Pursuing a civil society amid multicultural forces

By Mochtar Buchori

KUALA LUMPUR (JP): Common sense has it that multiculturalism is a phenomenon which can be observed only in pluralistic societies.

In Indonesia and Australia, for instance, multiculturalism can be readily seen and felt in everyday life.

It is rare in homogeneous societies like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and, I guess, the Czech Republic, for people to talk about multiculturalism as a critical social problem.

Accustomed to this view, I found it rather hard initially to understand this lecture about multiculturalism in South Korea in a recent international conference, Civitas Kuala Lumpur 1998.

The lecture was by Jay Choi, coordinator and deputy secretary- general of the FIET KOREA Liaison Council. My understanding grew only after she described in vivid terms the differences in life conditions and responses to challenges between members of the working class and those in power.

I realized that she viewed the cultural situation in Korea in a vertical manner, a method polar opposite to my traditional one in which multiculturalism is always perceived in a horizontal paradigm.

I do not know whether Choi is aware of American anthropologist Timothy C. Weiskel's view on culture, but her description of multiculturalism in South Korean society seems closely related.

Dr. Weiskel defines culture as "the totality of learned behavior that has become habitual in a given society or social subgroup".

Learned behavior is in essence "common habits of thought and of perception that people learn as a natural part of growing up in any culture". These habits of mind are usually learned long before formal schooling begins and are invariably independent of formal educational structures.

Choi described how members of the working class drastically changed their lifestyles to adjust themselves to the dictates of the new economic conditions sweeping Korea. When she compared them to the behavior of members of the upper class, she essentially demonstrated the existence of two different cultures existing for the "people" and the "rulers".

We in Indonesia do not know much about the specifics of these cultural types, but only that the people's culture has created generations of tough Korean students and workers.

The two groups are well known for their tenacity whenever they are forced to resist policies and treatment they consider unfair.

We outsiders have the impression that such toughness constitutes "second nature". Choi discerned this characteristic as a manifestation of the "instinct for resistance struggle" common among Koreans born in the people's culture.

Whereas the "people's culture" is one solid block, within the "ruler's culture" there are three subcultures tiered into the chaebol, military and bureaucracy.

Choi said the present crisis in Korea not only represents an economic crisis for the workers, but also an amalgamation of psychological, social, and cultural crises as well.

These subjectively felt multiple crises tend to bring about a "new culture" within the working class, something which is less bound by the determinative power of the traditional culture.

For members of the working class, the crisis is a "transcultural experience" that carries the seeds of a more resilient and creative workers' culture.

It is a phenomenon which anthropologists refer to as "cultural transformation", that is a passing over into a new cultural format.

Does the Korean economic downturn also bring about this same transformation within the ruler's culture?

As far as I remember, Choi did not discuss this matter. Judging from the collapse of many conglomerates in Korea, however, my guess is that no cultural change as profound as the one happening within the working class seems to have occurred within the upper reaches.

Which inevitably leaves us pondering what causes the difference.

The discussion about multiculturalism in Korea was part of a grand discussion about problems in developing and maintaining civil society.

Here it is appropriate to quote from President Vaclav Havel's statements in his opening address to the Civitas Prague 1995 conference that civil society and democracy combined is a "system based on trust in human responsibility. This responsibility, however, must be constantly nurtured and cultivated. The state should not believe that it alone knows better than others what the society needs".

He continued: "It should trust its citizens and enable them to share in a substantive way the exercise of responsibility for the condition in the society. To this end, the state should offer citizens ... opportunities for participating in public life and developing diverse forms of civic coexistence, solidarity and participation."

If pursuing this ideal has even been a problem in a homogeneous society like the Czech Republic, it should be no surprise that it has been a great one in Korea and Indonesia.

According to Prof. Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago, pursuing civil society and democracy in multicultural societies is tantamount to attempting "to create a 'we', but at the same time, to recognize differences and distinctions".

It is a long-standing problem in human history.

If we are willing to learn from past human efforts, the wisdom that is transmitted through "centuries of blood and sweat and tears" seems to be -- again according to Prof. Elshtain -- the following: "Passion, yes. Fanaticism, no/Freedom, yes. License, no/Duty, yes. Compulsion, no/Dignity, yes. Heroic excesses, no."

Could these time-honored truths be our guide in our efforts to transform ourselves into a more democratic civil society?

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.