Every July, a wonderful multi-culti festival called “Sfinks” strikes down in little cosy Antwerp to delight its citizens with music brought by artists coming from all over the world.
For 35 years now, they have tried to bridge the gaps between different cultures by making people discover other traditions and lifestyles through music. It’s a festival in the name of tolerance – for young and old, for families and adventurous music lovers.
As 19-year-old Zoe and her friends told me: “There’s this great atmosphere here; everything seems possible. You can meet all of these different cultures and at the same time, they are unobtrusive because they just seem to belong here. There is multiculturalism here, but you don’t really notice it; it doesn’t feel weird or something. That’s how it should be in every-day society.”
However I was tending to agree with them at first, when I looked around a little more thoroughly I didn’t fail to notice that the public didn’t appear to be as multicultural as the music and the atmosphere were. I had to look quite hard to find someone who obviously had another cultural background.
Eventually I could speak to Rachid Al Baida, a 35-year-old Moroccan man who came to the festival for the first time: “However it is presented as multicultural, this festival doesn’t attract many… immigrants – let’s call us that way – because it doesn’t truly reach out to them. The music and the events are all about solidarity, tolerance and cultures – that I agree with – but not so much in the case of the public.”
So do music festivals like this one really bring people from different cultures together? Or do they just take one culture closer to another one's music?
Very very nice - when and where is it?
Hannah,
It does. I believe it does bring people from different cultures closer together. Music is a universal language.
To Bjarne: it is indeed a very pleasant festival, but you will have to come over to Antwerp, Belgium next year, mostly the last weekend of July.
To Iris: I would like to believe that, and I used to. But why then have there been so few people with a different cultural background at this festival, which aims for a multicultural atmosphere? If its music would really bring cultures together, there should have been many more of them around.
Always in Belgium, in Brussels, I’ve been in june to Coleurecafe’ festival, and I must admit that yes, in my opinion that festival brought people and cultures together, musically but also from the food perspective… amazing athmosphere!
We’ve something similar here too, called the festival of world cultures in Dublin. I think the greatest advantage to these kinds of festivals is that they highlight just how similar different cultures are. Music with similar beats/styles/sounds from all over the world, remind us that there’s not tat much that divides us. And, it’s like traveling the world in a few hours. Hope you enjoyed.
the test we could make was to ask those people from mainstream culture attending the festival. How would they react if the immigrant would seat next to them - while they change a place, put the hand to the pocket and check if the wallet is still there… How would we react?
Music is an element that speaks common language for everyone - the feel of the beat. I like the way festivals brings you closer to people you never knew before!
Hi Iwona, thanks for reacting. It’s not really what I meant, though. I am sure people going to a festival like this are not afraid or suspicious of the people there with another cultural background. They are mostly multicultural-minded, I am quite sure of that.
I just wondered why the multicultural facet of this festival was so small when looking at the amount of ‘immigrants’ there, while the whole meaning of the festival is to attract people from different cultures.