What is a nations culture? Many Governments and institutions around the world are engaged in a continual effort to preserve our heritage by restoring or maintaining ancient monuments and historic buildings. And, UNESCO’s programme aiming at the preservation and dissemination of valuable cultural heritages has been successful over the years in identifying and putting together some of the world’s most valuable archive holdings and library collections.

However, a nation’s cultural heritage often goes deeper than its physical ‘tangible’ manifestations. Each culture has its own ‘intangible cultural heritage’. But what is that?

According to UNESCO and the 2003 “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage”, the intangible cultural heritage – or living heritage – is the mainspring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity.

The Convention states that the ICH is manifested, among others, in the following ways:

• Oral traditions and expressions including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
• Performing arts (such as traditional music, dance and theatre);
• Social practices, rituals and festive events;
• Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
• Traditional craftsmanship.

Anthropologists and interculturalists alike will express the importance of story-telling in relation to the embodiment of a culture. It’s good to know that UNESCO aims to help us be more aware of the importance of our intangible assets.

Being an interculturalist is one of the most fascinating professions –
you learn something new everday. Interestingly, I was speaking to an anthropologist friend of mine recently and learned that in her professions anthroplogists aren’t considered true anthropologists until they spend five years in the community that they study. As an interculturalist I can quite understand why that is…

 A nation is enriched by the people within it.  The more diverse they are the more we are enriched as a whole, and the more we grow as individuals. I firmly believe that cultural diversity is our biggest asset – but then how can it also be a liability? The answer really is simple – in trying to help people retain their cultural heritage or ethnic identity we manage to lose the message about UNITY.

UNITY is something we – as a nation – apparently strive for, but it’s the one goal we consistently fail to achieve. The UK Government searches desperately to identify what is “Britishness” so that it can bring a sense of belonging and UNITY to the nation. It has consistently failed to do so. I believe that is because, in spite of searching for our distinctive core values, they have not dug deep enough into the values of the nation and fundamentally do not understand about our Cultural Code.

Why is it that the French are very secure in who they are and why do Americans pride themselves on taking the oath of allegiance and flying the flag?  Why is it they seem to have UNITY – at least to the concept of nationhood – and we do not? That’s because they are French or American before they are anything else. 

Undoutedly, events like 9/11, the London and Madrid bombings, along with the terrorist attacks in Mombai and the Philippines, to name just a few, have changed many attitudes towards other cultures and the peoples that live in some distant lands. Will conflict between civilisations be the latest phase in the evolution of conflict in the modern world? Samuel Huntingdon argues that the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict, in this century, will be cultural – not ideological or economic as in the last century.

So what does this actually mean?  Well, let’s take a step back…