Biserka Cvjetičanin: Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue – Constitutive Principles of Democratic Society

Summary of Biserka Cvjetičanin’s presentation given the roundtable Justice, Equality and Diversity in Croatia (English and Croatian Version):

Biserka Cvjetičanin discussed cultural diversity which has become one of the greatest challenges of our time. Cultural diversity is an universal issue and it needs to be addressed through broad consensus. In her speech, she mentioned UNESCO documents that encourage cultural pluralism, as well as documents adopted by the European Union: European Agenda for Culture in a Globalising World (2007) and New European Agenda for Culture (2018). She stated that intercultural dialogue is one of the fundamental pillars of diversity, but expressed concern with situation regarding minorities in Croatian society, accoring to which Croatia does not show any progress. Finally, she mentioned the 2018 spring Eurobarometer survey which included a question “What does the European Union mean to you personally?”. 26% of Croats responded cultural diversity, while at the EU level the importance of cultural diversity is declining. Respondents from Sweden and Denmark showed the highest level of recognizing cultural diversity as an important issue.

Biserka Cvjetičanin raspravljala je o kulturnoj raznolikosti koja je postala najveći izazov našeg vremena. Kulturna raznolikost je univerzalno pitanje o kojem treba postići najširi konsenzus. U svome izlaganju spomenula je dokumente UNESCO-a kojima je cilj poticanje kulturnog pluralizma, jednako tako i dokumente koji su prihvaćeni na razini Europske unije: Europska agenda za kulturu (2007) i Nova europska agenda za kulturu (2018). Navela je interkulturni dijalog kao jedan od temeljnih stupova raznolikosti, ali je izrazila zabrinutost jer se u odnusu prema manjima može vidjeti kakvo je zaista stanje u društvu i percepcija prema različitostima, u čemu Hrvatska ne pokazuje napredak. Na kraju je spomenula ispitivanje Eurobarometra iz proljeća 2018. godine prema kojem je na pitanje: „Što vam Europska unija znači na osobnoj razini?“, 26% Hrvata odgovorilo kulturna raznolikost, dok na razini Europske unije važnost kulturne raznolikosti opada. Najvišu razinu važnosti kulturne raznolikosti pokazali su ispitanici iz Švedske i Danske.