Notte Euromediterranea del Dialogo 2008 EN

THE
1001 actions
EUROMEDITERRANEAN
for dialogue
DIALOGUE NIGHT
AND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, TIME TURNS
TO DIALOGUE
Natale Giordano, Coordinator of Euromediterranean Dialogue Night
[email protected]
Tuesday 20th may,11am, in Palermo at Casa Professa, a press conference has been taken place
to present The Euromediterranean Dialogue Night
A
utumn 2008. Media, from all over the word, are reporting, every day, alarming news on crisis that
have involved the whole of socio-economic sectors of
our planet. The financial crisis with the crash of stock
exchange and most important worldwide merchant
banks nazionalization(whom cost for the Governments –
so for the citizens- is not quantifiable but it'd be beyond
of 1000 billion euro). The enviromental crisis with endless hurricanes which stormy centre-america and Southest Asia, with its human lives and economic damages
consequences. The energy crisis with the cost of oil barrell has reached 150 US dollars, it has repercussions on
every economic and productive sectors of the planet.
We'd reflect upon these worring details, hoping the
world has got the cold not the flue, that the global
economy has been influenced by this kind of development model (ultra freetrader without ties), reaching
models that, according to some analysts, remind us the
1929 Great Depression. This crisis has been provoked by
several reasons, for istance,the financial crisis caused by
loan securitized in US, namely, debts' packaging and
selling (situation never seen before).
This state of emergency should suggest to the national
and international institutions to investigate and accelerate some reflections how to pursue development's
models and which kind of methologies to use. Euromediterranean area is not free and this crisis changes
the socio-economic precarious balance of the area, in a
time of global competition's “regionalization”. It seems
unavoidable a quick and frank confontation among the
development actors in order to pursue a double objective: assure a better sustainablility of development politics and produce an euromediterranean identity in order to sustain a global competition. These consideration are remark's heritage of the Coppem Commission
that working on culture, enviroment and resources, has
acted, during these years, on demand of its memebers
or secretariat's initiative, with a planning skill for the
sustainable cooperation politics ,using partecipative
and inclusive methodologies. Since the beginning, in
particular during 2000-06, IV Commission's activities
have been addressed in the direction of investigation,
research, protection, improvement, promotion, sharing
of sustainable development's local experiences
(through cultural,enviromental and tourism cooperation), whom aim was the improvement of territories,
communities and euromediterranean cultures.
Coppem has acted with help of Medins project that, organized by Sicily Region, has 21 partners and several local authorities adherent to Permanent Committee.
Medins project, borned by UNESCO declaration on intangible heritage, has investigated, with the actors, the
identity, or the identities that are typical of euromediterranean cultures. An exemplary framework is
emerged where cultural diversity is mixed with common roots and where every difference is a treasure. A
combination of identities but ,luckily, not a unique
identity(as the last Declaration of Ministers of Culture,
met last may in Athens, has declared). In the ambit of
Medins project, Coppem has organized the Euromediterranean Dialogue Night, celebrating 2008 as
the year of Dialogue among Cultures, in cooperation
with Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue among
Cultures of Alexandria (Egypt), with the participation of
more then 100 euromediterranean cities, like Athens,
Barcelona and Palermo. Palermo event, promoted and
organized by Coppem in cooperation with other dialogue local actors was a result of a shared activity on
the territory, which has allowed the realization of several events tied up to multiculturalism, difference's valorization, identities protection, youth cooperation promotion and human assests' creation.
That human asset forgotten – unsolved problem- whom
lack of care has contributed to bring about these crisis
of early millennium. The euromediterranean region has
many knotty problems to solve and to afford but it has
to set its priorities. It is necessary that all the actors,
working in the euromediterranean cooperation, should
think on the urgency of dialogue, on the sustainable
choices' opportunities in order to respect the differences, a great treasure of the area. It is necessary that
everyone should admit their responsabilities to promote the creation of new and equal socio-economic
lay-out because we need a “new mediterranean humanism” and even if we're walking but we're not running, there's no time to lose. The next stop is on 22nd
may 2009. “The Euromediterranean Dialogue Night”
will be back in all euromediterranean cities.
COPPEM owes a special thank-you to the Euromediterranean Cities that have joined the Euromediterranean Dialogue
Night, to Anna Lindh Foundation and European Commission that have co-promoted and supported this initiative, to
Medins Project's partners, especially Region of Murcia, Association of Local Authorities of Malta, Kalkara Municipality and Bagheria Municipality. Moreover, a special thank-you those whom have given their support for nothing for the
initiative's success like Roberto Terranova, musician and artistic director of the event, Massimo Minutella, Lello Analfino and the artists that have played on stages, Reda Berradi, Le Aquile Association, Brass Group, the team of volunteers that have cooperated with Coppem and above all to the ctitizenship of 100 Municipalities that have celebrated
the Multicultural Dialogue Night in an atmosphere of great joy, friendship and participation
1
THE EUROMEDITERRANEAN
DIALOGUE NIGHT
“1001 dialogue actions” is a international campaign
that, in synergy with 2008 european year of intercultural dialogue, promoted by Anna Lindh Foundation,
has the objective to create a great mobility of persons
and actions to contribute and support the euromediterranean dialogue's promotion. The dialogue is fundamental to reaffirm identity and european citizenship
based on reciprocal understanding and peaceful coexistence. In order to support this objective, artistic and
cultural initiatives have been promoted, finalized to
stimulate a shared reflection on the principles of European Constitution and moved to promote the intercultural and religious dialogue, the fight against racism,
xenophobia and any form of social exclusion.
It is a question of a complex dialogue because the cultural roots, rules, and nations'structures,internal markets are different,but above all, life of mind of people
leaving along the coasts. A deep contradiction scerario
still exist, intolerance, and conflict, with a peace
process'slackening and ever-growing obstacles put in a
improvement of people life quality. The project begins
by convinction that Europe in theXXI sec. should face
the problem of inter-culturality, not coexist in a civilized way only with whom comes from other countries
but start to think that difference is a resource,
ideas,cultures,experiences exchanges can give a contribution to build a society in Europe with less violence
and more human dignity. For this, it's a question to
promote the comparison and in this framework the Euromediterranan Dialogue Night is included as a unique
and original event, which has taken place at the same
time on 22nd may in 37 countries signatories of
Barcelona Declaration where the Partnership, between
EU contries and coastal countries, was born.
The event has taken place in Palermo at Spasimo
church with the topic on “Intangible culture and intercultural dialogue and has finished in Piazza Bologni
with a concert. The event was enriched with exhibitions, international seminars on intercultural dialogue,
gastronomic specialities and finished with a dinner in
Ballarò market and with two concert with a large following, the first in Spasimo the second in Piazza Bologni where, after 11pm several sicilian artists have played
like Akkura,Matrimia and Tinturia. The event has been
mastered by Massimo Minutella, a famous local presen-
ter. Two bands, Folkalab and Kaiorda,with its popular
and traditional music from the Mediterranean, have
played in Spasimo in the hambit of “Medins Evening”
promoted by Coppem with Medocc Programme. But
the activities were not in Palermo only: cultural events
have been taken place in Bagheria too. On 23rd may,in
Palazzo Cutò, the movie “No man's land”by Denis
Tanovic,winner of Best foreign movie 2002 was
showed. Until 2 am Bagheria was brightening for
Medins multimedia laboratory which has involved local
citizenship. The event, promoted by Coppem and Anna
Lindh Foundation, realized in Palermo thanks to
Medins project, has involved some dialogue actions realized by Bodies working in international cooperation
scenario in the ambit of 1001 Dialogue actions campaign. Coppem, for the occasion, has involved other
eurmediterranean cities like Rabat, Al Hoceima e Nador
(Morocco), Murcia (Spain), Villareal de Santo Antonio
(Portugal), Amman(Jordan), Tripoli (Lebanon), Kalkara(Malta) and many more.
The project's partners Medins, Cesie, I Word, Come una
Marea, Ubuntu, Eleuthera, CISS, Sicilian Region Regional centre for the catalogue and documentation,Palermo Municipality have given their contribution for the
realization of the event.The year 2008 will be reminded
as the year of intercultural dialogue and therefore, the
promoters have launch the international campaign
“1001 Actions for Dialogue” inviting institutions to join
the initiatives which has the Dialogue Night as height.
This event has involved 37 euromediterranan countries,
where many cultural activities took place at the same
time to go up to people from the both mediterranean
shores, making an event where the topic like democracy,arts,human rights,cultural heritage,religion and communication through the culture and food. Starting
from consideration that food is a good tool to know
different cultures, to mix civilization,to promote the intercultural way. The objective of the event was to give
a tangible signal, in Europe and in the mediterranean
area that, in Sicily, the institutions and the active citizenship are going on to develop the intercultural dialogue. A dialogue born to mark a turning-point respecting the misfits and the others, as fountain of resources having the culture as equally relation denominator. (n.r.)
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COPPEMNEWS
BIMONTHLY BULLETIN EDITED
BY COPPEM.
PROJECT MEDINS-IDENTITY
IS FUTURE:
THE MEDITERRANEAN INTANGIBLE
SPACE INTERREG-MEDOCC
editor
FABIO PELLEGRINI
assistant editor
LINO MOTTA
editorial director
PIERO FAGONE
editorial staff
ROBERTA PUGLISI
GIOVANNA CIRINO
NINO RANDISI
[email protected]
translations
PAOLO CARRARA, ALESSANDRA
PRUDENTE, GIOVANNA PAGANO,
ELVIRA CALABRESE (ENGLISH)
FLAVIA MARZIALETTI (FRENCH)
cover and graphic project
LUIGI MENNELLA
printed by
E.T.F. SERVICE - PALERMO
3
THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE
AND ITS ENHANCEMENT
Filipe Themudo Barata,Évora University/CIDEHUS
This paper falls within the framework of the MEDINS
project called ‘Identity is Future: editerranean Intangible Space’. My wish is to discuss about the enhancement of intangible heritage from the point of view of
the territorial planning and especially about the role,
rather the importance, of identities. Many stakeholders
of the cultural sector are currently centring their defence actions on the concept of cooperation amongst
countries and cultures. However it is important to underline how the history of the world and specially that
of the Mediterranean shows us a different reality with
regard to our pacific intentions. In order to achieve
some concrete outcomes we must be aware of the fact
that that history has been also built on disagreement
and rivalry, including war. The wish of doing well we
have now mustn’t lead us to forget about that memory,
since by doing so we would have as a result a wealth of
failed projects and agreements. These words are not
pessimistic, but realistic. It is appropriate to remind you
how during the UNESCO Convention of 2003 we found
out that there is another platform of convergence to
safeguard the intangible heritage, that is a principle
that all societies want to maintain. As a matter of fact,
the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Cultural Intangible Heritage was an opportunity to reflect about
heritage, our heritage. However, the convention has
driven us to discuss about such complex topic, whose
path is uncertain. I’d like to be more clear and go 150
years backwards to the Universal Exposition of Paris. I
believe that the most interesting section of the Swedish
4
exhibit was the so-called ‘Lapp camp’ realised by Artur
Hazellius (1833-1901). The aim was to show the other
face of industrialisation and of our memory: the way of
living within a community and in particular that of the
most endangered communities, the natural man and
the noble savage. The show was so successful that the
Swedish decided to build the same camp on a hill near
Stockholm, and it was called Skansen. This is how the
current ‘Skansen museums’ were born. They are openair museums mirroring local communities and their values. Then everybody could comment: ‘here is a good
project’. May be…
However, during the 1920s and 1930s with the development of Nazism, there was a clear trend to maintain
the purity of societies by means of museums similar to
the Skansen ones. The concept was of putting on display what showed one’s own values, characteristics and
ultimately one’s own identity. This kind of museology
has become known as the ‘Heimmat’ museums and
showed how beautiful the ‘little Homeland (Heimmat)’
was and how necessary it was to defend it against external threats. It is unfair to adopt this concept to promote ethnic cleansing and chauvinism but unfortunately this is reality. Amin Malouf showed how the fight for
identity can be dangerous in ‘In the Name of Identity:
Violence and the Need to Belong’, an essay of great impact. After the Second World War the situation
changed. One of the most remarkable ideas stemming
from Skansen was that everything was bound to happen in the outside and near the people, ultimately,
near reality. After 1945,
then, in some parts of
France but mostly in
England, the project of
Hazellius was revamped
and the ‘open-air museums’ went through a
rapid development. At
that point the museology was not aimed at putting collections on display but at showing and
studying the living conditions of the population, the way the inhabitants of a region lived,
the methods of productions in different fields. The concept of the Swedish
museum was somehow reshaped and we got closer to
the establishment of eco-museology. Let’s go back now
to the topic of heritage. Now, in my opinion, in order
to define the policies and the lines of action concerning
the Intangible Heritage, two crucial dimensions must be
taken into consideration. First of all, the results of the
technical work since it is necessary to compile inventories, catalogues and collect documents. These outcomes
pose many challenges and specialists in the field must respond
to them. At the same time, it
must be acknowledged that a
structured and technical-oriented training has not been developed yet. Besides, anthropologists and historians are still entrusted with this kind of work.
