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Plural citizenship and the right to peace in the

agenda of intercultural dialogue: an Italian case

Antonio Papisca, Professor Emeritus, University of Padua and Chairholder, United Nations Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Organization Chair on Human Rights, Democracy and Peace

ultures are mobile. They move from one country to

another and from one continent to another, thanks

not only to the impalpable dynamics of ideas, but

also physically, through migratory flows, refugees and

asylum-seekers, who bring with them their sufferings,

their expectations and their grudges. The transmigra-

tion of cultures, favoured by the tentacular processes of

globalization, represents a challenge to social cohesion,

peace and international security.

The 2005 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection and

Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions shows an

awareness of this. Its preamble highlights the fact that cultural

diversity is considered a “defining characteristic and common

heritage of humanity” and that it “flourishes within a frame-

work of democracy, tolerance, social justice and mutual respect

between peoples and cultures [that] is indispensable for peace

and security at the local, national and international levels”.

Consistent with this preamble, Article 1 states an objective “to

encourage dialogue among cultures with a view to ensuring

wider and balanced cultural exchanges in the world in favour

of intercultural respect and a culture of peace.”

Intercultural dialogue generates, as stated in Article 4,

point 8 of the convention, “shared cultural expressions”

and creates what we can call a strongly action- and policy-

oriented transculture of an axiopractical nature. It is culture

that facilitates the ongoing processes of genuine univer-

salization of human rights all over the world, the tangible

realization of which begins in towns and villages, where

people live their everyday lives.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small

places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot

be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the

individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school

or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he

works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and

child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity

without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning

there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted

citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall work

in vain for progress in the larger world.”

These are words written by Eleanor Roosevelt, comment-

ing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She is

referring to the principle of subsidiarity and to the link

between the local and the international, an increasingly

significant link nowadays for the sustainability of the

human condition in the age of complex interdependencies.

From this human sustainability perspective, citizenship

rights, social cohesion and international peace in a context

of multi-level good governance are terms which are inter-

connected with one another.

At the national level, the processes of multiculturalization

connected to migrations are challenging the realization of

human rights and the practice of democracy itself even in the

countries which have the longest experience of it.

In order to implement non-violent steps to prevent

the critical mass of conflict intrinsic to these situations

boiling over, practices of intercultural dialogue must be

activated on the ground. But dialogues to what end? What

to do? Certainly for a reciprocal exchange of narratives of

the different histories of their place of origin, to compare

them with one another and to encourage their testing

against the paradigm of universal values enshrined in the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each culture, and

each religion, must be cleansed of the negative side of their

respective histories, drawing on the common source of the

‘universal’ in a healthy, positive secularism approach. But

for this necessary process of exchange and cleansing to

be fruitful, it must be accompanied by actually working

together, in the places where people live their everyday

lives, to realize objectives for the common good.

It is from this standpoint, which is both teleological

and communitarian, that dialogue must be entered into

between subjects who are enabled to exercise equal citi-

zenship rights in an inclusive city. This means redefining

citizenship, in terms of standard-setting too, starting from

the fundamental rights inherent to each and every human

being as such, regardless of his or her respective national

citizenship of origin. If it is true that “all human beings are

born free and equal in dignity and rights,” as proclaimed

in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration, then all human

beings have an inherent status of universal citizenship:

in other words, inasmuch as they are human beings, they

are born citizens, holders of a

primary citizenship

which,

contrarily to the traditional national citizenships, is not

octroyée

(bestowed upon them). This citizenship does not

cancel national citizenships, but makes them

derived,

and

so they must be compatible with the paradigm of univer-

sally recognized human rights.

gree

iffer