HISTORICAL LEGACIES OF DIFFERENCE, CIVILISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE, AND INTERCULTURAL AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCA

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HISTORICAL LEGACIES OF DIFFERENCE,
CIVILISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE, AND INTERCULTURAL AND
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

• Professor Jagdish Gundara (author)
• President of the International Association for
  Intercultural Education (IAIE),
• UNESCO Chair in Intercultural Studies and Teacher
  Education
• Dr. Terri Kim (presenter)
• Brunel University, U.K.
• IAIE President Delegate

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Citizenship Education around the World

• The different situations in different contexts
  raise a few questions about the nature of
  intercultural citizenship and civic education in
  comparative contexts.
• Is a nationally based understanding of local and
  central government and human rights sufficient?
• Are Euro-centric, Indo-centric, Sino-centric
  memories, histories and understanding of the past
  a sufficient basis for citizenship education?

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• Would such narrow national, regional learning
  about citizenship not in turn raise sceptres of
  Afro-centrism, Islamo-centrism or other
  centrisms at continental and global levels
  because of diasporas of the African, Muslim and
  other peoples?

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• The attempt, therefore, is not to replace one
  type of centrism with another which reinforces
  centric intellectual tunnel vision but to
  develop a more holistic formulation f issues
  about citizenship education.
• The rise of siege mentalities singularised
  identities of communities based on religious,
  ethnic, tribal, or linguistic heritage

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Citizenship and Human Right

• Human right is beyond citizenship.
• Issues of citizenship are based on political
  histories which may embody aspects of the
  positive nature of struggles and memories.
• Samir Amin suggests that the process of
  de-linking from the dominant and exploitative
  global forces.
• In this paper, it is being suggested that such a
  de-linking has to be accompanied by a process of
  linking or bridging the progressive forces which
  form part of the current agendas of citizenship
  and human rights, which are a result of struggles
  against oppression.

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Educational Challenge

• While exceptionalism of each oppression or
  genocide is recognised, how the divides and
  differences can be used to develop shared
  understandings and common struggles.
• The challenge for citizenship education is how to
  recognise bonding within a group and use this
  as a basis for bridging or linking groups on a
  sustained basis.
• A prerogative of the Eurocentric notions of the
  modern world system (Wallerstein)
• Need to recognise the issue of differences,
  diversities and commonalities at the global
  level.

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Developing Inclusive Globalism

• Particularism and Universalism
• Cultural Revolutions Founding the Tributory Era
• The first universalist phase
• (5th BC-7th AD)

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Inter-faith Understandings

• Hans Kung (1991)s three basic propositions
• No human life together without a world ethic for
  the nations
• No peace among nations without peace among the
  religion
• No peace among the religions without dialogue
  among the religions
• (Kung, 1991105)

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• Hans Kungs suggestion raises the whole
  issue about dialogue.
• First, such dialogues are nothing new.
• Second, from an educational perspective a
  dialogue amongst religions is, however, not
  sufficient.
• From the view of citizenship education,
  there is a need for turning a dialogue into a
  more substantive educational engagement.

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• The challenge is how to build intellectually
  rigorous inter-faith education in diverse
  societies which recognises difference and
  diversity but also allows for the nurturing and
  the development of the mutualities and
  similarities between faiths.

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The Enlightenment and the Modern Period

• The second phase of the history of societies
  which can be used to inform citizenship education
  follows in the aftermath of the Renaissance to
  which the Mediterranean civilisation contributed.
• After the 1500, there is increasingly the
  Europeanisation of the globe and the increasing
  definition of the world from a Eurocentric
  perspective.
• Are the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama a
  divide in the world, or are they also a way of
  connecting the small European peninsula with the
  world?

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Vasco da Gama (c.1460 - 1524)
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Vasco da Gamas passage to India
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Idea of a nation during the Enlightenment and
the French Revolution

• Not based on the ideas of some biological myth of
  ancestors but on the notions of a social
  contract a nation of free men a legal
  identity.
• This nation state would include people like the
  Alsatians or the Occitan who did not speak
  French, or the Jews.
• With the abolition of slavery in San Domingo, the
  Blacks were considered to be citizens.
• Fostering the concept of secularism.

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• In forging the concept of secularism, it
  goes beyond religious toleration it claims to
  rid the new nation of references to the past and
  sees Christianity as no more than a personal
  philosophical opinion like any other, not an
  ideological structure of society.
• (S. Amin, 1997 81)

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In the French Revolution,

• The nation is not an affirmation of the
  particular but an affirmation and expression of
  the universal.
• However, the French Revolution did not achieve
  universalistic objectives.
• There was an absence of the gender based equality
  within the limitations of the French derived
  universal citizenship and the assimilation of
  peoples and the abandoning of local languages in
  favour of the French language.

