By Renessa Tang Pack, 2011 Graduate of University of Dayton/ CREDI Certificate of Social Justice Course
This May 21st, UN World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development will be celebrated the world over. First declared in 2001 by the United Nations General Assembly for the purpose of highlighting the values of peace and solidarity it was first observed two years later on 21st May 2003. According to the United Nations, “the Day is meant as a signal to those who seek to sow divisions among human beings that such attempts will always be resisted by those who believe in the far greater forces of tolerance and mutual understanding.”
The United Nations highlights the significance of intercultural dialogue as follows, “Equitable exchange and dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based on mutual understanding and respect and the equal dignity of all cultures is the essential prerequisite for constructing social cohesion, reconciliation among peoples and peace among nations.”
Globalisation and technological advances have intensified the interactions between different cultures with the accompanying challenges for countries and peoples to retain their cultural customs, language and identity. Individual and joint efforts to respect diversity in humankind, while at the same time acknowledging the commonalities in culture that they share are necessary. Underpinning any intercultural dialogue is the Catholic social justice theme of life, dignity and worth of the human person (who is made in the image and likeness of God)
The papal encyclical Populurom Progresio of 1960 highlights the importance to peoples of retaining their culture as follows, “Every country, rich or poor, has a cultural tradition handed down from past generations. This tradition includes institutions required by life in the world, and higher manifestations- artistic, intellectual and religious- of the life of the spirit. When the latter embody truly human values, it would be a great mistake to sacrifice them for the sake of the former. Any group of people, who would consent to let this happen, would be giving up the better portion of their heritage; in order to live, they would be giving up their reason for living, Christ’s question is directed to nations also: What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul”.
From May 2011, the start of my International Dominican Volunteer year in Mexico I began giving more in depth thought to the topic of cultural diversity. It was inevitable that I should, I having taken a year off from civil law practice to spend the larger part of my volunteer year at none other than Cuernavaca Centre for Intercultural Dialogue on Development (CCIDD) in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
CCIDD is a Christian, ecumenical, social justice center engaging participants in cross cultural immersion experiences and intercultural dialogue, spiritual reflection, and social analysis. This year the centre celebrates thirty five years as an organization having been established in May 1977 by U.S. lay missionary Raymond Plankey, to sensitise persons of the North American and Canadian cultures to the social, economic, political and cultural realities of their neighbors further south in Mexico, Central and South America. In the 1960´s he had responded to Pope John XXIII´s call to be a papal volunteer in Latin America to counteract the ideologies of communism that were taking root there. While on mission in Chile he realized the importance of reverse mission, the concept that it is the missionaries themselves who leave evangelized by the people they are sent to minister to. Interestingly, Ray Plankey and his wife were exiles from Chile under the Pinochet regime in the late 60´s, leading them to seek refuge in the U.S and to be supported by their sending community the Benedictine Monks in Vermont to go on further mission to Cuernavaca, Mexico leading later on to what was the establishment of CCIDD. CCIDD provided a space for reflection and dialogue on the difficult realities occurring in Latin America such as the political crisis in El Salvador which caused some of the exiles to flee to Mexico. Some of these exiles found a haven at CCIDD to dialogue on their experiences.
The centre hosts individuals and groups (whether church, teacher, social worker, university undergraduate or graduate or high school) from mainly the U.S. and Canada. Participants benefit from intercultural dialogues on themes such as ecology, unjust economic systems, globalization, capitalism, non violence, spirituality, indigenous peoples, human rights, militarism, immigration, poverty and social movements. Intercultural dialogues are held with various speakers ranging from members of an artisan’s cooperative, a female former exile and survivor of the El Salvadorian Civil War, youth social activists to community organizers from the impoverished squatter settlement of La Estación in Cuernavaca.
The participants, thus armed with a more in-depth cultural understanding, also have the opportunity to do development work in Mexico. They can render practical assistance to impoverished, marginalized persons who belong to a different culture from them, whether this is done by donating money or resources, doing service construction work at La Estación Community or by raising social awareness in their home countries of U.S and Canada. My experiences at CCIDD have shown me the benefits of direct interaction with the locals -there is no better way of learning from another’s culture than by actually participating in it!
I view my presence at CCIDD as one of the few volunteer workers of Caribbean origin as contributing to the diversification of its intercultural dialogue. I was able to share my Trinidadian experiences on issues in common with Mexico such as violence and narco-trafficking and also compare the realities of the Caribbean with our Central American and South American neighbours. Not only was I able to engage in cross cultural dialogue and sharing with Americans, Canadians and Mexicans but also visiting Germans!
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Since colonization, the recognition of the need for greater equity for the oppressed in Latin America continued. In Latin America we had in the 1970´s the Base Christian communities and liberation theology highlighting the need for a preferential option for the poor.
Five hundred years after Montesinos´ Advent sermon, in addition to efforts of clergy, new organized movements promoting intercultural dialogue such as the Indignados the world over and Occupy Wall Street are carrying on the intercultural challenge. In May 2011, the world saw the emergence of “Los Indignados”, a group of persons protesting against corruption in Spain. They derived their name from a book written by French politician and author Stéphane Hussel which when translated into Spanish is entitled ¡Indignaos! Their emergence inspired similar protests in Greece, U.K., Chile, Israel and New York (The Occupy Wall Street Movement), other parts of the U.S. and Mexico. In Mexico the protests have been ongoing, not only challenging corruption and economically unjust policies but other social issues such as drug cartel violence. What is interesting about these present day movements is how the rapid spread of information across the globe through internet technologies and other media has allowed diverse persons who would otherwise have never communicated with each other to band together in solidarity thus sharing common values of justice and equity across borders.
