Culture is coming to play a more important role in determining the course of international relations than ever before. Politicians must respond to this with support, and cultural organisations must adapt to respond to the new needs that it brings
As people consume and approach culture in different ways, it is coming to play a more important role in determining the course of international relations than ever before. Politicians must respond to this with support, and cultural organisations must adapt to respond to the new needs that it brings.
In the UK, we are spoiled: two of the grandest exhibitions of recent years are going to be in London at the same time. Tutankhamen will soon open at the revamped Dome and, last month, the First Emperor opened at the British Museum. The First Emperor was opened by Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself, recalling the launch of another exhibition on China, the Royal Academy’s Three Emperors back in 2005. That exhibition was opened not only by the Queen, but also President Hu Jintao, the new Chinese Premier, making his first presidential visit to Britain. The gilt galleries of the RA provided a sumptuous setting as the Queen, the President and selected dignitaries from high politics to high finance browsed the objects owned, used, worn and flaunted by Chinese emperors.
This was time-honoured cultural diplomacy: the finest settings for the finest treasures used to impress foreign dignitaries. However, culture plays a still greater part in international relations. Daily, we encounter diverse cultures on a far wider scale than ever before. Culture is one of the main means by which we get to grips with who other people are and what they stand for. Some fear the encroachment of politics on culture, but this is to miss the point. Culture is an increasingly important space in which international relations and politics are played out. In an age of mass and global communication, they are so fundamentally related that they cannot be separated, either by those seeking - quite rightly - to defend culture and cultural provision from being a political pawn or by those who seek to dismiss culture as the froth that obscures the real currents of diplomacy.
As Amartya Sen put it, ‘the world has come to the conclusion – more defiantly than should have been needed – that culture matters’. Well, because culture matters, so do our cultural institutions. They are vital in communicating knowledge of different cultures, giving them a platform to speak to a wide range of publics. The British Museum’s Forgotten Empire exhibition in 2005 is a good example. At a time at which bleak images of Iran streamed along newswires and through websites, the rich blues and golds at the BM reflected new light upon public images of Iran. Cultural professionals were able to talk of the Persian past as part of the heritage of present-day Iran, providing a cultural counter-appeal to the images of crisis and chaos people saw daily in the media.
Politicians must take new stock of how significant culture is and support our cultural institutions and our cultural future accordingly. For their part, cultural institutions must adapt to meet the new challenges that are set by global interaction between different cultures. Every day, they present cultural forms that can be both the means of overcoming – and on occasion a prompt for – debate and controversy.
It has long been recognised within the sector that cultural institutions are spaces, both physical and conceptual, in which attitudes and cultures can be brought together in dialogue. What is required now is both that people beyond the sector recognise the real importance that this can have, and that those within the sector are able to communicate this importance more effectively. A good step towards this will be encouraging and fostering such a realisation on both sides.
But there is also a radical, new agenda. The growing frequency with which we encounter more and more cultures in our daily lives will affect the way that we relate to others and, ultimately, the nature of international relations. Recent policy initiatives that have responded to the Knowledge and the Information Age must be matched by a comparable response to the Cultural Age.
The Cultural Age demands a new set of skills: cultural literacy - the skills to read, respond and accommodate differently the different cultures that we encounter with increasing regularity. If we are to operate as citizens in global society, then these will be the skills that we will need. By working with policy-makers, in particular from the worlds of education and foreign policy, museums professionals and others in the cultural sector can help to ensure that these skills are part of the learning of young people growing up in the UK today.
As the First Emperor, Tutankhamen and other cultural displays, performances and exhibitions attract vast numbers, the opportunity is there. Cultural provision matters because it figures highly in people’s minds. At the same time, it also makes culture a volatile environment. Time and again over the past year, culture has been at the fore of international relations. In January, a spat about cooking in the Big Brother house became a political situation ultimately because a trio of young British women were incapable of responding to a different culture without antagonism. T he episode caused the offence that it did because, first, it spread so quickly around the planet, and second because it revolved around the cultural signs and symbols that are at the very heart of people’s identity.
But far from shying away from the power of culture, we should look at episodes like Big Brother as clarion calls to put the Cultural Age at the forefront of policy agenda. The politics of identity, international relations, and a vast array of the most pressing political concerns of the day revolve ultimately around culture and the capacity to negotiate cultural difference. Surely, it is time for politicians and cultural professionals to cooperate more effectively to create a new agenda that neither co-opts, nor belittles the importance of culture, but recognises it for what it is: a vital part of a global future.
In February this year, Demos launched Cultural Diplomacy, which articulated just how important culture is in international relations today. It was based on research in China, Ethiopia, France, India, Norway, the UK and the US, as well as Iran – all of these representing very different takes on both culture and diplomacy. The work was supported by the British Council, the British Library, the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Royal Opera House and the Victoria and Albert Museum. This article is based on this research.