Abstract
In this chapter, Kavaliku suggests a working rationale for sustainable development. He is clear that the interdependence of economic, intellectual, political, environmental and cultural dimensions must be considered when making policies and plans for the future of peoples and nations.
Kavaliku states that culture and sustainable development are changeable state phenomena: it is important to understand these ideas and their relationship.
To Kavaliku, the challenge for people living in the Pacific islands is to decide to be part of the larger world or to remain in their own little worlds, supported by their own resources and infrequently by regional and global resources.
Table of Contents
The World Decade for Cultural Development was established by the United Nations in 1988, and UNESCO was given the mandate of being the lead agency for the program. One of the major objectives of the Cultural Decade is that the ‘cultural dimension’ must be taken into account in the consideration of policies, formulation of plans and the implementation of development plans and programs—in our case, in the Pacific island countries.
Our task is not so much to accept the call of the United Nations or UNESCO blindly, but rather to examine critically the objective to see whether there are any real relations of interdependence between culture and sustainable development—and if so why and how. Furthermore, if interdependence is established, to examine how this finding could help us in the understanding and framing of policies, plans, and programs for the development of peoples and nation states.
Culture has many definitions, but the one I have always preferred was succinctly spelled out in the Mexico Conference in 1982. According to that formulation, culture comprises the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, intellectual and emotional features that characterise society or social groups. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also different modes of life, the fundamental rights of human beings, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
Culture is both an instrument for decision-making and implementation as well as the end result of those policies and of the decisions implemented. Furthermore, culture is a dynamic reality. It changes, either gradually or rapidly, over time. Indeed, it is a system that changes with each new idea, new development, each new generation and each new interaction with other cultures and/or peoples. Past cultures lend themselves to conservation. Living cultures are based on legacies of the past, the ideas of the present and the hopes for the future. In trying to understand living cultures we must also understand their legacies from the past. As Kierkegaard once wrote, ‘life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards’.