Such technical context has been
clearly recognised by the Convention for the Safeguarding of
the Intangible Heritage promoted by UNESCO in 2003. And we
have also all the issues connected to enhancement: how are we
going to enhance our heritage?
What sort of problems does that
pose? To answer that question
we must go back to the cataloguing problems, the difficulties
in putting the different institutions together, the assessment of
its absolute and relative importance, since the financing poli-
cies and the most appropriate funding schemes
must be chosen. Similarly, all decisions concerning conservation and
preservation activities
must be suitable to tackle the matter. Now, although unintentionally,
the current enhancement projects and policies are targeted at development or, even,
more oriented to
tourism, therefore they
tend to boost more the
commercial side of the
heritage enhancement. This is one of the threats the intangible heritage has to meet, since it spoils and plays
down its authenticity in a way I would describe as insidious. The consequences of those policies about cultural
heritage go beyond the simple artificiality. In fact, if we
assume that the intangible culture represents the pillars
of the identity of a community, this kind of approach
contributes to breaking the bonds of the people with
those memories. Such consequences can be mainly observed in urban contexts, where
the lack of points of reference is
more evident since the situation
pushes towards marginalization
and makes integration more difficult. This is why the enhancement strategies of that kind of
heritage must include the local
communities, not the users. In
summary, the enhancement of
intangible cultural heritage must
primarily focus on the memories
of a community and not on the
desires of tourists.We must acknowledge that there is still a
long way to go and that there
are a lot of unanswered questions. We must be careful and
give consistency to the enhancement policies by carrying out a
skilled and substantial work. This
is why I value and want to recall
a sentence Natale Giordano of
Coppem said during the meeting
in Evora: ‘don’t’ run, walk’.
5
INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE AND TURKEY’S ROLE
Turkey, a bridge between Asia and Europe, is playing a crucial role to promote a common
Euroasian Culture.
Mustafa Aydin, Coppem Representative-Turkey
Touring in a Turkish city is providing the opportunity to
encounter all cultures of the region as Middle East,
Caucasus, Balkans and, of course, the main one the Ottoman and Turkish.
Turkey managed to
create a unique civilization from the
remnants of ancient
Greek, Byzantine,
Roman, Arab, Persian, Ottoman and
the Modern Republic
formed and established by Ataturk.
Ancient sites from
10.000 B.C., Greek
and Roman eras, and
Seldjuks and Ottomans are visible
everywhere in the
countryside. Having
this cultural background Turkey now
is a bridge for dialogue between religions and civilizations. Turkey Prime
Minister Mr Erdogan
and Spanish Prime
Minister Mr Zapatero
have launched the
intercultural dialogue as pioneers of
Moslem and Christian civilizations. Despite the Moslem
majority of the population (%98) Turkey
is a secular country
providing religious
freedom to all other
beliefs. Turkish Prime
Minister Mr Erdogan
Nemrut Dagi, Apollo's head
has launched the
Temple of Civilizations in Urfa where mosques, churches and synagogues
are serving for the believers together. Recently one of
the leading Turkish businessmen and lecturers Mr Ihsan
Dogramaci has launched a mosque on the name of his
farther where Church and Synagogue are existing and
believers of Christianity and Judaism can pray together
6
at the same time in the same compound. Tolerance is
dominating the Turkish religious approach and that
promotes its role in world peace and cooperation in the
World. In addition
Turkey is the only
Moslem country
leading towards Europe and is candidate member of European Union. As
you eyewitness here
in Sanliurfa, Prophet
Abraham is the symbol of tolerance and
solidarity, and at the
same time Prophet
of all religions, Islam,
Christianity and Judaism. During their
imperial times Turks
managed to rule
Balkans, MENA region, Caucasus under
the same concept
without intervening
to the religious affairs of the dominated populations and
benefited from this
colourful and rich
cultures .They acted
as mingler of these
civilizations and created the unique
Turkish tolerance approach. Coppem as
an organization
hosting all civilizations and monotheistic religions can play
a crucial role in order to promote regional and worldwide peace by organising common activities between young people, women, intellectuals,
sports men, businessmen etc of the region in order to
promote such cultural dilague and cooperation. In addition Coppem is the platform for cooperation on economic, cultural, ourism, social areas and through its
members can disseminate the idea of intercultural co-
Sanliurfa
operation to hundreds of millions people live in
Mediterranean region . That will help both sides of
Mediterranean –Europe and South-to understand
each other better and to look for a more peaceful
and cooperative future by sharing the resources experiences and richness of their cultures. As in Sanliurfa in entire Turkey you can eyewitness the same spirit
and understanding which if is reflected to entire Europe and MENA region dialogue for peace and cooperation will be boosted and that will affect entire
World on a positive way .
We would like to announce once again that Turkish
members of the commission are ready to lead such
activities and organizations in order to provide an
opportunity to our distinguished guests and colleagues to have a powerful start for such a cooperation. In this frame we offer to establish a permanent
Intercultural Dialogue Center in Istanbul under the
compound of our university where intellectuals, politicians and other groups of the society can work on specific cultural projects. Turkey as a candidate member of
European Union believes that through the activities of
Urfa
this center we ll be able to introduce our friendship
and cooperative intention to all members of Coppem
and create a unique approach that will lead Coppem
for such activities too.
7
A bridge for dialogue
Roberta Puglisi
“On the top in the sky, a medieval small village bristling
with towers. It's Erice, once dominated by the most famous temple of the most famous goddess...Venus..with
its walls, with its well paved ways”.
In this beautiful scenario, described by Roger Peyrefitte
in 1952, that Erice becomes the destination of an ambitious and successful project: the realization of a euromediterranean excellence school. In the ex- Sales
boarding-school, restored and given by Municipality,
120 graduates every year, will have a specialistic international-juridical,institutional-administrative-politic, social-cultural-turistic training. Coppem, Anfe and Erice
Municipality have signed an agreement protocol for actions in the formative and scientific sector, cultural integration in the mediterranean ambit,nominating the
medieval village as university village for all practical
purposes. The excellence school will give a strong signal
not only to pull down every social, politic and economic
barrier but, above all, for a intercultural exchange
where peace will reign and attention will be encour-
aged to juridical,ethic and social women recognition in
the institutional orgnizations. Into details, every contries is responsible for the selection,900 hours in total,
the graduates will study branches of low, diplomat, elements of historical cultural and anthropological
method; they will compare the legislative and administrative systems of the Barcelona Treatment Countries.
The qualifications will be recognized by the Universities
adherent to the project. The main goal is to qualify the
graduates in different branches of learning, exchange
of experiences and knowledges for the benefit of the
Countries the students belong to. On the occasion of
the Excellence School project presentation, Mr Paolo
Genco, ANFE regional delegate, has underlined that
“the arrival of international diplomats shows the interest of the project from abroad. Usually, the graduates
from foreign countries will continue their studies in
Great Britain or United States, while in this case, will
continue in Erice; it is a project that aims high: on one
hand it aims to integration more cultural advanced, on
the other hand it aims to the 2010 markets opening
The advantage is real , the collaboration too and the
project will go with the times with unitary activity of
other organizations aiming in the same way”. Mr
Francesco Sammaritano, referent for Institutional
Coppem Commission has clarified that six rectors representing the 37 euromediterranean countries will be invited in Palermo to entrust their masters' political project that will start in december at Erice Majorana Centre. Regarding the activities' fund-he added-we've
adopted the co-financing formula between the countries Barcelona Process adherent”. So, with this ambitious project, Sicily, once more, becomes the link for the
dialogue among the Mediterranean countries.
COPPEM (STANDING COMMITTE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN PARTNERSHIP OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL AUTHORITIES)
Upon initiative of CEMR (Council of European Municipalities and Regions) and ATO (Arab towns organization) following the initial setting upon a
regulation agreed in Gaza (July 2000) by representatives of Local Administrations, the Standing Committee for the Euro Mediterranean Partnership
of Local and Regional Authorities (COPPEM) was established on the occasion of the 1st Plenary Assembly of its Members (Palermo, 27-28 November 2000). the purpose of Coppem is to promote both dialogue and cooperation for local development between towns, municipalities, Local Authorities, and Regions of the member Countries of the Euro Mediterranean Partnership, and their active and concrete participation in achieving the
objectives established within the Barcelona Declaration of ’95. www.coppem.org
ANFE ( NATIONAL EMIGRANTS FAMILIES ASSOCIATION) is a no-profit organization, founded in 1947, to safeguard emigrants interests
and support the italian communities in all the world. Its office is in Rome and it has become a no-profit organization with a decree n.658 from President of Republic, 12th february 1968. ANFE is organized on international level with a network of 48 delegations in 16 countries and 4 continents.
