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Conference Announcement "Democratic Management of Cultural and National Diversity" 3rd International Congress on Human Rights Human Rights Office of the Basque Government Bilbao (Spain) 10-13 July 2008 __________________________________________________ Human rights have traditionally been associated with an idea of equality from the perspective of a model of homogeneity, neutrality and abstraction of the differences. However, it is a model that is answered from various requests because it does not recognise the uniqueness of the individuals. A good example of this incapacity is given by many of the current conflicts, which express more demands for recognition rather than for redistribution. The great challenge of the current world lies in how to articulate coexistence in profoundly plural societies whilst at the same time avoiding an exclusively communitarians focus or an identity privatising model. At the same time, public space is not defined as an identitary void, quite the opposite, it is defined as an area in which, in fact, one or more dominating identities exist that substantially condition any interpretation of rights. The traditional State-Nation has monopolised the interpretation of rights through the dominating identity at its core, relegating to permanent exclusion of greater or lesser intensity those who display cultural or national differences. Within this framework, the current globalisation process, important population movements due to this process and a social coexistence that is increasingly more complex lead to the need for a new reinterpretation of genuinely democratic management in a context of increasing diversity. Indeed, traditional diversities, which are not always managed satisfactorily, are now joined by a growing number of new displays of identity which, despite the fact that they cannot be reduced to a homogeneous standard, require particular political recognition. At the same time, the need to adapt public spaces to new differences does not cancel out traditional claims of difference of so-called Stateless nations. The same dynamics of democratisation that require equality to be radicalised is the one that leads us to understand identity as politically and culturally differentiated. We cannot overlook the real differences if we want to recognise them as regards equality between men and women, for example, or between members of cultural groups that reinforce their respective identities among communities with different self-government aspirations. These are differences that must certainly be recognised in equality, but which remain as differences. In complex and plural societies, the democratic deepening and the reinterpretation of the principal of equality from a perspective of diversity are more necessary, if possible. Even more so, debates on the holder of sovereignty and on the way in which they should adopt collective political decisions in each environment take on new aspects that must be taken into account. This way, so-called new minorities can be perceived by traditional minority communities as a threat to their specific nature or their actual national construction, but also as an opportunity to extend the social field of response against the dominant state identity. This is the great dilemma that we face, the matter that greater forces of political imagination and creativity will demand from us in coming years: to make progress in extending rights by completing the change from abstract universalism of political rights to specific universalism of social and cultural rights. Main themes: 1) Cultural Diversity (multiculturalism), integration and democracy: (re)interpreting human rights in a multicultural society. 2) National identities, minorities and democracies: (re)defining collective decision-making areas in the European context. Keynote speakers include Saskia Sassen, Alain Touraine, Alain Renault, Nadia Urbaniti, Ferran Requejo, Will Kymlicka and others. Conference website: http://www.bakea-peace.org __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
