What defines this global culture, though? If I look at the Arab world, which is the region I know best and which shares much with the rest of the developing world, I see a number of phenomena which, rather than indicating a greater participation by different discrete cultures in one universal conversation, point to cultural turmoil, conflict and contradiction. It is of course debatable whether in such a connected world as ours discrete cultural entities exist at all, but what is sure is that a cosmopolitan, English-speaking elite is now dominating the region’s cultural production in ways that were inconceivable only a decade or so ago. On the other side of the spectrum, large majorities of the peoples in the Arab world remain culturally conservative. And yet both groups share the same economic and political realities: continued Western military dominance, an estranged and often disengaged and supercilious elite that is more closely linked to the West in its outlooks and aspirations than the majority of people at the grass roots; unregulated financial (and art) markets, dominated by the private sector (or a private sector masquerading as a public one, as is the case with a number of Gulf ruling families disbursing cultural funds, obsessively fixated on imitating European institutions and practices), with no access to democratically distributed public funding for the arts, etc. The globalised market turns out to be, for many developing nations, nothing but a colonial market by proxy.
From the perspective of a marginalised or occupied culture, or one decimated by civil war, his market is repulsive yet irresistible
From the perspective of a marginalised or occupied culture, or one decimated by civil war, this market is repulsive yet irresistible. It offers financial and professional opportunities that only a few years ago were unheard of, and has tempted many talented artists and curators away from their home soil to seek new opportunities in the West or in the new cultural hubs of the Gulf, even if the price is a scuppering of long-held beliefs and certainties. The exciting prospect for these cultural migrants is that they may finally find the security and freedom to do what they have always dreamed of doing. The danger however is that they will be swallowed up by a world in which artistic expression is made banal by easy money and borrowed ideas and fashions, and marketing and public relations considerations rather than the struggles for freedom, equality, authenticity and originality that some artists, thankfully, continue to consider as central to their creative endeavours.
Geographically, this exile increasingly means leaving one’s home for the new cultural hubs of the Gulf, which are Western colonies in almost everything but name. Here, however, the traditional struggles against colonial cultural domination – between an ‘authentic’ local culture and a powerful colonial one – no longer exist in the same way. It is true that fundamentalist Islamist movements do argue for a ‘return’ to authentic tradition, but they do so in a reality permeated by global markets and technologies that are neither authentic nor traditional. It is no surprise therefore that where local age-old cultural traditions are weakened by forced migration, war or physical destruction, the clamour for an Islamic identity – ie, ideology – is loudest, including among second-genera tion immigrants in the West. Peasant cultures like those of rural Pakistan, Somalia, Palestine or Syria, however rich in origin, once carried into exile by often illiterate first-generation parents, will quickly be sidelined if not overwhelmed by a generic (and thus symbolic and vacuous) identity such as ‘Islam’, which until the modern age was not one homogeneous culture but a religion that formed a central part of a number of very different cultures.
The contemporary cultural world also seems to be a place where ideology is mistaken for, or cynically manipulated to seem like, cultural authenticity. I have already mentioned the Islamist example, but the example of Israel is perhaps a more interesting if equally destructive one. The establishment of Israel required the invention of a cultural identity that did not exist in real terms prior to the nineteenth century and the penetration of European Jewish discourse by nationalist ideology. This was not a case of manipulating preexisting cultural phenomena for the purposes of the nation state, but either inventing them from scratch or appropriating them from the local Palestinian culture or from the cultures of immigrant Jews and forming them into an ‘imagined community’, as described by Benedict Anderson’s famous formulation. The examples of falafel or pitta bread are particularly difficult for Palestinians, who see some of their staple dishes reinvented as Israeli specialties, adding insult to the injury of the whole- sale confiscation of their homeland. The point here is that sheer power has won the day over historical authenticity and has marginalised the issue of who invented what and when. Global culture is thus also characterised by historical parody.
We must ask ourselves what value a work of artistic expression can have if it does not at least express a point of view
A truly global culture, predicated upon principles of equality, respect, serious intellectual enquiry and artistic inventiveness must at the very least be aware of these power struggles and inequalities at its core and, if possible, militate against them. If authenticity is no longer even conceivable because so many world cultures have undergone cultural genocide – to borrow Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ominous phrase describing the destructive effects of capitalism on Italian peasant culture – we must ask ourselves what value a work of artistic expression can have if it does not at least express a point of view; if it relinquishes historical accuracy; if it loses sight of issues of genuine universal concern for humanity or remains stuck in narrow identity politics, conceptual game-playing or formalistic posturing, as so much globalised culture has been in recent years.
And to return to the Arab world, the profound upheavals it has witnessed in the last two years may begin to shake its elites out of their cocoons and force them to reengage with the concerns of their fellow citizens. This may also happen in the many other areas of the world in which social and political protests are taking place. Perhaps then it is time to look at an alternative ‘power’ list of people whose work genuinely resonates among the poor, dominated and marginalised grassroots; who can find alternatives to violent ideology and dominance through their inspirational work and who can offer a genuinely universal and liberating voice in a global cultural conversation held on an equal footing between all its participants.
Omar Al-Qattan is a trustee of the AM Qattan Foundation and chair of the Palestinian Museum and of the Shubbak Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture in London.
This article was first published in the November 2013 issue.