In Italy, ANFE is organized in 44 provincial delegations and 16 regional delegations.ANFE has been working in Sicily since 1950 on a different subjects: supporting migrants and their families for safeguarding their interests, organizing courses and seminars finalized to national and international cooperation in order to support disadvantaged categories, social and cultural integration and immigrants job opportunities inclusion. www.anfe.it
THE CELEBRATION OF CROSS-CULTURAL
DIALOGUE
Eleonora Insalaco, Anna Lindh Foundation
May 22nd, 2008 was a significant date in the history of
the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the
Dialogue between Cultures. It was the climax of the regional campaign launched at the beginning of 2008 and
that involved thousands of organisations and citizens in
activities aimed at enhancing exchange and dialogue.
The campaign was promoted in the framework of the
Euro-Mediterranean Year of Inter-cultural Dialogue and
it was aimed at coordinating and unifying thousands of
initiatives that are expected to foster understanding and
respect among people of different cultures. By means of
the campaign, the Anna Lindh Foundation intended to
make the daily and under-the-surface commitment of
thousands of workers in the cultural field more visible,
besides strengthening the connections between them.
It also wanted to encourage the involvement of the
people who don’t usually participate in such initiatives.
The Anna Lindh Foundation scored a considerable success in terms of participation and quality of the initiatives carried out thanks to the engagement of the network including some 2000 organisations in the EuroMediterranean region. The partnership with leading institutions and networks -such as Coppem, Ministries for
Culture and the European federation for Inter-cultural
Education- was also fundamental. Coppem believed in
the importance of this campaign for dialogue from the
very beginning together with its vast network of local
and regional authorities, and it offered its support for
organising the cultural events that took place during
the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue Night.
During the Dialogue Night more than one hundred public events happened in about thirty-five countries of the
Euro-Mediterranean area, such as concerts, theatre performances, film festivals, university parties and debates
open to the public. All the events simultaneously took
place in different venues. And simultaneity helped creating a sense of closeness among some 30,000 participants and strengthened their believe of belonging to
the same Euro-Mediterranean community that regards
dialogue as an instrument of progress, growth and respect. In most of the situations, the activities were connected to locally organised weeks of cross-cultural activities that were concluded with the Dialogue Night,
whose outcomes were presented to the public and the
media. The Night was also the opportunity for the Anna
Lindh Foundation to launch the Dialogue TV that
recorded and broadcast images and comments of the
people attending the events or willing to send their dialogue-centred messages to close or far-away countries.
Dialogue TV has now more than eight hours of messages available and more than fifty videos, including the
one made by Coppem. Moreover, the campaign’s website provided the Night with a platform for a live dialogue involving thousands of people on topical issues
related to migration, identity, cultural exchange, that is
all the themes explored by the Foundation’s activities.
According to a first evaluation and starting from the
comments received, this model has been regarded as
suitable to the involvement of local communities in
cross-cultural initiatives and open discussions about related issues of common relevance. These initiatives have
also allowed the Foundation to identify the trends and
to prioritise the areas of intervention for a real promotion of dialogue in the region in the medium and long
run. By analysing the initiatives carried out in the framework of the campaign, different priorities emerged with
regard to countries and geographical areas. In Europe,
especially in the Mediterranean countries, the organisations mainly operate to facilitate the exchange of mutual
knowledge between local residents and immigrant communities since the different groups are often closed to
each other and isolated. On the contrary, in most of the
new country members of the EU emerges and most of
the projects show the need of promoting cross-cultural
education among the local populations that have experienced an increasing volume of exchanges with other European and non-European countries over the last years.
And finally, to conclude this short and incomplete classification of the needs observed, several initiatives aimed
at fostering a deep exchange between local and foreign
communities in response to the complaint that foreign
visitors very often get to know those countries under
the form of mass tourism, while residents receive only
the information the mass media supply them about the
western world and about Europe in particular. In relation to the trends and the areas of intervention that
have been identified, the role of local authorities seems
to be pivotal to support the civil society organisations
committed to dialogue and pacific coexistence, to provide spaces where the local population can meet with
the recently settled communities and to convey the
needs observed among the local communities to the national and international authorities. Such movement for
the dialogue has won the approval of the Ministers for
Cultural Activities of the Euro-Mediterranean area who
gathered in Athens at the end of May 2008 for the first
time. They wished for the opportunity to devote one
week per year to cross-cultural dialogue.
The Anna Lindh Foundation is an organisation created and resourced by
more than 40 Euro-Mediterranean countries for the promotion of dialogue among cultures and respect of diversities. www.euromedalex.org
9
CRICD - Regional Centre for Catalogue and
Record of Cultural and Environmental Heritage
Alessandra De Caro, Regional Catalogue Centre
Vucciria - Mercato storico (Vucciria - Historical market), CRICD photographic archive
On 27th June 2008 a meeting was held at the Regional
Central Library in Palermo to focus on the final results
of the EU project ‘Medins - Identity is future: the
Mediterranean intangible space’ (Interreg IIIB Medocc
Programme). Project leader was the Centro Regionale
per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (CRICD), which belongs to the Department of Cultural Heritage, Sicilian
Regional Government. The project involved prestigious
partners, namely Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta,
Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia and Egypt and was
aimed at increasing the knowledge of Euro-Mediterranean intangible cultural heritage for its suitable protection and enhancement.
Since the beginning, the subject of Medins project has
been particularly complex for the conceptual and cultural references it embraced. Several technical meetings
were organised in Murcia (Spain), Evora (Portugal),
Bagheria (Italy), Malta, Cairo (Egypt), Athens (Greece),
Rabat (Morocco) and Palermo (Italy). Every time, participants exchanged their opinions on the different ideas
each of them had of the Mediterranean as a geographical place and as the object of individual and collective
imaginary. Comparing views on such issues without setting pre-cast limits and definitions made it possible to
develop an approach to cultural co-operation in the
Mediterranean that should revolve around doing things
together and sharing some practical operational tools.
Furthermore, some food for thought was provided on
10
the concept of identity and its relationship with the cultural heritage of a given community or, at least, with
part of it. Finally, we decided to think of the Mediterranean as a geographical area being characterised by
common elements but, much more, by differences and
discrepancies which determine its wealth nevertheless.
Therefore, project activities were devised to set up operational tools and models to widen and better organise the knowledge of different Mediterranean cultures
as well as possible processes to enhance heritage at local level. Starting from these ideas and within the
framework of the 2003 Unesco Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage, as a first step of
the project, we analysed and compared the various cataloguing systems in use across our partner regions.
Such experience exchange may give useful information
to the institutions which are currently reorganising
their own systems, provided that each of them remains
independent as to their scientific and regulatory management. The analysis was carried out also in relation
to regions’ development patterns with special reference
to the promotion of intangible cultural heritage. Moreover, in the case of European regions, policies pertaining to the planning and use of Structural Funds were
also taken into account.
Next step was to define a new operational tool for a
first cataloguing of the intangible heritage in the
Mediterranean, which had to be linked to the ones that
Città invisibili (Invisible Cities), photo by Pietro Motisi
are already in use in some regions but independent
from them. A new, simplified cataloguing form was created starting from the one used by the CRICD. As a result, a database was set up. It is the first simplified experimental catalogue of Mediterranean Intangible Heritage. The database provided the basis to devise a more
complex system which was first envisaged during the
Multimedia Labs activities of the Medins project.
This first cataloguing tool attracted the attention of
Unesco and other institutions and bodies which have
long dealt with preservation, promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage.
Furthermore, one of the partnership’s strong points was
represented by its heterogeneous partners, namely universities, regions, municipalities, local integrated projects (PITs) and associations. The presence of networks in
the project made it possible to disseminate results
widely, through Coppem, Unimed and Herimed. We
succeeded in attracting partners from the two shores of
the Mediterranean, such as Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria
and Morocco and in making project tools and practice
available to them. The Medins project enabled us to establish strong personal links and to share common
goals and projects. More specifically, CRICD and other
partner institutions and organisations put forward
some proposals to protect and enhance the Mediterranean Tangible and Intangible heritage for the 20072013 Euro-Mediterranean scenario.
Among the activities of the Medins project, the show
‘Le città invisibili’ (Invisible cities) was staged at the
Vucciria historic street market in Palermo on 27-29 June
2008, featuring ‘Teatro Potlach’. The whole neighbourhood was included in the show: its squares, alleys,
palaces, courtyards and monuments became a single
stage where multidisciplinary art performances were
put on the theme of Mediterranean identity and memory of place. The audience were turned into travellers
across the thousand-year identity, into archaeologists
exploring the living memory, into main characters in
the event. The show pivoted around the mutual exchange of sensations among artists, local inhabitants
and audience. Invisible was made visible. During the
project implementation phase, 2 web sites were designed and created: www.invisiblemedins.org (University of the Granada) and http://medinsuevora.wordpress.com (University of Evora), which provide information on the history of the Medins project.
11
Pa.Cu.S. - The Information-technology system
of the Cultural Heritage of the Sicilian Region
Fabio Bortoletti, Regional Catalogue Centre
OBJECTIVES. The project is aimed at giving Sicily a leading position
with regard to the knowledge of Cultural Heritage both in terms
of production and of data access, thanks to the use of the most advanced Information Technology. The project is in line with the policy of increasing the knowledge and disseminating information
about the Cultural Heritage of the Sicilian Region, which has been
recognised as a strategic and development value in itself and a
support to tourism. The project has been awarded the special prize
of the Scientific Committee of the Eighth Italian Conference of ESRI Users that took place on 20/21 April 2005 in Rome.
CONTENS. The project has made the Computerised Regional Catalogue of The Cultural Heritage of Sicily operative through a special
software capable of managing the entire process of cataloguing
and in particular:
• planning of the cataloguing campaigns
• control of the advancements of the campaigns (reporting)
• drafting and promulgation of cataloguing rules
• introduction and validation of alphanumeric data, of multimedia
data (fixed and moving images, sounds, graphs etc.) and territorial
ones (geo-referencing based on maps, aerial and satellite photos)
• make data available for external users, by following a hierarchical level of access licence.
The project has also covered the following areas:
• supply of basic computer hardware (PCs, laptops, multimedia
workstations, workstations for using GIS software scanners, printers, digital cameras, video cameras etc.) and of network devices
(modem, router, switches, server etc.) for all the offices of the Cultural Heritage Department of the Sicilian Region that are involved
in the cataloguing process
• creating LANs at all involved offices even by employing wireless
technologies if necessary
• training programmes for the staff
• co-management of the system between Regional Administration/company for the first year
• assistance and guarantee.
As for all the back-office activities of the peripheral and CRICD (Regional Centre for Inventory, Catalogue and Documentation for cataloguing matters) offices, the system is organised as a VPN network that uses a MPLS infrastructure given by a provider as for the
geographical connectivity. A network has been established connecting 15 museums, 10 offices of the Superintendent for Fine Arts
(that are divided among 21 main buildings, 8 museums and antiquariums , three archaeological areas) and also the Unit of Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and 23 further offices connected only as users that are distributed across the nine
provinces of Sicily.
Each user has access through a login process associated to its user’s
profile that is set up depending on its role. Each profile is matched
with a specific software usage authorization system. Very soon, the
front-offices will be able to let the public have access to a special
database through the internet.
