Francisco Jose Lacayo ParajonChief of UNESCO´s Regional Cultural Office for Latin America and the Caribbean

Francisco Jose Lacayo Parajon is a sociologist born in Nicaragua. Throughout his lifetime, he´s served a number of stints linked to both culture and education. Among them, Nicaraguan Deputy Minister of Culture and Education, and peace broker in different parts of Central America. He´s also worked as UNESCO representative to El Salvador and Uruguay, and has been at the helm of the Havana-based UNESCO Regional Cultural Office for Latin America and the Caribbean since the year 2000. He also represents that same institution in Cuba, Aruba and the Dominican Republic.

UNESCO´s Regional Office in Havana, the oldest in the Western Hemisphere, turned 55 years last February 24. On that occasion, Caribbean News Digital talked exclusively with Mr. Lacayo and is now honored to publish these statements that highlight a common line of thoughts and objectives between the Regional Office and the Exclusivas Latinoamericanas Publishing Group.

by Frank Perez

CND: You´ve been leading this UNESCO Regional Office since August 2000. In that span of time, what are the most significant initiatives your office has carried out?

FJL: It´s hard t boil down the main actions this office has conducted over the past 55 years, but its functions have run on a sort of two-way street. On the one hand, to make sure that UNESCO´s large forums, consensuses, statements, conventions and programs are both adopted and taken into effect by the 34 members states of UNESCO in the Latin American and Caribbean region. On the other hand, the office has offered technical and financial cooperation and assistance in the fields of heritage preservation –let´s not forget all the sites that UNESCO has declared World Heritage in this region- artistic and handicraft creativeness, the different expressions of cultural diversity, including hundreds of active tongues still spoken by our peoples in this neck of the woods.

In the same breath, we´ve paid close heed to cultural industries and to the ratification of a number of conventions passed by the organization´s General Conference. This office, faithful to UNESCO´s view, has promoted regional integration every step of the way from the communities to the fields of heritage (both material and non-material), cultural diversity, and artistic and cultural creativity in general.

UNESCO asked itself a few years ago whether it was reasonable to continue existing as an organization in today´s world. In the Executive Council Assembly of UNESCO back in the spring of 2000, the organization answered that question and concluded that UNESCO had plenty of reasons to remain functioning as it is today, because in these times of information technology and high-tech communications, of eye-popping biotechnological breakthroughs and globalization, its mission of advancing the humanization of globalization remains unchanged. And this mission is achieved through education, culture, science and communication, which are UNESCO´s fields of competence. A globalization with a humane character on its way toward peace, safety and development in the 21st century.

CND: In addition to being at the helm of this Office, you´re UNESCO representative to Cuba, Aruba and the Dominican Republic. In this particular context, how do you assess the role and the importance of the Caribbean nations as part of regional integrating efforts?

JFL: Caribbean nations, within this regional and continental framework, are destined to play an increasingly larger –and they´re already doing that- integrating role by keeping that unique legacy and testimony of theirs very much alive, even standing halfway between the African and aboriginal inheritance and the cultural aspects passed on to them by their former European metropolises. That´s the reason why this regional office has deployed such a magnificent array of initiatives and activities aimed at achieving regional cooperation, establishing collaboration ways among Latin American and Caribbean nations, and joining hands with other regional offices across the Western Hemisphere in this particular endeavor. One of the main actions has undoubtedly been the systematic encouragement and support of the Latin American and Caribbean Forum of Culture Ministers and Policymakers, whose Technical Secretariat was set up in 1999 with the foundation of the UNESCO Regional Cultural Office. This forum has given UNESCO plenty of wiggle room to work hand in hand with countries in the region in spreading their cultural policies, their backlogs of events and the American multiplicity. The forum has been holding meetings on a yearly basis and has broached highly relevant matters for the advance and cultural integration in the region. This effort has also spearheaded cooperation among Latin American and Caribbean states in terms of preserving intangible and material heritages, safeguarding the rich traditions and cultural identities of these peoples, fostering handicraft-making, the flourishing of arts, literature and both classic and pop music, and setting up a regional cultural information system whereby UNESCO´s tools and guidelines support the designing of cultural policies within the region and in the light of new cultural paradigms.

CND: UNESCO has turned to the promotion of a humane globalization as its new strategy, as well as the fostering of the two huge diversities: biodiversity and cultural diversity. What can you tell us about that?

