UNESCO Courier articles from April 2000

UNESCO Courier archives from April 2000

CULTURAL CLONING OR HYBRID CULTURES?(culture and national identity)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... To raise the issue of culture today is to position oneself at the crossroads of two forces, globalization and the persistence of national identity, that are both contradictory and intertwined. Culture can no longer be developed without a basic,...

LARGE DAMS--THE END OF AN ERA?
April 1, 2000... Peter [*] Coles Growing debate about the rights and wrongs of large-scale dam construction focuses on the very meaning of development At the last count, there were around 40,000 large dams on the world's rivers, according to the...

A BARRAGE OF PROTEST.(opposition to Narmada dam project in India)
April 1, 2000... Peter [*] Coles The tide may be turning against the giant Narmada dam project in India Vadaj is a desolate place about 40 km from the historic city of Baroda in India's Gujarat state. During the summer months the baked earth cracks in...

USA: COMMERCIALS IN THE CLASSROOM.(Channel One )
April 1, 2000... Mark [*] Walsh Channel One has survived a decade of criticism over a daily TV show for schools in the US., where advertisers are ready to pay premium rates to reach youthful audiences Ten years ago, a commercial revolution began in...

Languages: conflict or coexistence?(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... From time immemorial, languages have come to birth, lived and died with the societies that engendered them. Today, however, they are dying out at unprecedented speed. As a result of what have been called "language wars", the great majority of...

6,000 languages: an embattled heritage.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Ranka [*] Bjeljac-Babic Ten languages die out each year. International action is needed to counter this erosion of cultural diversity Are the vast majority of languages doomed to die out in the near future? Specialists reckon that no...

Zaparo's lost secrets.(Zaparo Indians try to save their language and culture)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Carlos [*] Andrade The hundred or so Zaparo Indians who Live in the Ecuadorian Amazon are racing against time to save their language, land and culture 'My name is Manari, which in my language, Zaparo, means a hefty lizard that lives in...

Winners and losers.(linguistic diversity)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Half the world's population uses a total of eight languages in daily life, while one sixth of the world's languages are spoken in New Guinea alone The linguistic heritage is very unevenly distributed. According to estimates made by the...

Can English be dethroned?(spread of English language)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Roland [*] J.-L. Breton Major languages other than English are spoken by over half the people on the planet. What can be done to give them more clout in international bodies? Back in 1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson managed to have...

The trials of a Gikuyu writer.(Kenyan writer on his native language)
April 1, 2000... Mwangi [*] wa Mutahi Kenyan novelist Mwangi wa Mutahi is now an ardent defender of his native Language but he was once as hostile to it as some of his own teachers I was born into a peasant family in 1963, the year Kenya gained...

Berber's shining star.(Algerian singer Idir fights for Berber language)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Jasmina [*] Sopova Algerian singer Idir, an icon of Berber culture, uses his talent and guitar to fight for recognition of his mother tongue 'Txilek elli yi n taburt a vava invba / ccencen tizebgatin im a yelli ghriba" ("Please,...

A Basque writer leaps into translation.(Bernard Atxaga)(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 1, 2000... "Euskera, ialgi adi kanpora" ("Basque language, step forward!"). Bernard Atxaga [*] couldn't agree more with these words from a 16th-century Basque song. Euskera--the Basque language--is spoken by some 600,000 people in the Spanish Basque...

In praise of multilingualism.(linguist Joseph Poth)(Brief Article)(Interview)
April 1, 2000... We ought to promote trilingualism and save 'small languages' by teaching them, says linguist Joseph Poth [*] Is there a link between language policy and the culture of peace? Yes, they're directly connected. When a minority mother...

Defenders of diversity.(movement to support multilingualism)
April 1, 2000... Movements supporting linguistic diversity are building up the pressure for an international agreement on language rights Linguapax UNESCO Languages Division, 7 pLace de Fontenoy 75352 Paris, France. Fax: 33 (o) 1...

Shuara, a language that refused to die.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Marcos [*] Almeida The Shuar people of the Ecuadorian Amazon have turned their language into a powerful tool to safeguard their autonomy and cultural identity The Shuar are an indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Long known to...

India: bursting at the linguistic seams.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Amitav [*] Choudhry India is one of the world's leading multilingual countries, but today many of its minority languages are facing extinction as majority languages gain ground India, with a population of around one billion people, is...

Users are choosers.(fate of languages)
April 1, 2000... Jean-Louis [*] Calvet States rarely manage to force people to use a language against their will. The fate of languages ultimately depends on their speakers' needs Just as ecology depicts the world as a series of interlocking parts...

DNA IN THE DOCK.(genetic fingerprinting and human rights)
April 1, 2000... Martine [*] Jacot Genetic fingerprinting provides virtually flawless proof and is helping to identify criminals and free people jailed for crimes they did not commit. But does it violate basic human rights? Police and judges in Western...

AFRICAN MUSEUMS ON A MEET-THE-PEOPLE MISSION.
April 1, 2000... Cynthia [*] Guttman Plagued by low visitor attendance, African museums are breaking out of their rigid colonial moulds and courting local communities I Since he started teaching aspiring curators in the early 1980s, Emmanuel Nnakenyi...

STUDENTS BOOST A MUSEUM'S WORKFORCE.(Namibia's national museum)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Zoe [*] Titus In Namibia, high schools have become key actors in documenting scientific collections Namibia's national museum was the first on the continent to leap into the Internet age: visitors can walk through a virtual collection...

MEDIA SELF-CONTROL, THE SOUTH'S NEW OPTION.(press councils in developing countries)
April 1, 2000... Jean [*] Huteau As part of a growing trend in the developing world, press councils are encouraging responsible journalism and press freedom Since the early 1990s, pluralism independence have become new watchwords for media in...

ENKI BILAL: A JOURNEY TO THE END OF TIME.(Interview)
April 1, 2000... In comics, books and movies, a Yugoslav-born French artist visits the future to put me past in perspective and wields humour as a weapon against horror Memory is a recurrent theme in your work and the leitmotif of your latest book,...

PEOPLE AND PLACES.(Poem)
April 1, 2000... Towards the temple of Tapama [2] They called on the great fishermen On the Karanyara [3] On the Famenta On the Kasaminta Lords of the waves of night On the Niomenta On the Sininta On the Tienda Lords of the...