12
Different interfaces will be employed according the kind of users,
and two different logic of interrogation will be possible: a direct
one for the users who are already expert on how to organise data
within the catalogue cards, and one that employs similar panes to
those of the most popular search engines. The database will be
available to the public and it will be a replica of the central database, cleaned of the information subject to privacy restriction. The
catalogue system currently manages 27 kinds of cards referable to
six large families of heritage: Natural; Landscape; Architecture, Urban and Archaeological; Ethno-Anthropological; Historical-Artistic
and Iconographic; Archival.
In addition to the current productions, the catalogue cards are also
added to the central database complete with the connected multimedia and graphic annexes coming from the retrieval of digital data collected during old projects realised over the last 15 years. The
intervention to retrieve all these information has resulted in the
unification of different databases that had each their own structure
and filing system and that did not allow them to be turned into relational ones.
Conclusions. We believe that the implementation of the Computerised Regional Catalogue of the Cultural and Environmental Heritage is a crucial stage in the process of acquisition, study and sharing of knowledge. In fact, on the one hand it constitutes an operational instrument of the Cultural Heritage and Permanent Education Department of the Regional Administration; on the other
hand, it allows an increase in the number of users by reaching also
those who are interested in the cultural heritage, not only for institutional reasons, by allowing its access through the internet and
with similar procedures to those of the most popular search engines. Hence, the system meets the needs of institutional and professional users at the same time by ensuring the access to the necessary information with regard to:
• Territorial and urban planning (it provides all the information on
the sites of interest divided by geographical area)
• Control of territory and environment
• Civil protection (it ensures a quick intervention to protect movable goods in case of natural disaster thanks to the geo-referenced
positioning also as a defence against looting)
• Protection and safeguard (thanks to the network connection with
the Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage that allows an immediate access to all the information and the images showed on
the catalogue card of the goods in case of theft)
• Planning of tourism activities
• Organisation of Educational activities. and others.
The system also meets the needs of any citizens who is interested in
the subject of cultural heritage for any reasons. The actual and primary macro-objective of the computerised cataloguing of Cultural
Heritage can only be that of contributing to achieve an extensive
knowledge of the territory and its resources in its wider meaning in
order to guarantee their protection and most suitable use. To this
end the integration with the other computerised systems is required.
UNIVERSAL CULTURES' FORUM
http://www.forumnapoli2013.it
The Universal cultures' forum organized by a will of
Barcelona, since 1996, has started up, with Unesco, to
create a new great event enable to put the city in the
meddle of a wide international network. The event,
through the dialogue among people, wants to come up
to problems coming from globalization process, turning
to inequalities, new poverties, to massive migratory
movements which cause deep politic,social,economic
and religious impacts.Aiming to “ value of coexistence”
the organization proposes initiatives tied up to promotion of diversities' respect, to cultural wealt's value,
with activities improving access of information and
knowledge to foster new development's opportunities.
The first Forum( 9th march/26th september 2004) organized into 3 topics – cultural diversity,sustainable development, condition for peace – whose have become
the heart of marked actions able to promote an social
active participation, able to cut into a more common
economic and urban city's regeneration, casted worldwide. The Forum was a chance to upgrade city's parts,
in particular a 500,000 sq area where the event has taken place. The initiative was a success so much so that a
foundation was born working for the event spread and
a cities' interational competition for their candidature.
Monterrey Event took place from 20th september to
8th december 2007 and developed into 3 topics pointed out during the Barcelona Process- cultural
diversity,sustainable development and condition for
peace, cognition.This city, that has beaten the competition of Fukoka(Japan) and Durban(South Africa), has
been chosen, not only for the promotion of meeting
between anglosaxon and american-latin cultures, but as
a real centre of excellence in the field of training and
education with its highest percentage per capita of
schools and educational centres and in the end for its
strategic position not far from american border, matchless basin of potential visitors. Naples is participating at
the Universal Forum of the culture in , has declared
Nicola Oddati, Naples Town Councillor responsible for
Culture and Development, considering the forum as a
great strategic opportunity to play a role in the general
debate on cultural and social topics Naples wants to
give to Monterrey its greatness and
its complexities in order to share
the greatness and find new solutions to afford the complexities. We confide in the
chance to learn new solution ways through
the confrontation
with new and
different experiences. Mr Oddati, whom coordinates
the event's activities,underlines that among the many
questions in the international politic agenda, the Cultures' Universal Forum topics deal with some of them,
for instance, the peaceful coexistence of the people.
For this reason Naples proposes itself as candidate to
host the Cultures' Universal Forum in 2013. Naples is a
open naturally city to the Mediterranean, a strategic
area and hinge for cultures and exchanges.Naples is in
the meddle of flows between conflicts and harmony. In
order to build Peace it will be necessary the confronting between cultures of Europe,Africa,Asia and
North and South America, between clerical faiths and
non clerical, between the several visions of way of life
and way to live in Naples proposes itself to contribute
to follow this path accepting this dare re-examining itself as city open to inter-ethnic and inter-cultural city as
the history has proved.
13
THE VARIOUS FACES OF EMIGRATION
A documentary about migration between the two shores of the Mediterranean
Ilia Mazzone, second commission Coppem
Europe, the main source for migratory flows over the
past centuries, has become since the last century the
landing place for migrants coming from North Africa
and also the Middle East. This phenomenon has considerably increased over the decades with remarkable consequences for the relations between local population
and immigrant labour force. The current and complex
situation is leading to an intolerable trend, that is on the
one hand a prejudice of human dignity of the participants to the migratory flows, on the other it gives a contribution to their involvement in petty crime and organised crime circles, both on a local and international level.
The ensuing social and cultural conflicts, which have
characterised and are still relevant in shaping the immigration history, end up fulfilling a picture far from being
ideal, a picture bound to have legality and protection of
the rights of the most vulnerable social groups as its purpose in the long-run. The final aim must be a progressive
integration which, as we will see, turns out to be potentially rewarding both for the migrants and for the receiving countries. This topical issue involves Sicily first of all,
since it is the first landing site for thousands of migrants
coming from both North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the
Middle East, and also because it is a model of ‘integration’ between local population and immigrants.
Many of the immigrants reach Europe on unsafe and
overcrowded vessels, often risking their lives and carrying tourist visas or forged passports. They are most of
the times the first victims of a criminal network that is
active across Maghreb and Europe itself. A real trafficking in human lives enriching the coffers of the “new
types of mafia” of any form and provenance, an illegal
activity which generates profits without any kind of control and taxation and is second only to drug trafficking.
14
This situation has ended up to favouring a sort of addiction in the public opinion and a more frequent sense of
mistrust towards those who are “different”, who land
and “pose a threat” to unstable and precarious balances.
Little is known about the one who “comes from far
away”, the immigrant, while cases of overt or creeping
xenophobia are dangerously increasing the drama of the
everyday reality. The spreading of those sentiments contributes to making people losing sight of the global
characteristics of migration and of the analysis of possible future prospects. Nonetheless the local market is no
longer able to fulfil the spiralling need for labour force:
there is a request for fresh minds and fresh arms which
can only make the national economies wealthier.
The idea of a documentary arises from this considerations in order to show what is hidden behind those faces
by reporting the words of the migrations’ protagonists.
The documentary ‘The various faces of emigration between the two shores of the Mediterranean’, made by
Coppem with the support of the Sicilian Regional Ministry for Family, Social Policies and Local Authorities in
2008, deals with the different migration routes, both legal and illegal. Those who tried to cross the Channel of
Sicily as illegal immigrants tell of the hardships and risks
linked to illegal migration, of the suffering of the relatives of those who didn’t reach the goal. And those who
succeeded in landing on the Sicilian shores dramatically
tell of the price they had to pay and not only in economic terms. The focus of the documentary movie shifts then
onto those who have managed to become part of the
social fabric in a legal way and are now providing a vital
social and working contribution to the new country of
residence, and whose remittances are also an essential
contribution to supporting the families in their countries
ph. “islam-bad”, reda berradi
of origin and helping their development. Those examples of integration are purposely mentioned to conclude
this document with a positive message: in a desirable future scenario peoples of different origins, bearing different cultural models and spiritual values will be able to
coexist on the basis of mutual respect and consider those
differences as a precious “added value”. Integration
mustn’t imply the loss of one’s own roots, therefore it is
necessary that immigrants of second generation, that is
people who have been born in Europe from immigrant
parents, develop their own identities keeping in mind
the fundamental role those young people can possibly
play in bridging different cultures. The presence of immigrants is very strong in many European cities. Legal immigration plays a role in meeting the “spiralling need
for skilled and unskilled labour force in some sectors of
European economy partly due to the growing demographic decrease” (High Council for International Cooperation of the French Government).
The aim of the present project is also in line with what
stated in the Barcelona Declaration whose participants
“reaffirm that dialogue and respect between cultures
and religions are a necessary precondition for bringing
the peoples closer. In this connection they stress the importance of the role the mass media can play in the reciprocal recognition and understanding of cultures as a
source of mutual enrichment”. The documentary ‘The
various faces of emigration between the two shores of
the Mediterranean’ by Ilia Mazzone has the purpose of
conveying the message that a coexistence, based on exchange of ideas and respect of cultural differences and
also on different processes of social inclusion, would
benefit everybody. As a consequence, the differences become fundamental elements for a mutual enrichment.
15
On a quite late afternoon, as I was scouring a piece of
Sicilian land for a long sought-after Nerello Mascalese, I
received a phone call from across the island. Even
though that area remained unknown to me in its geography, it was perfectly renowned thanks to the flashing
sparkles which an outstanding Rosso del Conte had offered to my view. On the phone, a friendly voice. It was
rich in tunes that sounded like coming from small wine
vats where the most fragrant vines are fermenting. It’s
the Architect Alessandra De Caro from the Sicilian Region who, despite stage-managing the outnumbered
initiatives she is involved in, finds time and is kind
enough to invite me to the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue Night’. The sound of these words and their
meaning charm my dreaming spirit immediately: night,
dialogue, Mediterranean, and Europe. For all of them,
all together, I could give up all thoughts of spending
one night with a Creole beauty — maybe. The event
will be held at the impressive premises of Spasimo, in
the Kalsa district, Palermo. Like any good Piedmontese
on a business trip, my doubtful mind hesitates immediately: in my memory, Spasimo is depicted in a painting
which features, painfully, its loose floor, rubble, and a
transept locked by a gate made of unsteady wooden
planks. Still, I am welcomed at a marvellous place, an
ideal location for theatre performances, concerts and
cultural events. During the international workshop on
‘Intangible Culture and intercultural dialogue’, various
enthusiastic speakers deliver pondered, intense, composed speeches on the many nuances of intangible heritage and dialogue. They come from Murcia, Evora, La
Valletta, Rabat and, of course, from across Sicily. ‘Intercultural dialogue and the role of co-operation in the
Mediterranean’ is the topic of discussion during the afternoon round table meeting: it is a great opportunity
to exchange experience and suggest incentives. Natale
Giordano, from Coppem, chairs the meeting carefully
but in a dragon-like voice. Everything goes very
smoothly, maybe too much: speeches are mainly propositional ones, with some idealistic remarks. I fear that
my “contribution” might break spirits, as it focuses on
practices that could not be defined as virtuous. In fact, I
have experienced those practices in assessing many EU
projects and I have always tried to find a remedy for
them, by teaching Project Cycle Management wherever
and whenever I was allowed to. All of a sudden,
Francesco Albergoni helps me to score a point in an unintentional but inspiring way. The representative of
Herimed warns the audience against easy enthusiasm,
recalls lost opportunities, and insists on the need to adjust projects to practical features, where measurable elements have to find their place and importance. What
better occasion, for me, to tell how institutions implementing territorial projects are faced with an impressive number of proposals that are full of worrying issues, such as lack of beneficiaries’ involvement in the
funding scheme, poor attention to problems, a priori
solutions and actions, and the muddle over services and
outcomes, to name but a few? As a matter of fact,
many projects seem to be carried out with the sole aim
of obtaining funds, neglecting the actual difficulties,
suffering, and crises people, businesses and whole areas
are hit by. Moreover, very often, those who plan project
proposals are so presumptuous to think they know
everything about other people’s problems and that involving them actively would be totally unnecessary.
