ARE THERE DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY?
Cultural diversity on the surface is a desirable end. But like culture and development cultural diversity is fraught with contradictions and serves different, and often, conflicting interests, depending on the conditions. For developed countries that might face the threat of Hollywood movies and television programmes undermining their local film industries, or whose music industry might be threatened by imports from elsewhere, the language and strategies of cultural diversity are understandable and might be effective to counter such threats. But the perspective may be substantially different in developing countries. For example, cultural diversity was used in the context of colonialism and apartheid to divide-and-rule. Thus, to emphasise cultural diversity now rather than, say, national reconciliation might be seen to be promoting neo-apartheid. In South Africa today, one of the major groups advancing cultural diversity is the white, Afrikaner group who were the primary implementers an
