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Each night, beside the meeting pool, where no animal was allowed to kill, the animals of the jungle gathered to discuss how they could stop the White Man from chopping down the trees and destroying their home. Many were the ideas, and many were the stories told to illustrate them. These folk-tales from Borneo are the real strength of the animals, and in the end, the White Man comes to the meeting pool and also tells a story, and the jungle is saved.

 

Many of us at times feel threatened by political correctness, global capitalism, national identity, etc. - the mono-culture of the White Man's rubber plantation. Society overwhelms the individual when there is a lack of community, and community grows out of communication. This means speaking and listening, creating and observing, from the heart, freely, and it requires an atmosphere of acceptance and security. Clearly, no plan, organisation, or system can provide this; what is required in each case is a unique response to the individual. From this, community can grow; it cannot be imposed. Post-Colonial literature inherits the language, categories, and institutions of the colonising culture. As a woman of Welsh and Caribbean descent, I find that my writing does not quite 'fit' in Welsh, English, Caribbean, or Feminist magazines. Most discussion of cultural diversity takes the form of a sociological or inter-personal negotiation; people are assumed to have a unitary, fixed, clear and absolute cultural identity with which to negotiate. In fact, however, there are many people - perhaps even a majority - who, like me, embody cultural diversity. I may be Welsh, I might be very Welsh, but I cannot be wholly Welsh - I wonder if anyone can, but this is a question that is not generally asked, and there is no forum, no country, no cultural context to raise it in. I find myself alone and fragmented, and yet this seems to be the modern human condition, especially for anyone who rejects the lowest common denominators of mass culture and is looking for personal expression of a meaningful kind. It is perhaps only in the field of the creative arts that this negotiation between personal and cultural identity can occur, and our project is to create a forum and bring together people who are interested in exploring these matters.