No More Paternalism

In June 2016, the European Commission published a Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled: Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations. Culture as an essential element of soft power in EU international relations is not a recent development.

The EU’s new strategy recognises that ‘Culture, and in particular inter-cultural dialogue, can contribute to addressing major global challenges – such as conflict prevention and resolution, integrating refugees, countering violent extremism, and protecting cultural heritage.’ It emphasises the bridging role that culture can play in international relations. But for this to happen it is necessary to ‘aim at generating a new spirit of dialogue, mutual listening and learning, joint capacity-building and global solidarity.’

Let us focus on these principles: mutual listening and learning, respect and equality, reciprocity, co-creation... and global solidarity. These democratic values, which Europe likes to assert as constitutive of its identity and its project, remain powerful vectors of attraction throughout the world.

Whether it is the migration policies of EU Member States, which increasingly exclude nationals from ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) countries, or the heated negotiations between the European Commission and the ACP Group of States linked to the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), in the eyes of many Africans these European Union values appear increasingly unreliable.

Culture, and in particular intercultural dialogue, can contribute to addressing major global challenges – such as conflict prevention and resolution, integrating refugees, countering violent extremism, and protecting cultural heritage.

Can Europe confine itself to proclaiming values, particularly in its international cultural relations, without ensuring that these nourish its cultural cooperation programmes, especially with its historic and strategic partner, Africa?

It would take too long to give a detailed description of the institutional and operational architecture of EU-ACP cultural cooperation. What must be kept in mind is that the EU is more involved in its development aid than in its international relations. That is why this cultural cooperation is largely financed via the European Development Funds (EDFs).

This is not insignificant and has repercussions on programme design (the fight against poverty and contributing to the economic development of ACP countries are among their main objectives), eligibility criteria for beneficiaries, grant award procedures and project evaluations. In this strategy, the prevailing vision is that of ‘underdeveloped cultures’, which should be helped to develop in the way that other development cooperation programmes support infrastructure and health care systems in African nations.

For Sarr, the very concept of development is to be questioned and, above all, reinvented according to African realities and aspirations: ’It is a proposal that seems generous, as it is supposed to help people in difficulty, in poverty. It is difficult to question it because “development” has pulled off the tour de force of positioning itself as a word that sums up the virtuous aspirations of individuals. That’s not true. It is a 20th-century Western construct that responds to specific needs. We can draw inspiration from it, but it is not a goal applicable to everyone.’

Unfortunately, this eurocentric and hierarchical concept is still broadly at the heart of cultural cooperation programmes with Africa, whether they are programmes run by EU Member States (France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.) or those co-led by the European Commission and the ACP Group of States, such as the ACPCultures+ programme. Of course there are exceptions, more often in collaborations between private organisations in Europe and Africa than in programmes designed by national and international cultural cooperation agencies. It is not a question of denying certain positive aspects of these programmes (in particular in terms of capacity-building and support for the circulation of artists and the dissemination of works), but of stressing that they remain largely trapped in a hierarchical vision and a colonial imagination that prevents them from experiencing the kind of reciprocity that could be enriching for all parties.

Historically, the first challenge faced by international cultural policy has always been the pursuit of influence. Today, in an age of cultural globalisation, digital revolution and international competition for control over channels for disseminating cultural content, the pursuit of influence remains the prime motivation of those states and intergovernmental organisations that have an external cultural policy. Since the 1990s, we have talked of soft power in international relations to designate this quest for influence through culture and its powers of seduction.

A term coined by American professor Joseph Nye, soft power refers to a new form of power in international political life that relies not on coercion but on persuasion, i.e. the capacity of political actors to convince others to pursue goals that match their own.

Historically, the first challenge faced by international cultural policy has always been the pursuit of influence.

In today's highly competitive geopolitical and geo-economic context, soft power has become a strategic and diplomatic domain that makes culture a major political issue. The European Union fully accepts this dimension and recalls that the objectives set out in its strategy for international cultural relations should contribute to ‘making the EU a stronger global actor’.

Cultural cooperation between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) is affected by these soft power issues. ACP cultural actors and experts understand that programmes serve as much (some would say more) to disseminate models of cultures, values and societies and to guide the production of artistic content as to ‘help’ African cultural actors to ‘develop’. This is especially the case because these programmes are deployed in particular contexts marked by the weakness of African cultural policies and industries and a significant imbalance in global trade in cultural goods and services (Africa accounts for no more than 1% of this global trade).

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Arab states of the Gulf do not hesitate to deploy their soft power policy. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in particular invest heavily in Africa and use religion to strengthen their soft power and international status. In Senegal, for example, the United Arab Emirates are building ‘turnkey’ mosques, which also involve bringing in an imam.

In this cultural globalisation, African responses, policies and strategies struggle to be legible and visible. Faced with the delay and slowness of states, and also of regional and continental authorities and institutions, today it is African artists, intellectuals and cultural operators who are organising themselves to promote the emergence of an independent and alternative African point of view and discourse.