Such an attitude often makes projects useless, generating only frustration on people’s expectations (with
shortcomings at social and family level) and on businesses (with negative consequences for local economic
development).
Bad practice. A comparison
An aid project can be considered as a kind of therapy
whose final goal is the measurable and lasting improvement of some initial problems that beneficiaries are
faced with. Let us imagine a team of doctors who administer medicine and treatment without any knowledge of their patients’ disease. Those doctors would
not be regarded as professionals and struck off the roll.
Let us imagine a team of planners who draft a project
on paper (very often using a ‘copy and paste’ technique). This means they wish to carry out actions and
provide solutions without having any idea of the difficulties that those who should gain some benefits from
Night, dialogue, Mediterranean, and Europe.
Paolo Bonesso
16
the project have to tackle. Well, such modus operandi is
quite widespread and has been allowed for decades —
even by institutions, as these focus more on their administrative burdens than on projects’ outcomes for
beneficiaries and social fabric as a whole. Hence, it has
been deemed normal. Repeating such a behaviour over
time and accepting it (“everyone behaves that way”)
has lead to bad practice. Something which capacity
building and other tools are aimed at breaking up,
even if this is no easy task.
Small meditation on capacity building
I hope I would not appear too pedantic in reminding
you that capacity building is based on some easy principles. These result from the general idea that people
and their difficulties should be respected along with
the importance of helping them to overcome their
problems. In such a sense, the participation of people
as subjects and not as objects should prevent us from
thinking that those who need a project to solve their
problems are unable to participate in it and, thus, considering them only as final service users. Unfortunately,
this makes us implement services regardless of the spinoffs they may bring about for beneficiaries. Furthermore, the lack of respect for local knowledge and skills
can lead us to work out solutions that clash with local
culture and are unacceptable, so they prove self-defeating and are hamstrung. Services that infringe that basic
idea almost always remain unused, as the expected results are not produced by the service itself. If we cannot
ensure participants’ influence on the decision-making
process, they can perceive projects as a foreign body
which is against their wishes. As a result, they cannot
feel any sense of ownership about it. Capacity building
is a learning process. Sharing all the project stages with
its participants is useful to learn a number of things.
For instance, we learn that without the participants’
help in identifying problems and organising them logically, projects remain general, abstract like a barren exercise of style, a kind of lost opportunity. Moreover, we
learn that beneficiaries are precious when it comes to
finding solutions, choosing actions, identifying external
indicators and conditions, as those who are hit by major difficulties play a key role in all the project phases
and features, from monitoring to assessment, and from
consistency to sustainability. I would also remind you
that capacity building is more an attitude than a set of
technical skills. It is a state of the mind which means
genuinely respecting others, especially the weakest
ones and those who are most in need. Hence, it is a
natural and cultural approach which is by no means
triggered by technical skills. Paying respect to the principles mentioned above, we should focus on some important goals. Firstly, a fairer decision-making process
increases the awareness of their political role among
disadvantaged groups. Moreover, it proves essential to
support them in better controlling their future (empowerment). Second, people learn better and more
quickly if they do things for themselves. If people in
need are helped to plan and manage their interests
and commitment, results will be more consistent with
their real needs. Fostering such capacity and skills within groups that are in charge of projects is clearly fundamental to capacity building. Moreover, capacity building is a pre-condition for project sustainability. Third,
participation is a tool to increase project effectiveness.
If people are really involved in the decision-making
process, they will be more committed to the project fulfilment and objectives may be shared more easily (effectiveness). Last but not least, whilst effectiveness is related to the level of goal achievement (using the required tools and inputs), efficiency includes some extra
food for thought on expenses. If responsibility is taken
more rapidly when it comes to implementing the project by means of capacity building, this will improve the
overall efficiency. Now, in my opinion, it is time to stop
wondering why capacity building is so far away from
being applied. After such a deep analysis, it is better to
use it and make it possible that projects, ‘our’ projects,
are not conceived for ourselves but for others, or better, with others, paving the way for full, active and
aware participation of those who are in need. Once
and for all, let us stop sticking to that hypocritical belief ‘I do it for your sake’ without even asking other
people what their sake is.
17
MEDINS TRANSNATIONAL WORKSHOP
Intangible heritage as existing proof of diversity which became unity
Lucio Tambuzzo, I World
The world is more and more a village without borders,
an intercultural global space. This may be an opportunity but also a danger. In fact, as borders disappear,
identity is at risk of disappearing too and when it becomes uncertain, self-definition is achieved through
the denial of others. Hence, intolerance, xenophobia,
racism appear and backfire on intercultural dialogue,
annihilating it. Acknowledging diversity as mankind’s
wealth is the basis on which to lay intercultural dialogue, as only in diversity peoples and cultures can
meet and mutually define each other. Our identity is
strengthened only within diversity, comparing our-
18
selves to others. Intangible heritage is the actual existing proof of positive coexistence of diversity which became unity, it is an atemporal intercultural dialogue: it
is a comparison and exchange between different peoples in different periods which has been stratified over
the centuries. Even more, it provides a meeting point
with our ancestors, whose presence is invisible and still
materialised through heritage itself, giving shape to
the unique vertical intercultural dialogue. For instance,
a large number of intangible culture elements are the
product of some interaction between different peoples
who came into contact at some time in history and de-
veloped what is defined as intangible heritage. The
idea that intercultural dialogue is historically fundamental to identify traditions and identities suggests
how important it is that traditions change as a condition on them to survive in future, as they bear witness
to an ever-changing identity resulting from the interaction between diverse traditions. In contemporary society, oral traditions are continuously mixed with influences from other cultures. Such combination gives rise
to new traditions which, in turn, make identity evolve
so that the past can continue to live in the present. It is
in through exchange that different entities may get together not with the aim of imposing one’s view to others but opening to them, overcoming one’s limits, discovering new horizons so as to let identity develop and
create a “tradition of traditions” (quotation from Eugenio Barba). Therefore, given that intangible heritage
sums up the “tradition of oral traditions”, which are
changeable and in ongoing transformation, we all
have the great responsibility for starting traditions, for
being open-minded towards intercultural dialogue
that we cannot avoid and shaping new syntheses of
ever-changing traditions. Hence, tradition is not unchanging. It is no orthodox transmission of knowledge.
It is not and end in itself because if so, this would
mean that the past strangles any bud of life and the
dead bury the living. We need to interpret the sense of
traditions continuously so that it belongs to us and traditions may survive even if being transformed due to
overall cultural trends set by the currently existing generation. Only in this manner, traditions can be handed
down to future generations as ways to interpret the
ever-changing collective identity which took root in
the past. On the other hand, traditions in themselves
do not exist, only people who embody them do exist
(Barba). Existing traditions are not crystallised forms
belonging to the past. On the contrary, they are living
forms that are interpreted again and again. They are
new forms which mix up, flow into and circulate within intercultural society.
Intangible cultural heritage as a work of art – I ART:
the poetics of Identity. I Art suggests that art is action
took in the present, free expression of authenticity and
identity of a given individual or community. The work
of art has to be a living thing, as it is the act of the living human being who created it. I Art shifts the attention from object to action, from the tangible to the intangible. As a result, the domain of intangible cultural
heritage and intercultural oral traditions becomes the
natural expression of artistic activity, as they are living
culture and noble ways of expressing the community
identity. In such a sense, intangible cultural heritage
can be seen as a form of artistic activity and, thus, it
can be raised to the rank of work of art: they are noble, essential expressions of identity from a community
that has become concrete in atemporal, humanised
shapes which interpret thousand-year-old cultures and
bridge a gap between past cultures and contemporary
attitude. Thus, thousand-year-old local identities acquire contemporary aesthetic and functional codes and
characterise as works of art according to the ‘I ART’
principles. As a result, new forms are created, consistently with techniques and attitudes from the past.
Still, a new, contemporary meaning is given to them,
showing that from real experience and memory a
brand-new form can be developed.
19
The MEDINS Multimedia Laboratories
Jesse Marsh, Atelier Studio Associato, Consultant to the City of Bagheria
The City of Bagheria had a particolar role in the MEDINS
project, leading an activity called “Multimedia Laboratories”. The MEDINS Multimedia Laboratories –
MMMedins – looked at multimedia as a means for capturing and representing ICH and promoting inter-cultural dialogue on the one hand, and on the other examined the issues faced by MEDINS as an argument of
technology research, especially as regards the social construction of traditions and cultural knowledge and its
semantic framework. In this second aspect, the activity
also acted as a critical counterpoint to the cataloguing
activities that constituted the main thrust of the
MEDINS project. Each of the partners involved in this activity – Evora, Granada, Kalivia and Malta as well as
Unimed followed by Herimed – each chose to experiment different tools, from video-blogs supporting anthropological research to web forums enabling communities to debate on the best recipe for a local gastronomical specialty, paying special attention to emerging
“Web 2.0” and “social networking” that are based on
broad public involvement in the construction and structuring of Internet content. In Bagheria, the local Multimedia Laboratory adopted participatory approaches
from the outset, with two workshops held at Palazzo
Cutò June 12th and July 31st 2007 in order to identify
together the topics to address and the approaches to
follow. On this basis, an Internet-based mapping of local
ICH was developed using the communitywalk.com service. This map indicates the places where local traditions
are manifest – pastry shops, eateries and bakeries, artisan workshops, site and paths of feasts and procession,
a trail of the Sicilian cart, etc. – associating multimedia
representations to the points on the map. The Bagheria
working group of the Multimedia Laboratories inserted
some of the main places with images and videos as examples, leaving the map open to the contributions of all
citizens. To this end, two sessions were held with the
IFTS course at the “Don Sturzo” technical-commercial institute to illustrate the use of these tools and insert new
sites with the aim of developing multimedia services for
cultural tourism. In parallel, Herimed, one of the
MEDINS partners participating in the Multimedia Laboratories activity, defined a simplified descriptive data
format common to all partners and, in close collaboration with the Bagheria group, prototyped a web service
that illustrates ICH resources from different cultures,
navigating for instance from an image of the “Saint
Joseph’s Sfincia” (a typical pastry tied to the celebrations of St. Joseph) to a mappa of the procession of the
Patron Saint of Bagheria, a video of a horseback procession of Our Lady of Aires in Portugal or a cookie made
20
for Orthodox Easter celebrations in Greece. Different
partners expressed interest in inserting elements from
their local archives in the prototype – later dubbed “The
Transporter” – and to this end a collaborative workshop
called a “Multimedia Jam” was organised.