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Ratification of the Treaty of Münster Peace of
Westphalia (October, 1648).
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The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the Bourgeois
Revolutions in Europe

• The formation of the international system had
  begun with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
• Under the principle of balance of power, the
  sovereignty, independence and equality of each
  nation were respected and on this basis peace
  was maintained until World War I.
• Development of capitalistic society and national
  identities after going through the bourgeois
  revolutions during the middle of the 17th century
  in England and Holland, the American revolution
  in the 18th century, and the French revolution in
  the late 18th century.

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Historical Legacies of Difference Migration
and Settlement e.g. Karaim in Trakai, Lithuania
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Immigration Societies e.g. The United States of
America

• The doctrine of separate but equal (1896) - the
  idea that segregation based on classifications
  was legal as long as facilities were of equal
  quality.
• Separate is not equal separate educational
  facilities are inherently unequal (1954)
• However, the right to be equality under the
  American Constitution is not a reality for a
  large number of American citizens and the
  exclusion through racism has strong
  manifestations in American institutions and
  society.

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Socialism

• In many cases it was the Eurocentric versions of
  socialism which informed struggles outside
  Europe.
• From the period of the Enlightenment to the
  present time pseudo-science and eugenics has
  underlined the notion of progress and have been
  used with the most appalling consequences for
  minority and other groups.
• The acceptance of the right to be different
  common to the Third International, did not allow
  these states to deepen the notions of inclusive
  citizenship based on common and shared values.

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National Liberation Movements and Bandung

• The colonial world was not exposed to the
  democratic values of the Enlightenment, including
  those of democratic political rights and
  secularism.
• Hence, it was the national liberation movements
  which had to confront the challenge of the values
  of universalism.
• Those who were of the left within the national
  liberation however, drew their inspiration from
  the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
• The Non-Aligned Movement which was established in
  Bandung in 1955 brought together the progressive
  and democratically oriented nation states and
  lasted till about 1975. The movement was
  re-activated in Havana in the summer of 2006.

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Non-Aligned Movement

• Respect for fundamental human rights and for the
  purposes and principles of the Charter of the
  United Nations.
• Respect for the sovereignty and territorial
  integrity of all nations.
• Recognition of the equality of all races and of
  the equality of all nations, large and small.
• Abstention from intervention or interference in
  the internal affairs of another country.
• Respect for the right of each nation to defend
  itself singly or collectively, in conformity with
  the Charter of the United Nations.
• Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or
  the use of force against the territorial
  integrity or political independence of any
  country.
• Settlement of all international disputes by
  peaceful means, in conformity with the Charter of
  the United Nations.
• Promotion of mutual interests and co-operation.
• Respect for justice and international obligations

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Challenge for Citizenship and Citizenship
Education

• Democratic practices around the notions of
  respect for difference need to be informed by the
  right to be similar.
• These ought to bring about an erosion of the many
  injustices within and between societies and to
  establish commonalities between and with
  struggles for equality and human rights globally.
  
• In the same way as western ideas and ways of life
  have penetrated the third world, progressive
  ideas from the third world ought to become part
  of the ideas of inclusive citizenship in the body
  politic of Europe in order to help construct a
  new notion of us and of shared belonging in
  European societies.

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Contemporary Struggles and Solidarities

• Do the past struggles for equalities, human and
  citizenship rights provide any basis for
  progressive struggles to work together and to
  learn from each other?
• One of the challenges posed at the present time
  is how can these events mark issues of
  citizenship not only for the descendents of
  slaves but of the many millions more who are
  currently denied citizenship and human rights.
• How can we in Europe establish commonalities and
  mutualities with those who have experienced other
  kinds of oppressions?

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• Forced migration refugees (e.g. from Iraq,
  Afghanistan, North Korea, Tibet)
• The massive movement of women to eke out a living
  in the globalised capitalist econmies in the
  world The feminisation of povertyFundamental
  denial of citizenship and human rights
• How can they be accorded their rights and what
  can be learnt from previous oppressions and
  struggles to establish new solidarities,
  similarities and mutualities of interest?

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In the UK,

• 40 Years on Enoch Powell Recalled
• Rivers of Blood (20 April 1968)
• In 15 or 20 years time, the black man will
  have the whip hand over the white man.... We must
  be mad, literally mad, to be permitting the
  annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents. As I
  look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the
  Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming
  with much blood.

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• Transnationalisation of migrations
  transnational societies emerging in Europe
• Whatever we feel about immigrants,
  immigration is part of our future. The real
  question will be whether we can, as a modern
  economy, seize the restless tide of talent that
  is currently sweeping across the globe. So far we
  are lagging behind our competitors
• There is creeping resentment in all
  directions which can only be halted by policy of
  manifest fairness. I believe that the more we
  talk about immigration the better. The 40-year
  old shockwave of fear has gagged us all for too
  long.
• 
  
  Trevor Phillips
• 
  Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights
• 
  Commission (EHRC), 20 April
  2008

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• Migration, transnational communities, and the
  future of European shared History