There are also the rights of the people of African descent, their release from real and symbolic prisons; the unconditional liberation of peoples and their mentalities from colonization; the rights of every diaspora, so that we may circulate freely, just as, paradoxically, commodities and capitals already do.
We also have legal proposals that aim at penalizing racism, xenophobia and intolerance, and the enforcement of these laws where they already exist. Moreover, that they be declared crimes against humanity, to eradicate impunity once and for all.
In addition, the proposals of reparations for victims will help to make punishment and an end to impunity more tangible.
Another component of the proposals are claims for the full participation of excluded men and women in the different levels of politics, from design, decision-making, to implementation and evaluation of projects and plans that lead towards an anti-racist democratization of societies and institutions, both at the national and international levels.
New communication cultures
In the framework of proposals for diversity and pluralism, expressed in this process, there has also been an emphasis on proposals to change communication cultures, so that their mechanisms stop discriminating, turning them into a useful tool for the advancement of society.
This is a central aspect of any proposal of society in a context where most human relationships are being increasingly defined by the structural re-location of each individual and by collectivities in terms of communicational possibilities and the access to information and knowledge, regarding which, social groups and discriminated and excluded peoples are affected and in great disadvantage.
Power relationships that are generated in the political sphere are defined, to a large extent, by the access to information. The lack of access curtails participation and empowerment of discriminated groups and peoples and limits the viability of other consubstantial practices to enforce democracy, such as: freedom of thought and opinion, free will and freedom of speech, which can only be possible when the flows of diversified and pluralistic information promote the formation of autonomous citizen spaces and of public opinion with ideas of its own.
The 21st century has just been born in a world divided by ethnic, religious, gender, and other differences. Overcoming this depends on the quest for the construction of a world in dialogue, based on the strengthening of ethics, and in this process, mass media and communication systems are key actors.
The generation of open and democratic communication processes, framed in ethics of diversity and pluralism, are essential for the democratic consolidation of peoples and the building of peace, whose sustainability will be maximized through the strengthening of mechanisms that increase the possibilities for dialogue, for communication, for exchange and to strive for consensus.
In this context, the right to communication, related to the possibility of building citizen interactions at different levels under equal conditions, as well as the possibilities to exercise individual and social options, appear as an essential requirement for the construction of a new collective and individual global citizenship.
The construction of democracies free from racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, depends largely on the enforcement of the right to communication that guarantees a full interactive access and exercise for discriminated groups. This means the adoption of ethics of diversity and pluralism, and a deep democratization of means and systems of communication based on the recognition of their social function, currently limited by technocrats and commercial conceptions that predominate in them.
Communication means and systems act in the field of formation of ideas and mentalities, in that of construction of thoughts and subjectivity; and, therefore, are socially responsible for contributing to breaking away from single thought and to the formation of critical approaches.
Thus, verifying the close relation among communication, globalization and construction of societies - and citizenships - we suggest some important elements that we would like to include in the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance:
The recognition of the right to communicate in the human rights framework, considering that it is related to the exercise of democratic participation, with freedom of thought and expression, with the exercise of citizenship, and with its possibility of access to diverse social interactions.
The development of a universal ethical framework, based on diversity and pluralistic criteria as the background of any local or global communicational proposal.
Democratization of the systems and means of communication as a whole, its diversification at every level, and therefore, the access of citizens as a whole, especially of discriminated groups and peoples, to communicational assets and to knowledge.
The affirmation of the social role of communications media and systems, their commitment to eradicate racism, xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance, which means the permanent accessibility of spaces for affected sectors and peoples; the suppression of ethno and andro- centric messages; the development of inclusive languages; the visibility of the diverse worldviews, ways and options of life and cultures.
The diverse participation in this Forum breaks with the prejudice that racism, xenophobia, and intolerance are issues that only concern indigenous, African descendents, and immigrants. It also leads us towards a vision of commitments aimed at affirming that humanity is all of us, and therefore, the construction of new mentalities and approaches to life involves us all.