Since 2016, the Senegalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr and the Cameroonian political theorist and writer Achille Mbembe have been organising an annual event in Dakar, the ‘Ateliers de la pensée’. These meetings bring together a group of African and European thinkers who are committed to ‘the revival of decolonised African thought’.

Faced with a field that had been left vacant in many countries since the 1980s, actors from the North gradually began supporting different levels of the cultural value chain (from design to production and dissemination) through cooperation projects. The situations vary widely depending on the particular countries, geographical and linguistic areas and the external cultural policies of the former colonial powers.

However, whatever the country, nowadays they all have cultural cooperation projects funded by Northern actors, notably the European Union.

When we consider the vast majority of these projects, three key characteristics emerge:

• Firstly, it is Northern donors who design programmes and/or select projects in a more or less transparent manner.
• Secondly, collaboration between the parties is rarely reported from different viewpoints. In most cases, the project or programme is documented and analysed by the organisation in the North rather than by the partner(s) or beneficiaries in the South.
• Finally, most of these projects or programmes are not subjected to truly independent evaluations. Either evaluators are recruited ‘internally’ or, when they are external, they are still remunerated by the sponsors of the programme.

Thus, the recent history of cultural cooperation between Europe and Africa seems to have been written by a sole author: by the one who gives, who brings skills and technologies, who is convinced their model is superior and helps Africans to access it.

How could exchanges or projects of cultural cooperation between Europe and Africa be equitable in such a configuration, marked by an imbalance that is both material (financial means come from the North) and symbolic (and also legitimisation criteria...)?

The recent history of cultural cooperation between Europe and Africa seems to have been written by a sole author: by the one who gives, who brings skills and technologies, who is convinced their model is superior and helps Africans to access it.

It is strange to note that many artistic projects between Europe and Africa reproduce the logic of extracting raw materials in other areas of cooperation. The elements likely to be useful in Europe, whether artists, companies, aesthetics or heritages, are identified, selected by Northern ‘experts’, extracted from their environment and exported to the old continent for different purposes. In these cases, the artistic requirement clearly takes precedence over the structural quality of the relationship between the partners of North and South. There is a confusion between exchange and demands. Consciously or unconsciously, a neo-colonial relationship seems to be replayed over and over again... and it would take much more than words and declarations of good intentions to break this pattern of relations that is rooted in centuries of domination.

Today, a scientific review of the state of play of cultural cooperation between Europe and Africa, and particularly of cooperation programmes financed by the European Union, is still to be done. A review that is not limited to the official documents relating to these programmes, but that seeks to integrate the views of partners and beneficiaries in the South and formulate the complexity and ambivalence of these types of programmes.

On the basis of such an approach a new paradigm can gradually develop, far removed from the imbalance and representations inherited from colonisation and respectful of all parties. This requires two major changes:

• First of all, for actors in the North, it is necessary to recognise that the structural quality of exchanges is now as important as the artistic requirement, which necessarily impacts the framework of interactions, both project engineering and programme governance.
• On the other hand, it is important to design, support and evaluate projects and programmes over a longer period of time. Achieving structural change can rarely be done in the space of three, four or five years. In order to be effective, cultural cooperation must be carried out in a concerted and coordinated manner over a relatively long and continuous period of time.

Year after year, there are a string of policy declarations on the importance of the role of culture in the development of ACP countries.

When will we emerge from this succession of declarations and dare to lay the groundwork for concrete and innovative actions, representing a true paradigm shift? There are competent African professional organisations that are capable of enlightening and accompanying institutions. The Arterial Network, a network of African cultural operators, celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and now covers almost the entire continent. More recently, the African Cultural Policy Network, created in 2017, aims to be the interlocutor of states, local and regional authorities and regional and international organisations in the field of policies related to culture and cultural cooperation. Other organisations also possess considerable experience and expertise. And let’s not forget think tanks such as the ‘Ateliers de la pensée’.

Political institutions can no longer ignore these partners in the South. Going beyond words and specific actions, will the EU manage to implement the structural principles set out in its new strategy on international cultural relations: mutual listening and learning, respect and equality, reciprocity, co-creation? Responsibilities are shared between Europeans and Africans. As long as African decision-makers and political organisations fail to consider and invest more heavily in cultural issues and questions, Europeans will continue to act as they wish, as experts in soft power and cultural diplomacy. Yet a paradigm shift is urgently needed to deal with the rise of extremism and populism in Africa and Europe. Because culture is not good in itself. It is a matrix that can generate both the best and the worst.

A paradigm shift is urgently needed to deal with the rise of extremism and populism in Africa and Europe. Because culture is not good in itself. It is a matrix that can generate both the best and the worst.

The writer Sony Labou Tansi used to say: ‘I am not to be developed. I am to be taken or left.’ How can we live together on a global scale with cultural differences that are constantly taking on new forms? Tomorrow, experts predict that ‘geocultural issues are called on to constitute an approach to global governance, on the same footing as geopolitical and geoeconomic issues. One of the major strategic challenges is to invent ways of making cultural pluralism a political project that will enable the many ways of being in the world to shape their interactions and form the basis of a multi-centric, yet peaceful world.’ Will EU-Africa cultural cooperation contribute effectively to this challenge?