Currently there is something like a 'hype' about Latin American and Spanish culture in Europe. This process has been accelerating for months and years and has only gained further momentum in recent times. Examples to support this claim are manifold. In Germany the number of pupils choosing Spanish as a third language is growing faster than the schools can manage. In every German region there is a lack of qualified Spanish teachers for schools. Three German regions, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia are offering an exchange programme for teachers from Spain and Latin America who want to teach Spanish in Germany in order to be able to meet the demand. Some schools are even starting to offer Spanish as a first or second language.
Additionally Latin America is becoming more and more popular as a tourism destination. According to the most recent tourism report of the European Commission, Latin America still plays a marginal role in the overall statistics for the tourist destinations of Europeans, but the growth rates for tourism in Latin America show the increasing appeal of the destination. Naturally tourism figures have dropped in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis, but tourism in Latin America is still doing significantly better than in any other region.The same goes for exchange programmes of all different types. More and more university students are heading to Latin America for exhanges or internships of one year and many young people leaving school after A-levels spend a year backpacking through Latin America.
Last but not least Spanish and Latin American popular culture is reaching more and more people in Europe. Apart from Flamenco, Salsa, Tango and other dances that were always hugely popular and well known, Spanish music is also becoming popular in Europe beyond the peninsula. Almost everybody nowadays knows Spanish singing artists like Shakira, Juanez and Alejandro Sanz. Furthermore Latin American literature has inspired an entire generation of European authors. Daniel Kehlmann, the young German author of the bestseller 'Measuring the World', told the audience at a literature event in Frankfurt´s Instituto Cervantes that reading the books of authors like Gabriel García Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Juan Carlos Onnetti completely changed his approach to literature.
Even though this rising interest in Latin American (popular) culture can be a good starting ground for deeper intercultural exchange, it is necessarily only a first step. Dancing Salsa to Shakira songs and learning Spanish does not already create a deeper understanding for Latin American cultures. Quite the contrary, there is even the danger of seeing Latin America as a continent of dancing, celebrating people that are fun but not to be taken too seriously. A cliché sadly prevalent in parts of Europe from my experience.
This is why an interest for the culture of a country/region can only be a first step. Civil society initiatives and cultural institutions like Instituto Cervantes need to take it over from here and facilitate a broader and more general understanding of Latin America, it´s different countries, cultures and social and political problems. Culture can be a powerful door-opener for intercultural exchange, but the experience the ´Latin America meets Europe´group had at an exhibiton organized by the Peruvian embassy at the Instituto Cervantes in Berlin shows what happens, if exchange is limited to culture.
The Peruvian embassy had organized a small, multilingual exhibition on Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. With a conquistador father and an Inca princess as his mother he was supposedly one of the first mestizos (person of Spanish/Indigenous origin) and the first Peruvian author of 'mixed' descent. The exhibition focused on the life and the works of de la Vega and pictured him as one of the origins of modern Peru. Thus the mixed heritage of Latin America and Peru with all it´s history and conflicts was implicitly mentioned. Nevertheless the exhibition did not elaborate on this in any way. Some critical remarks by forum participants from Latin America soon led to a discussion of these issues that was rather embarassing for the Cultural Attache of the Peruvian Embassy. An average visitor to the exhibition perhaps would not even have realized that one of the core questions of Latin American identitity was broached in this exhibition without being discussed.
The lesson for people trying to further real intercultural exchange between Europe and Latin America is clear: If exchange is reduced to general cultural topics beyond dispute, everybody is feeling good. But a real in depth look and a real exchange can only be reached if the deep-rooted social, historical and political context of culture is also discussed.
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