Memory selects from the past what seems important for the individual or for the community. It organizes this selection and imprints its values on it.
Why do we need to remember? Because the past is the very core of our individual or collective identity.
If we do not have a sense of our own identity and the confirmation of our existence that it provides, we feel threatened and paralyzed. The need for an identity is, thus, quite legitimate. We have to know who we are and what group we belong to.
But people, like groups, live among other people and other groups. And so it is not enough simply to say that everyone has the right to exist. We also have to consider how our exercise of this right affects the existence of others.
From cultural diversity to cultural pluralism
read more...In our increasingly diverse societies, it is essential to ensure harmonious interaction among people and groups with plural, varied and dynamic cultural identities as well as their willingness to live together.
Policies for the inclusion and participation of all citizens are guarantees of social cohesion, the vitality of civil society and peace. Thus defined, cultural pluralism gives policy expression to the reality of cultural diversity. Indissociable from a democratic framework, cultural pluralism is conducive to cultural exchange and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain public life.