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WORKSHOP:
Comparative Cultural Studies 2
Culture and OthernessChair: Marianne de Jong (University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa)
The Roma, National Culture, and Multiculturality
Radu-Dragos, Bostan (Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldova)
Abstract: In his paper, "The Roma, National Culture, and Multiculturality," Bostan Radu-Dragos explores the concept of multiculturality in the context the coexistence of cultures. The specific case of the Roma, their particular history and social situation, brings into question the concept of "culture" with its complex semantic and pragmatic implications. During the last two hundred years in European political history, we have witnessed the process of nation building and the formation of national states. "Culture" played an important role in this process, since in Eastern and Central Europe cultural nationalism was (and still is) a driving force in the formation and legitimisation of nation states which, in turn, have a tendency to become ethnic states. However, while all societies today are culturally heterogeneous, not all of them are multicultural. A multicultural society should ensure that its cultural communities are able to preserve and transmit their cultural heritage including their languages, histories, and religions. This gives them a sense of security, generates good will and gratitude, gives them the confidence to interact with others in a relaxed manner, and helps create a plural collective culture. The paper here includes a brief discussion about the diversity of the Romany experience, a diversity which gives rise to the different interests for which Romany activists have sought to use the rhetoric of unity. The historically determined diversity and multiculturality of the Roma imposes serious constraints upon the formalisation or codification of Roma culture in order to teach and propagate it, and to put it on an equal footing with other groups or ethnic-minority cultures, not to mention better established "national cultures."
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