Choudhury: ‘Now’s the time to prioritise cultural democracy’

Scottish Labour’s Spokesperson for Culture, Foysol Choudhury MSP, has today emphasised the need for Scotland to re-focus on engaging with community culture organisations.

Mr Choudhury was speaking following a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Culture and Communities which he convened on Wednesday 28^th February.

The CPG saw presentations from groups Science Ceilidh, Art27 and Development Trusts Association Scotland and focused on the matter of Cultural Democracy in light of the ongoing Local Governance Review and Democracy Matters conversations.

Key themes which emerged from the presentations and subsequent Q & A were the needs to encourage communities to participate in their local culture and use it to address current topics by transmitting the community’s standpoint on local, domestic and international affairs.

Mr Choudhury says this is something he will continue to support community cultural groups in doing: “Culture is so important-it is the means by which we can understand our history, preserve our languages and traditions, and share our diversity with others in a vibrant multi-cultural society.

“That’s why it’s so important that communities are encouraged to engage in cultural endeavours-both to explore and transmit their own culture and to socially engage with a multitude of issues from their own cultural perspective.

“However, we must prioritise cultural democracy and make it easy for communities to engage with cultural exploration – this was made clear from the CPG meeting this week.

“I will continue to work hard as Convener of this CPG to reach out to grassroots cultural community groups and progress words into action, to ensure that the discussions we have at Holyrood can be translated into actual opportunities for communities.”

MSP Choudhury, who is also chairperson of community organisation ELREC, says he looks forward to hosting more CPG meetings soon and will invite the Minister for Culture to give all cultural community organisations an opportunity to have their voice heard by those in Holyrood.