While lying science deniers, superstitious would-be book burners, racists and a U.S. president who, literally, can’t take a joke work openly to gut the culture of our country, to force a Christian nationalism – that is neither – onto everybody, representatives from 150 countries met in Barcelona at the end of September to extol the virtues of cultural diversity and promote its importance in creating a livable world.
We were not there, of course, President Donald Trump having pulled the U.S. out of UNESCO, the organizer of Mondiacult 2025, a world conference on “cultural policies and sustainable development,” according to Barcelona’s 3Cat TV.
Summing up the conference after its Oct.1 closing, the office of the Spanish prime minister posted: “One of the main agreements … was to promote culture as a human right and to advance the promotion of culture as an independent Goal in its own right.”
The conference’s concluding declaration announced that “culture is both an indispensable driver and an enabler of sustainable development, and must be included as an integral component and pillar of sustainable development.”
Such openness contrasts with the Usanian Creed of Greed, of which Trump is the orange-faced figurehead.
In his closing speech, Spanish Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun’s remarks emphasized the differences between global thinking on culture and the current state of affairs here: “We will bring the voice of culture to where the futures of humanity are decided,” Urtasun said, “because there will be no just ecological transition, no lasting peace, no strong democracy without a cultural dimension to sustain them.”
He added: “Because to defend culture today is to choose cooperation when others opt for withdrawal; it is to embrace diversity in the face of those who seek to standardize thinking; it is, in short, to renew the founding spirit of the international community, which recognized culture as a universal right and an indispensable condition for peace.”
In a pre-conference interview with Barcelona’s El Punt Avui+, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Márcio Tavares said, “Culture is an opportunity to encounter diversity, to encounter differences. This is the most democratizing element of culture. … Art has a great opportunity to contribute to making societies more plural. And since it is a place between the public and the works, it also cultivates respect, which would be a kind of concord. … Culture has an important role in strengthening democracy.”
This might be a good time to remember Albert Camus saying, “Tyranny comes more readily than art to mediocre men.”
Asked by journalist Jordi Bordes, “To what extent can we, in Europe, understand the Trump voter in the United States,” Tavares cited the far right’s promise of “simplified solutions for complex issues.”
Noting that it is normal to have limited information in many cases, Tavares said, “The far right uses the strategy of simplification to solve problems, and takes advantage of the fact that today we live in societies that are more fragmented in terms of information: they appeal to people with economic difficulties. They blame migrants, for example. Or they make people believe that if a young person cannot enter university it is because of people from the working classes who have scholarships. The loss of privileges fosters growing polarization and social division.
“Simplifications lead to hatred,” Tavares said. “The job of democratic and progressive governments is to warn that the solutions are more complex.”
He also pointed out that far right opposition is often tied to the Creed of Greed, citing the dangers of the new technological media and the tendency of many to justify any behavior in the name of profit.
Not advocating censorship, but responsibility, Tavares said, “A global corporation not only has to guarantee that fake news or hate speech does not appear. The problem is that this monetizes with the defeat of democracy.”
And as if referencing the U.S. corporate media’s capitulation to Trumpspeak, he warned, “Now we are moving towards messages of a single thought, which can be the voice of the owner, seeking to manipulate directly in several countries; this is very dangerous.”
My pal, ally and former boss, George H. Russell, has spent a lifetime fighting against a pine tree monoculture in East Texas forests. The very unity and singularity which makes a monoculture appear so formidable masks the lack of diversity that makes it vulnerable.
A societal monoculture is just as dangerous to the future of a country. And, not coincidentally, the Russells’ Educational Video Network provides diverse cultural insights from around the world to the schools of the U.S.
In welcoming the Mondiacult representatives, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez said, “Culture can never be neutral or indifferent” to world affairs.
The elephant not in the room for this world conference on culture was the United States, where the current administration certainly is neither neutral or indifferent, but virulently opposed to the liberal and liberating western culture birthed 250 years ago by our revolution.
Sanchez called for “a commitment to freedom, dignity, memory and peace.”
In addition to hosting the UNESCO gathering – where the U.S. forfeited any leadership role as it continues to do with global warming – Barcelona welcomed 60 young people for a Mondia-Youth meeting.
A Civica Àgora meeting was already in progress for regular citizens and cultural agents when UNESCO representatives arrived. Betevé reported that group “claims culture as a driving force for the defense of human rights.”
In his welcome to the Civica Àgora crowd, Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni spoke of “the fragility of peace and democracy” and said such gatherings are “essential bastions to defend the strength of culture as an indispensable tool to promote dialogue.”
At the conclusion of her wonderful NOVA series, Human, Ella Al-Samahi observed that, while the earliest of homo sapiens dealt with the fickleness of their circumstances, the emergence of cultures into civilizations gave us more control of our destiny.
“What makes us unique,” she said, “is far more than just our will to survive. It is our cultural drive to come together to learn from and inspire each other to go further than before.”
Not coming together, opting for isolationism, the U.S. under Trump is missing out on both new knowledge and inspiration. Other countries are moving forward while the U.S. falters.
They are not waiting on us. We will be left behind.