The Multimedia Jams and the Night of Intangibile Heritage. The first Multimedia Jam was held in Villa Cattolica May 20th-22nd 2008, with the participation of three
groups of persons: researchers in areas related to cultural
heritage (MEDINS partner representatives); researcher in
new technologies and media (MEDINS partners and experts from the University of Pisa’s “Living Lab”) and
Bagheria citizens with a particolar love for their local traditions. Villa Cattolica was provided with WiFi coverage
for the duration of the three-day event, so all participants could bring their own computers to share their resources online. Partners were thus able to discuss the
simplified data structure in relation to their own archives
and learn to use social software platforms such as Flickr
and YouTube as repositories for their multimedia files as
well as resources through which to find new material. In
addition, a taxonomy of intangible culture developed in
another MEDINS activity – the “Semantic Framework” –
was integrated into the Transporter database structure,
thus giving its navigation scheme greater smoothness
and scientific rigour. In a second edition of the Multimedia Jam held in Granada in June 2008, a draft XML code
was defined that allows for the direct exchange of data
between the Transporter and different external databases of ICH elements. The week of the Multimedia Jam in
Bagheria also coincided with the “Euro-Mediterranean
Dialogue Night” organised by Coppem. The MEDINS
Multimedia Laboratories contributed to these initiatives
with video material from a culture fest held Malta several days previously and of the on-going events in Palermo. To culminate the week, the first “Multimedia Night”
was organised in Palazzo Cutò on Friday, May 23rd 2008.
An open invitation to local citizens encouraged them to
come to Palazzo Cutò with their own contribution to local intangible heritage: an old photo, a piece of craftsmanships, a family recipe, s song to sing or a poem to recite. Again a WiFi network was installed in Palazzo
Cutò’s courtyard, so the MMMedins Laboratory team was
able to tape, scan and film these ICH elements and insert
them into the Transporter database in real time. The
MEDINS project’s multimedia web service was then enriched with new entries such as Ignazio Buttitta’s poetry
read by Antonino Lo Piparo, a grandmother’s lullaby
sung by Valentina Maggiore and “Lunga è a’ nuttata”, a
love serenade by Paolo Zarcone.
Prospects for the Future. If nothing else, an important
contribution of the Multimedia Laboratories to the
MEDINS project’s outcomes has simply been to identify
innovative paths for cultural policies aiming to promote
intangible cultural heritage. The most important conclusion here is perhaps the importance of the participatory dimension. The Multimedia Jam developed the innovative Transporter service through a “co-design”
method adopted by the inter-disciplinary group of anthropology researchers and web service designers, each
an “expert” in their own field and a “normal person”
for the others. In the intense collaborative environment
of the two Multimedia Jams, solutions emerged bridging the confines of the two scientific domains. Even
more, the Multimedia Night at Palazzo Cutò demon-
strated the degree to which ICH is a product of the
community taken as a whole. These were indeed innovative experiences with an important impact on the
methodological outcomes of the MEDINS project. To
fully reflect the culture and the traditions of a city such
as Bagheria, the tools and methods of the Multimedia
Laboratories will have to find a broader participation
and a less experimental, more stable structure. If the
role of a European project such as MEDINS is to explore
and identify new tools for an effective policy to safeguard and promote cultural heritage, it is now up to
the citizens, the cultural associations and the local institutions to apply these tools for a real development of
the local community based on the reinforcement and
promotion of its identity.
Mediterranean Culture
Reflections by Biagio Sciortino, Mayor of the City of Bagheria
As Mayor of a Sicilian city of 50,000, but above all as one
of its inhabitants and thus as a citizen of the Mediterranean, I would like to share with you some reflections
on intangible culture: what we have in common and
what the administrators of a city like Bagheria can do to
defend and promote its culture, traditions and identity.
As I walked through the streets of the beautiful town of
Evora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the
MEDINS project’s Portuguese partner, I was struck by the
view of a door open on the street, with an old lady
dressed in black visible inside embroidering. She was using the daylight to work by, sitting insider her home but
leaning out towards the street, to show herself as part of
the community, willing to exchange a few words with a
passer-by, maybe also to show me the foreigner, proudly
but discretely, the beauty of her embroidery. I thought
then that our real heritage is in people’s daily lives, that
this is the true essence of a city that we all risk loosing if
we only pay attention to the tourist attractions and important monuments. In Bagheria we have a particular divide between the monuments – 18th Century summer
villas of Palermo’s aristocrats – and the traditions of a
population that never lived in those villas. Tourists come
to visit the villas, to see what they’re told to see; it’s hard
to get to know the people, who have a different story to
tell, more intimate but no less interesting. Instead I be-
lieve that to breath in the daily live of a place is to capture its culture, its history, its essence. Seeing the old lady
I saw Evora, but I also saw much of myself and my own
culture. In that moment I also felt a sense of brotherhood with our project colleagues from the University of
Evora both also those from Murcia, Granada, Attica, Malta and Rabat. Because the history revealed in that daily
life is also the history of the Mediterranean and of its
many peoples and their journeys, their commerce, their
wars and their trade. Our main task as administrators is
to promote the culture of our places: culture in the
broadest sense not just a building but embracing the
whole city and the people who live there. MEDINS is a
good example of a transversal exchange following a
common logic, that allows us to see and to bring out a
specific dimension of the culture we share with Greece,
Spain, Portugal, Malta, Morocco and all the other participating countries. In this project we have chosen to develop the idea of a laboratory as a place of exchange, osmosis and Mediterranean creativity that investigates the
layers of our cultures and reuses them to paint new images. With this choice we want – together and concretely – to put into practice a strategy that addresses the important challenge we faces as administrators of the City
of Bagheria. As a demonstration that, above all, culture
is life and knowledge.
21
MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION
An action plan for the immigrant community in the Region of Murcia.
Aurora Lema Campillo, Ángel Iniesta Sanmartín, Inmaculada García Simó
Multiculturality happens when moving
peoples meet, therefore it has always existed in human societies. It has changed
though the way the
issue is dealt with.
Only in recent times,
policies have been
outlined to make the
integration of immigrants easier, to enhance a multicultural
education or a crosscultural dialogue.
And what is new is
not immigration,
which is not a novel phenomenon, but the policies that
have been devised to tackle the issue. On the one hand it
is undeniable that our intangible cultural heritage existed
before the concept itself had been formulated, yet together with the ethnographic heritage it has been totally
neglected by any conservation policies. The officers of the
Regional Government and the team of Murcia implementing the MEDINS project have always stated how the management of the intangible heritage is to be connected to
the other priorities with regard to regional, national and
European policies. Among those priorities there is that of
increasing the actions aimed at helping the integration of
immigrants who are currently living in Murcia.
To this end, the team who is leading the MEDINS project
and the Murcian association NERI -that deals with immigrants- have devised a project to study and catalogue the
intangible heritage of the immigrant communities in the
region in an integrated way. The Region of Murcia have
made all the documents about its intangible heritage
available for them. The Region of Murcia is located in the
south-east of the Iberian peninsula. Its position has turned
this land into a border area, hence into a place where
many cultures meet and have informed its history and
character. The population of the Region, in its turn, has
been concerned with emigration. These two factors have
made a contribution to give the identity of the Region an
heterogeneous cultural character. The economic and social
situation that have prevailed across the Mediterranean
basin over the last third part of the twentieth century
have transformed our region into a society that receives
working immigrants often coming from the near shores
but also from the Sub-Saharan Africa, South America,
Eastern Europe and the Far East. There are then other im-
22
migrants who are not
driven by working
needs but, on the
contrary, by intrinsic
motivation. They
come from Central
Europe (Great Britain,
Germany) and have
become the most numerous immigrant
community. In figures,
we can say that the
immigrants to the Region of Murcia are
currently more than
12% of the total population, according to
the official data, although the number of those who are still illegal today
must be added. Some of the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of the intangible heritage make it not only an effective meeting space for the dialogue among the cultures
but also an instrument to manage the diversity of the contemporary societies:
• all the people have and carry with themselves their own
intangible heritage: we all belong to a cultural tradition;
• it allows the heritage of the minority groups to be acknowledged;
• the intangible heritage is alive;
• the focus must be placed more on the processes than on
the products;
• the most important role is to be played by those who
possess it;
• the spaces created to meet thanks to the intangible heritage are lasting ones.
Everybody possesses and is a carrier of this kind of intangible heritage that is reflected on the way everybody lives in
and understands the world. That’s is why it is a good starting point for the cross-cultural dialogue that can lead to a
mutual knowledge on which an exchange can be established, one that allows a mutual enrichment to happen.
Moving from this premise, the Murcian association for the
immigrants ‘NERI’ together with the team managing the
MEDINS project have started a project to try and give a
practical answer to the theoretical needs that have been
discussed and thought about in the framework of the
same project. The purpose of the project is the integration
of the intangible heritage of the immigrants in the Region
of Murcia within the classification system of cultural heritage managed by the regional administration. Some priority lines of intervention have been worked out to attain
the goals set in the project; those lines are necessary to
turn any interventions into a participatory process for establishing and maintaining areas to meet and enhance
the cross-cultural dialogue. The working method is aimed
at promoting a ‘participatory action’ since it is more successful in combining the involvement of communities and
it allows a social and cultural approach to the problems of
contemporary societies. The proposals have the following
objectives:
• to catalogue and know the intangible cultural heritage
of the immigrants communities currently living in Murcia;
• to increase the mutual knowledge and understanding
between the immigrants communities and the receiving
one;
• to be an opportunity for meeting and fostering the
cross-cultural dialogue;
• to make the immigrants’ integration into our communities easier, by means of activities suited for the promotion
of the cultural heritage on a practical level, such as meet-
ing with Murcian or immigrant craftsmen, musicians
or gastronomists.
• to disseminate the intangible heritage of both receiving
and immigrant communities
within the region and beyond
its borders by employing new
media and technologies;
• to promote the participation and education of immigrants, and to establish a network of volunteers that act as a cultural bridge with reality and with a population that is approached only from a
social and welfare standpoint. A new field of action is
made available for citizens.
The project provides for more than seventy activities, but
we will shortly focus on the work to be done in cataloguing. According to our plans, at least twenty different items
of the intangible heritage coming from five different
places will be catalogued. The start of the concrete actions
provided for by the project to reach its goals and objectives should enable us to produce at least the following
outcomes:
• To know the cultural heritage of the immigrant community living in the Region of Murcia and to add it to the
database of the intangible heritage of Murcia, which has
been set up by the General Directorate of Fine Arts and
Cultural Heritage of the Region. To add to the catalogue
twenty new files concerning twenty different concrete examples of intangible heritage coming from different
countries. And to add these files also to the Medins database.
