INTERCULTURALISM AND CIVIL SOCIETY

Abstract

Contradictory processes are occurring today in Europe. On the one hand flows an ineluctable process of creating a united Europe with open borders and the free flow of people, goods and services, and on the other side multicultural community is disintegrating. Simultaneously, Europe is increasingly becoming a multicultural, multi-religious and multilingual society. Such a society can exist normally only with an intercultural affirmation. Serbia has great experience of life in multicultural communities which is not sufficiently evaluated and, as well as all other European countries, is not only a multi-cultural but a multi-confessional society too. The civil society organizations represent a significant factor of intercultural reaffirmation since they emerged as a response to ethnic and religious intolerance. Starting from the philosophy of the network structure of society and acting in immediate contact with people, while giving the emphasis on their own education, they have become an important factor of changes and humanization of society, supporting the new approach to education too. The trends of globalization and creation of a united Europe pose new challenges to the education both for school learning and lifelong learning. Instead of national myths and xenophobia education and learning must train society for a multicultural, multi-confessional and multi-lingual life