Community Focus ? Know your rights

Much has been made of the notion of cultural rights in recent years. Ginny Brink assesses whether they can be considered to be on a par with civil and political rights.

Debates over cultural rights ? and other human rights ? have generally taken place at supranational level, within organisations such as UNESCO, the EU and the Council of Europe. Now the Scottish Executive has set up a national Culture Commission which will, among other things, define cultural rights for the people of Scotland. As this is likely to spur debate there and elsewhere, this is an opportune moment to take a look at the issues. For a start, what are ?cultural rights? and who has them?

A common heritage

As long ago as 1982, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies defined culture as being linked intrinsically to human rights: ?Culture includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of human beings, value systems, traditions and beliefs? that characterise a society or group.? Furthermore, UNESCO?s Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation emphasises not only that every ?people? has both the right and the duty to develop its individual culture, but also that all cultures form part of a common heritage belonging to all mankind. And Article 27 of the UN?s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ? to which the UK and Republic of Ireland are both signatories ? states that ?Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community.?

So, it is clear that people everywhere have cultural rights as a part of their human rights. But why are they important, and how do we exercise them? The UDHR places realisation of cultural rights on a par with realisation of economic and social rights, stating that these are ?indispensable for [one?s] dignity and the free development of [one?s] personality? (Article 22). So, cultural rights are vitally important to each and every one of us: personal dignity and well-being is dependent on the exercising of cultural rights. But their significance does not stop here.

Community focus

The UDHR goes on to emphasise that cultural rights can only be fully realised through community-based cultural activity (Article 29). Therefore the exercising of cultural rights is not just vital to individuals, but also has a wider significance in the creation and sustaining of social and cultural ?capital? ? an issue to be found at the heart of current social policy.

The Government defines social capital as ?that which bonds us together?: the relationships, understandings, and mechanisms that exist within and between people and groups. For example, a community that respects dignity and personal development exhibits a high level of social capital in its shared values and norms. And culture is integral to this ? participation in community cultural activity leads to the evolution of beliefs, values, and traditions, to the embedding of these in certain modes of expression, and to the consolidation of a group identity around these: thus cultural capital is laid down. Together, social and cultural capital comprise frameworks that enable a place to prosper both socially and economically, and to survive through periods of change. Loss of such capital inevitably leads to decline, even to collapse. Clearly, the free exercising of cultural rights is essential not just to individuals, but also to community development, prosperity and survival.

Culture, however, is not static, and the expression (or exercising) of cultural rights is a dynamic process ? an active practice through which we continually make sense of our experience, and transmit this to others. It is here that the importance of arts and crafts activities becomes clear: participation in such activities offers us simple, immediate and pleasurable ways of participating in the cultural life of the community and of discharging our obligations to it. In so doing we add to both our own personal development and to the social and cultural capital of that community. However, support of this nature is too often unnecessarily inhibited. The World Commission on Culture and Development contrasts popular participation in arts activities with the consumption of art produced by professionals, and warns that a focus on the latter can lead to ?under-development of the creative potential of the community and the benefits that can be derived from an inventive population?. Furthermore, it describes a ?policy handicap? that drains resources away from ?diversity, choice and citizen participation? into ?tired questions? of ?high? art versus popular artforms, thereby undermining those participative cultural activities that actively promote individual and community development.

In fact, this draining of resources away from participative arts activities runs against state responsibilities. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights places provision of cultural rights on a par with civil and political rights, as one of the obligations of a state to its citizens, and specifically identifies ?the right to take part in cultural life?. As the vehicle for the creation of social and cultural ?capital? and individual and community development, participative arts and crafts activities should receive strong support.

Fight for your rights

So, cultural rights are inseparable from human rights, extended to all people everywhere, their significance recognised and enshrined by the highest of global institutions. We exercise those rights by active participation within a community setting, through arts and crafts activities which are effective in enabling and fostering that participation. By these means we not only develop ourselves as individuals but also create vital social and cultural capital ? not just for our own local communities but also for the interdependent world community as a whole.

UNESCO acknowledges that in a relatively short time, our planet has been transformed ?from a finite world of certainties to an infinite world of questioning and doubt?. Adapting to such major change requires strong, flexible social networks of the kind seen where social and cultural capital has been built up through the creative activities of individuals, communities and whole societies. If ever there was a need to stimulate human development through the promotion of local culture and the active exercise of cultural rights, it is now.