• To promote voluntary work in the cultural sector; to encourage at least ten volunteers to cooperate in cultural activities and to ensure that the institutions that are promoting voluntary work in the region will provide future
educational, documentation and promoting activities concerning the intangible cultural heritage.
• To start a blog and open a forum to discuss about intangible heritage and cross-cultural dialogue in the framework of the ‘European Year of Intercultural Dialogue’.
• To link to the website of the association NERI, which
publishes all the information concerning the project, and
at least to twenty similar websites inside and outside
Spain and the European Union, which show interest in the
intangible heritage.
• To publish on two websites and on You Tube five audiovisual documents showing examples of the intangible heritage of immigrants.
• To publish the four articles about the project and its outcomes on at least ten websites.
• To participate in at least two
events together with other associations and institutions
aimed at establishing the
cross-cultural dialogue and/or
disseminate the events related
to the celebration of the ‘European Year of Intercultural
Dialogue’.
• To develop a study about the
intangible heritage as a meeting point and its dissemination
through the most important cultural websites in
Spain, Europe and the countries of origin of the
immigrants.
• To disseminate the project and its outcomes
through at least five local, two national media,
and an international one.
This project has been put forward by the association NERI with the co-financing of the Spanish
Ministry for Cultural Activities early in 2008. It is
currently being studied at the ‘Inter-culturality Forum’
opened by the Regional Ministry of Culture, Youth and
Sport of the Region of Murcia. It has been devised as an
alternative way to promote the cross-cultural dialogue by
taking into account the protection and safeguarding of
intangible cultural heritage.
23
Intercultural dialogue and the role of cultural
cooperation in the Mediterranean area
Fanny Bouquerel
The stimulating comparison with more cultures and the
need of a common language
Cultural cooperation: a great challenge
but great difficulties
Working today in the sector of cultural cooperation in
the Mediterranean means to work in a complex context
which knows a new cultural and artistic vitality. We all
know that the culture is a matter “ handling with
care”, for this reason working in the sector of cultural
cooperation means to work in a high explosive minefield . At the same time, once recognized the common
game rules, the culture, as identity vector, becomes a
tool to introduce and develop the intercultural dialogue and to face up a future enriched by everyone's
differences. Working in the Mediterranean means to
face with the difficult to identify a common language
which allows to begin a dialogue between people with
different cultures and country of origin. This even if the
sense of belonging to a common cultural space which
appears among different countries' cultural workers. In
spite of this awareness, misunderstandings coming
from the languages and cultural connections can make
misunderstandings, troubles with communication and
common projects' development. Words like “education” or “indipendent” can put different meanings on,
even if radically opposite, between a country and another one, for this reason it is necessary be very careful
and make sure that the matter of the exchanges be
more clear to everybody.
Apart from language problems, operating in the cultural sector of the Mediterranean means to confront various difficulties and problem tied up to:
• communication and training (inadequate documentation and research, difficulties in the information circulation, inadequate or absent training contribution)
• mobility ( circulation difficulties tied up to difficult
political contexts and european policies more rigid for
visa assignation)
• political and administrative rules (for organizations'
structures, modes of financing and private and public
financing access)
• great sympathy and appearance differences which
arouse difficulties in the field of languages and different expressions' communication
• Besides, there's a superficial knowledge of the others, above all from Euripeans to non Europeans, which
does not make the cooperation work easy
24
New cooperation opportunities
Despite the many difficulties, in the field of cultural cooperation, there are some opportunities to seize; today,
we go through an interesting historical moment and the
situation's slowly changing. Inthe artistic and cultural
sector, a new generation of artists in the Meddle Est and
Maghreb is setting up and it arouses interests from the
international scenario. From institutional side, the wide
presence of cultural institutions on the territory, the
third part of euromediterranean partntership and cultural calls published by european delegations and by Anna
Lindh Foundation, assuming that inadequate, must be
used as much as possible. From private side, in the arab
world there's an increase of indipendent cultural centres
and cultural entrepreneur working on local level. In this
area, new artistic exhibitions are going to organized and
the development of the opportunities and international
network offer an opportunity to meet up. There are
new initiatives and useful tools like mobility funds
(Fonds Roberto Cimetta, Arts Moves Africa, Safar Fund
and others) and international foundation which deveop
interesting project in the area(Ford Foundation, European Cultural Foundation, …). Parallel, there's a larger
interest from the Europeans for this area. For cultural
reasons but not only:political,social reasons tied up to
solidarity and an approach in terms of development.
Some ideas:
In order to develop cultural cooperation in the
Mediterranean and to stimulate in a concrete way the
meetings and the dialogue, we could:
• Stimulating mobility and foster meetings: encouraging circulation flows in all directions -South/North and
Nord/South – South/South. We'd look into new ways,
create new paths, with no limits with whose inherited
from history and not forget to involve the no-neighbouring countries which can give an important contribution to the mediterranean cooperation reflections.
It's a question to stimulate the networks' dynamics, exchange ideas and best practices: in other words, to
stimulate physics and mental mobility
• Developing new abilities: giving new tools in order
to work on its own territory (Melopee project and others...) and to add this new impulse in a professional
way. It's a question to develop the intercultural abilities
of Europeans and non-Europeans, involving istitutions,
operators, critics and financers. It's crucial that this kind
of training should take into consideration the contest
where this training act, facing the differences in a positive and interactive way, through debates
• Developing awareness in the ambit of cultural
politic: in order to stimulate the operators' work it is
necessary to act on the context, briefly to be interested
to cultural politics, decisive for the future of cultural cooperation in the region. In order to do that, it is necessary to have projects and studies that document the
cultural life through a mapping of cultural organizations; a study of activities and indipendent cultural actors; a survey on the dynamics of art market and on the
impact of the festivals and cultural business or on the
public, ect...
These informations are crucial in order to analize, debate and influence on these politics so that could respond to the territory analysis. In a sense, MEDINS project, developing a mapping of intangible culture in the
Mediterranean according to a common framework,
could give an interesting contribution and an useful
tool for a better knoledge of the others in the region.
The Mediterranean is the symbol of diversity's richness,
and once set out a language shared, can become a place
of dialogue and exchange. For this, cultural activities
can give a contribution to the dialogue in the region.
UBUNTU
During the evening of intercultural dialogue, the voluntary organization Ubuntu is active on the territory 365 days
all the year round. The evening of 22nd in particular, a series of chronological activities have been organized and
promoted by the association with other organizations like Coppem and CE.S.I.E. A photograph exhibition mounted
in a ancient monastery in the heart of the historical market Ballarò has opened the day where a lot of visitors became curious, a percussion and mediterranean cooking workshop, run by experts have cheered up the whole day
making a surreal atmosphere. During the evening, a great gig, held in Piazza Bologni, has entertained the public
and the artists too with a cheerfulness and integration atmosphere which has attracted about a thousand people
until 3 o'clock in the morning where Piazza Bologni has become a perfect island of coexistence between cultures.
The sensations, aroused by the event, shared were a strong desire of locals to make contact and to meet with other
cultures, the meaning of word “contamination” has become a synonymous of peace and harmony.
25
CROSS-CULTURAL MEDITERRANEAN
Ilaria Puccio
The ‘Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue Night’ was born during an October afternoon in 2007 between Palermo and
Alexandria of Egypt, and stemmed from the cooperation
between the Fourth Commission of Coppem and the Anna Lindh Foundation (FAL). The situation was very promising: the campaign ‘1001 Actions for Dialogue’ stood out
among all the activities that had been planned on by the
Foundation in the framework of the celebration of ‘2008
European Year of Inter-cultural Dialogue’. The Foundation
discussed about it with the Fourth Commission of Coppem
–the two have been cooperating in different ways since
the Foundation was set up- and a counter-proposal was
immediately put forward. Among the 1001 actions a special one emerged, that is the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Night
of Cross-cultural Dialogue’. The FAL reacted with enthusiasm and a daily exchange was started between the two
networks with an endless fine-tuning, defining, organising. The ‘Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue Night’ was born.
The celebration would simultaneously take place across
the Mediterranean area, with a common denominator:
the celebration of cross-cultural understanding as a shared
26
and acknowledged value; a hymn to an inevitable but
possible future, and not a unique event to cause a sensation. Coppem immediately activated the nodes of the network and got in contact with more than 200 local authorities, informed them and convened all the actors who were
going to support the event for the 22nd of May 2008. Almost all the stakeholders accepted the invitation, and also
Barcelona and Athens would have their ‘Night’. The work
of Coppem was continuous by providing a secretariat-kind
of assistance both on an international and local level.
With regard to Palermo, the Committee set up an organisational work worthy of the Capital City of the Mediterranean and worked to this end: it established links not only with the local institutions that benefited from the micro-grants provided by the Anna Lindh Foundation but also with those that were still willing to make their contribution to the realization of the ‘Night’ in Palermo. It assisted and supported them in terms of coordination and
promotion, and it succeeded in making all the activities
converge in a single container, by amplifying the impact
and resonance of the event. And that is not all, since it co-
ordinated the events realised by other subjects while it
was organising some of its own, namely an international
conference, a gala dinner and two concerts. The International Conference first to be held at Spasimo and that
would last a whole day. The theme was ‘Intangible Culture and Inter-cultural Dialogue’. It constituted a fundamental element for the work of the Fourth Commission of
Coppem dealing with ‘Culture, Technology, Tourism and
Environment’; the commission was the conjunction between the activities and the spirit of the ‘Night’ on the
one hand and the Interreg Project Medocc Medins on the
other. The Medins Project has been involving Coppem
since 2006 and, similarly to the ‘Night’, it deals with the
theme of identity that is neither inclusive nor excluding.
On the contrary identity is a receiving and acknowledging
element. Such identity has been recognised by the Medins
Project as playing a founding role for our future. A confident look at the past and the present, the cataloguing of
our intangible heritage by using a shared and simplified
form and the setting up of multimedia workshops to secure and recognise our identity, but also to avoid the risk
of its misuse. This is Medins. This Project is highly regarded
by UNESCO and relies on many and heterogeneous partners who have been almost all present on May 22nd in
Palermo. So, the first session of the proceedings was completely dedicated to and occupied by the presentation of
the project and its outcomes up to that point, while during the afternoon-round table the role of cultural cooperation within the development policies of the Mediterranean was discussed. At the end of the Conference, a
dinner was served among the ruins of the Spasimo and a
concert of ‘cultivated’ folk music was given in the picturesque location of the deconsecrated church. Kaiorda and
Folkalab played for an audience of about 800 people,
while three artists listed in the Book of Living Human
Treasures of the Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage
of Sicily staged different performances: the dialogue involves also a contamination and blending of the arts.
While the last sounds were fainting in the church of S.
Maria dello Spasimo, a second concert started in Piazza
Bologni, also produced by Coppem but jointly organised
with CESIE and UBUNTU. On the stage artists with the
most different backgrounds alternated and at the end a
DJ continued the night by playing dance music. It was a
Thursday night, the following day it was a working day,
yet the square was full of people. Coppem extensively reported on the event during the conference organised by
the Anna Lindh Foundation and the Hellenic Foundation
for Culture, which was held in Athens on 28, 29, 30 May,
in concomitance with the Inter-ministerial Conference of
the Ministers of Culture of the Euro-Mediterranean area.