FJL: You´re right. In different texts and events, UNESCO has proposed a humane globalization, the fostering of the two huge diversities –biodiversity and cultural diversity- the warranty of survival and the growth of mankind as both a species and a society. That´s why it says, “… cultural diversity is for human beings as necessary as biodiversity is for living organisms…” So, if we manage to achieve a globalization with those two huge diversities ingrained in its soul, we´ll never lose the humane character of that process, nor could we fall pray of those phony cultural values full of cloned thoughts and feelings that are so commonplace today. Otherwise, however, we´ll be doomed to gaze at our own reflection in which only ourselves are seen. Moving beyond that, at the Roundtable of the World´s Culture Ministers –held in Paris in 2000 and convened by UNESCO- attendants came up with the idea of forging a World Pro-Cultural Diversity Alliance. Now in October this year, UNESCO will debate a worldwide proposal on this particular issue of cultural diversity.

CND: Discussions on the topic of the linkage between culture and tourism have been going on in different national and international forums. The Caribbean seems to be a good-case scenario for the advance of cultural tourism. What do you make of this key issue?

FJL: In the course of that same Culture Ministers Roundtable held in Paris five years ago, attendants said, and I quote, “Culture is not supposed to take a back seat to economy and cultural industries are the industries of the future, and technology exchange may foster their progress” end quote. This recognition of the key role culture must play has been the result of a longstanding process spearheaded by UNESCO a few years ago. I also believe this is a qualitative change in which the theory of presenting culture as heritage, diversity, a source of creation and an undisputed value for any human, economic or social development plan, truly holds water.

It´s all about taking issue with the idea that the wealth of the future will increase as long as societies are more creative, far more aware of their cultural diversity, and the cultural and natural heritage they treasure. It´s all about recognizing that culture –seen as heritage, cultural diversity and creativity, coupled with scientific knowledge and the natural heritage- must be on the bargaining table where economic and social plans of the future are going to be mapped out. And this is the rest: how can we turn leisure and creativeness, heritage and diversity into a business, without letting go of the leisure character of it?

For example, in today´s world, the travel industry is one of the biggest economic engines and sources of hard-currency cash for developed and developing nations alike. We know all along that tourism sages have proposed different travel categories based on those elements that make tourists sally forth. They talk about sun-and-sand tourism, ecotourism, health tourism, academic travel and cultural tourism, among other categories. Without any intention whatsoever of sliding into some kind of scholastic analysis, we´d like to say that no matter what kind of tourism is chosen, there´ll always be a core of values any tourist attraction will depend upon, either in small communities or in whole countries. I´m referring to natural heritage, cultural diversity and creativeness, especially when the latter produces high levels of identity, diversity, symbolic value and artistic values.

It goes without saying that UNESCO is making a presence of its own in the realm of tourism, chiefly due to the close ties that bind ecotourism, cultural tourism and nature tourism together. I know I´ve spun too long a yarn on this issue, but let me say that, for instance, our office organized two major regional events in which analyses, reflections and debates on tourism were the name of the game. I´m talking about the First International Meeting on Cultural Tourism –held in Havana in 1996- and the Latin American and Caribbean Congress on Gastronomic Heritage and Cultural Tourism (Mexico´s Puebla, 1999). We also planned a Symposium on Cultural Diversity and Tourism, also organized by our regional office last year.

CND: What is, in your opinion, the role to be played by travel-oriented publications bent on the spread and promotion of tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean? What aspects should they zero in on?

FJL: Tourism or the so-called travel industry is one of the strongest and most dynamic expressions of what globalization is actually all about, seen from a broad angle. Every tourism expression implies the movement of individuals and communities that march in search of a basic need: knowledge, encounters, understanding of identities, quest for heritage, diversity, creativity and other elements. It´s the newest way of the nec-otium of the otium. From business to leisure, construed as the sum of all elements of the cultural and natural heritage, of identity and creativeness. Travel-oriented publications that promote and spread tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean, like the one you promote so excellently, play a strategic and far-reaching role. We must promote that kind of tourism that leads to mutual enrichment, the kind of travel in which those who visit, welcome and host coexist. Time is ripe for dialogue among cultures and civilizations. Those publications that manage to portray that image of tourism and travel are true and positive educators in a modern world, and we must support them every step of the way.