Cultural Diplomacy

I was in Edinburgh for just over 24 hours with just enough time to walk down a street or two, have a taste of haggis and experience the biting January cold for myself. The trip was gift from the British Council Scotland which invited me and two other delegates from Malta, Giovanni Buttigieg and Carmen Sammut to discuss “Scotland’s place in the world” in a one day seminar attended by guests from a multitude of small countries.

Devolution in Scotland has meant more than a realization of a national identity. That was always there. The Scots want to develop their relationship with the rest of the world, with the community of nations. They also want to get beyond the stereotypes of kilts, scotch, shortbread and Highland games. There is much more to Scotland.

Certainly it is no mean thing that the first note from a bagpipe anywhere in the world instantly recalls everything Scottish to millions with a Scottish connection and otherwise. Still there is so much more which Scotland can make available to the rest of us in science and engineering, in the arts and in business.

The outreach to Armenians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs as well as to Maltese may itself be a measure of the Scottish willingness to explore other realities, to learn from them and build new bonds. It was all about cultural diplomacy, about going beyond interdependency to interconnectedness. All small countries have a lot to learn.

I came home turning over all I had heard and discussed in my head. It was stimulating to apply it to Malta’s case, to explore all the potential as yet untapped. Who will begin to do so? How? There is no Maltese cultural institute to interface with the British Council, the Alliance Française or the Goethe Institut. Perhaps there should be. Our potential as a venue for cultural debate and developing interconnectedness in our region is out of all proportion to our size. It is all there for the taking.