But this is another story.
27
DOORS OPEN FOR OTHER CULTURES
Marie Marzloff, Cesie
The Anna Lindh Foundation promoted the ‘Dialogue
Night’ initiative within the framework of its ‘1001 Actions campaign for Dialogue’ to be held on May 22nd.
Thus, Palermo was chosen as the venue for this event,
given the central role it plays in the Mediterranean region. Several associations working in the field of interculturality such as CE.S.I.E, Ubuntu, and the university
association Kepos were co-ordinated by Coppem and
devised a particularly rich programme to foster the European value of dialogue. The event, promoted by
CE.S.I.E, was entitled ‘Doors open for other cultures’
and was also included in the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue Night. It was organised along with other initiatives in the social & cultural programme addressed to
students from the University of Palermo (Law n.
429/85). This promotional initiative for intercultural dialogue was highly successful as it attracted a very large
audience of both local people and immigrants, who
very often live close by without any knowledge of the
other’s culture. These people could experience a trip
around interculturality to get in touch with others and
overcome the barriers of cultural identity that they put
up every day for fear. We believe that such initiatives to
promote Intangible culture within Intercultural Dialogue are extremely important. Being a sort of informal
learning, they pave the way for better social cohesion
and a kind of coexistence that is enriched with other
people’s differences. Furthermore, the Euro-Mediterranean dimension of this initiative made it possible to
strengthen the awareness that European and Mediterranean countries do share some cultural heritage
against any racism and intolerance. To conclude, as to
long-term planning, CE.S.I.E will be committed to carry
out other similar events in order to keep promoting Intercultural Dialogue. Held on 22nd May in Palermo, the
event was staged as a real experimental interculturality
laboratory with several activities going on as follows:
28
CARMELITE MONASTERY LOCATED IN THE BALLARÒ
DISTRICT, VIA GIOVANI GRASSO 13
4.00pm - Intercultural cooking lab (Bangladesh, Morocco, Ivory Coast). Here 30 people helped foreign cooks
to prepare traditional dishes typical of their countries/
5.00pm - African percussion lab. Two percussionists of
African origin taught the fundamentals of African percussion and rhythm, thus using music as a tool to promote cross-cultural communication/ 6.00pm - Opening
of photographic exhibitions. Two photographic exhibitions devoted to the topic of interculturality in Palermo
were opened to the public. More specifically, these
were ‘Diversi per cultura’ by the photographer Reda
Berradi and ‘Sguardi a Palermo’ by Arianna Scavuzzo/
7.00pm - Intercultural food tasting- Participants had the
opportunity to taste the traditional dishes cooked at
the Intercultural cooking lab.
PIAZZA BOLOGNI
11.00pm - Live concerts by: Matrimia, Djeli d'Afrique,
Cabeça Negra, OM, and dj set, with special appearance
by Akkura and Lello Analfino of Tinturia. Some Sicilian
artists joined the initiative mixing and playing with performing artists and bands so as to further promote the
idea of intercultural dialogue.
ELEUTHERA
Dalila Riccobono
“The Euromediterranean dialogue night”, organized by
a will to promote peaceful coexistence and intercultural dialogue, has been a good chance to enable to
Eleuthera Onlus Organization advising about Rom people's hardships telling its condition, its history by a photo exhibition and a video projection that shows the life
in a Rom's camp in Palermo. Eleuthera Onlus Association has promoted “Voglia di scuola” (Desire of school)
project,winner of the competition “Giovani idee cambiano l'Italia” (Young people, ideas are changing Italy)
(advertised by Minister for Young people politics and
sport activities) which provided the realization of a educational, recreational activities in order to realize preschool attendance activities allocated to minorities of
Rom community in Palermo.
29
MEDITERRANEAN NIGHT FOR INTERCULTURAL
DIALOGUE AMONG PEOPLES IN TORREGROTTA
Mariella Di Giovanni
The Mediterranean Night was held on 4th July 2008 in
piazza Centro, central square, in Torregrotta. Organised
by the Municipality of Torregrotta, the initiative was
carried out with the support of the Fidapa organisation
from Venetico, the Regional Province of Messina, and
under the patronage of the EC Europe Direct network
(Catania office) and the Standing Committee For the
Euro-Mediterranean Partnership of Regional and Local
Authorities (Coppem). It was one night to get together
according to the motto of the European Union “united
in diversity”. The event was organised to celebrate the
60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the EYID 2008, the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue among peoples.
It also provided the opportunity to officially introduce
the municipal EU front office called ‘APERTAMENTE’
(meaning both ‘open mind’ and ‘openly’). The front office will be aimed at fostering the integration of foreign people into the social fabric of their new place of
residence, namely Torregrotta. However, it might be replicated in other places. The initiative was staged as a
30
Notte bianca (sleepless night) event: the folk band Nakaira performed live solos playing the oud, the Middle
Eastern lute-like instrument, the gaita, the Galician
bagpipe, the Irish whistle and other percussion instruments in the best traditions of Arabic and Jewish folk
music. Moreover, belly dance performance from Josiane
and performance from Melograno, a Sicilian folk
group. This was an event organised under the banner
of exchange of traditions. Besides music, food was exchanged as well. An extensive buffet was laid out for
participants to let them taste Libyan couscous, hummus,
which is deeply rooted into the Mediterranean cooking
history, and other dishes from the most authentic Sicilian cuisine, such as biancomangiare a sort of blancmange made to a Medieval recipe and the typically Sicilian arancine (deep-fried rice balls) whose Arab origin
we could rediscover. Before we can even realise it, the
smell of food and spices brings back to our unconscious
memory the idea that Sicily has always been the place
where to meet and exchange traditions. The initiative
was also devised to put globalisation to good use be-
yond false myths: global economy is an indissoluble
process shared by rich and poor countries according to
new international trade schemes that are increasingly
influencing people’s daily life. The European Union is
perfectly aware of such interdependence.
This is why its 27 Member States are working to shape
a common commercial policy so as to translate their domestic policies into a single one which should urge the
WTO to ensure fair rules for fair trade to its 151 member countries. As for the municipality of Torregrotta, its
front office ‘ApertaMente’ will pursue aims such as integration and openness to the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue. More concretely, it will be aimed at including foreign population into the social fabric, managing immigration, offering guidance on employment, fostering a
dialogue with countries of origin, promoting territorial
co-operation and providing a range of support services
for language learning, education and employment. More than 500 people took part in the Mediterranean
Night in Torregrotta. Certainly, this may seem like a
drop in the bucket. However, the bucket in question is
the Mediterranean sea, the Mare Nostrum, a sea which
is made up of drops as well. Fostering integration, dialogue, culture, beauty and art is the task of any municipal administration. The municipality of Torregrotta wishes to make this event a yearly initiative, extending its
meaning through a wide communication campaign.
This year, the communication campaign already proved
effective: a large target group of participants were informed even outside the province itself, thanks also to
the help by the EUROPE DIRECT relay office in Catania.
Though the Internet, it could reach people across Sicily
and living in other European and Mediterranean countries, particularly in the Maghreb. Hence, the appointment is for next year when more extensive and successful initiatives will afford new opportunities for
growth, exchange and trade.
31
MALTA - KALKARA EVENT
Jimmi Magro
On the 18th of May 2008, the Local Councils Association (Malta) together with Kalkara Local Council organised a celebration of different foods, dance, music
and exhibits of tangible and intangible heritage with the theme: “Intercultural Dialogue and Intangible
Heritage”.
This
event
was
orgnaised to commemorate the
European year of Intercultural Dialogue. This event was funded as
part of Interreg III B MEDOCC
project, MEDINS in collaboration with the Anna Lindh
Foundation.
The
event
kicked off with a discussion
on intercultural dialogue
between the diverse communities living in Malta
by a number of prominent speakers. The debate focused and challenged beliefs on the nature of
intercultural dialogue, the meaning of
mixed communities and difficulties that often
result in mixed cultural environments. This was followed by entertainment provided by local artists, including traditional music and song. The recital of Maltese folktales for young children provided entertainment for the younger generation of Maltese children,
who recounted and played Maltese folktales and
myths, this activity introduced a number of children
to a rare aspect of the Maltese intangible heritage. Food stalls exhibiting local, Mediterranean and African dishes provided by Marsa
open Centre a camp for refugees currently living in Malta tempted visitors with an array of
smells and dishes – thus providing visitors with
a truly intercultural gastronomic feast. The Barklori Cooperative provided transport on the traditional Maltese dghajsa (boat) to and from Valletta
and Senglea - this is a convenient way to avoid
parking problems in Kalkara whilst enjoying the
spectacular view of the Grand Harbour. A harbour
trip from Kalkara was also organised on a Dghajsa talLatin – traditional Lateen sail boat. Visitors were also
able to see and meet local artists. A stall with Maltese
books also provided the opportunity of visitors to
sample closely the treasures of Maltese language and
written word.
32
Juanico e Los Hombres Buenos.
A fairy tale for the dialogue
Murcia Region Dialogue Night Initiative
Inmaculada García Simó
Murcia Region's participation at
the Euromediterranean Dialogue Night was an initiative
called “Juanico e Los Hombres
Buenos. A fairy tale for the
Dialogue”. This initiative,
considering the target, has
taken place in the patio of
Santa Clara Museum in
Murcia, on 22nd may
2008. The action has
planned several initiatives like the presentation of “ Euromediterranean Dialogue Night” by
children coming
from different area of
the Region; the presentation
of “Consejo de Hombres Buenos”
and its works connected with the nomination as Human Intangible Heritage through
the good offices of General Director of Fine Arts Department and Cultural Heritage of Murcia Region and the Secretary of
“Consejo de Hombres Buenos de la Huerta de Murcia”; moreover, public
reading and play of the fair tale “Juanico y los Hombres Buenos” and in the end,
educative activities and handicraft workshops. These activities are a try to approach children
to Consejo de Hombres Buenos de la Huerta de Murcia, an institution composed of farmers
whom assignment is to decide in the topic of irrigation inside of its community. It's try to
make the children understand this activity as an example of intercultural diachronic dialogue, since the “Consejo”, Muslim origin, was adopted and kept by Christians, fully conscious of its benefits, afterwards exported from Iberian peninsula to American
continent where, it is still
adopted as model of territorial and social organization for the communities of
sector's operators. On 23rd
may 2008, local TV station
has showed“7 Region de
Murcia”, a report on the
activity developed the day
before. The audiovisual
files can be downloaded
from the website“1001 Action for the Dialogue”:
www1001actions.org/en/dialoguenight/video
1001 DIALOGUE
ACTIONS
“1001 dialogue actions” is a international campaign that, in synergy with 2008 european year of
intercultural dialogue, promoted by Anna Lindh
Foundation, has the objective to create a great
mobility of persons and actions to contribute and
support the euromediterranean dialogue's promotion. The dialogue is fundamental to reaffirm identity and european citizenship based on reciprocal
understanding and peaceful coexistence.