In fact I was born not in Moldova; I mean not the one known today. Moldova was a member state of the Soviet Union. I was born rather in the Soviet Union, than in Moldova. So, I went to and finished a Russian school. In the family we also spoke mostly Russian, the official language of those times. Since 1990s Moldova became an Independent State. Romanian, as an official language, was regaining its national importance. So I learned it too. While being a student at the University I learned two more languages, English and German.
My father’s parents migrated to the Republic of Moldova from the Ukraine before the World War II. So he is an Ukrainian. I went to the Ukraine for a few times just for a visit. My mother was born and grew up in the South of Moldova in a small German village called Emental. In respect to my father I am Ukrainian. But I was born in Soroca, a marvellous town in the North-East of Moldova. So that most would believe I am a Moldovan.
Even more interesting is the case of my eldest brother who in 1991 went to Germany. He learned German, found a job, built a house and married in Bremen, North West Germany. He has two children who have typically German names and speak only Bremer Deutsch in their family. My second brother left together with his wife and their child, David, for California, USA, in 2005. He learned English and bought an apartment there. My two cousins went to Italy. One of them married there. Another cousin left for Greece. She has a son named Vasilius. We have also relatives in Russia and Belorussia.
A picture of a widely branched family tree would be true not only for our family but also for many families living not only in Moldova, where the process of migration is relatively high, but also for many modern European countries where mass migration took place. It will be easy for me to convince you if you know the history. There are special social studies having the waves of migration as its subject matter. Just think of Europeans who immigrated to the United States or Canada. Even today about 40 percent of the population of Canada are people migrated from France. About 30 percent of the population of the United States are immigrants from Germany.[2] Most remarkable in this context are the waves of migration of Jews in the 30s of the 20th century, or the migrations that took place within the Member States after the collapse of the Soviet Union and are still lasting today. All these, mentioned above, contributed directly to the process of migration.
A wonderful example of intercultural dialogue and tolerance represents the European Union. On January the 1st, 2007 two more states entered the European Union. Including Bulgaria and Romania the number of the member states within the EU grows up to 27. The population of the united Europe, including the populations of each member state, makes 494 million people coming from totally different backgrounds, speaking a great number of different languages (the number of the EU official languages is 23, the official languages of each member state), having different cultures and sharing different national identities. The Union is one of the largest economic, political, and cultural entities in the world. This way, the European Union comes to be a supranational and intergovernmental institution, unique in its character and form in the history of human beings. Even at this current stage, the EU is continuing the open-ended processes of European integration, tolerance and intercultural dialogue.
1. CHAPTER ONE. The Essence of Intercultural Communication
Contact is the first step in the context of intercultural dialogue, since identities do not mix up until they come into contact. What we call today intercultural dialogue, as well as construction of “new” identities, was a very limited phenomenon in the ancient times, due to the fact that contact between identities was limited. There are valid reasons for these limitations. First of all, circulation and contact between peoples of different cultures was incomparable to the statistics known today. In the age of industrial revolution, in the age of discoveries in science, in the age of machines travelling to every country in the world, without wasting much time and money turned to be a reality for mass. New cars, big and comfortable busses, ships of unbelievable capacity and modern planes brought their input into the process of migration of today.
The twentieth century in particular has seen massive ethnic refugee crises, due to increasing number of wars and the rise of nationalism, fascism, communism and racism, as well as from natural disasters and economic collapse. The first half of the twentieth century saw the creation of hundreds of millions of ethnic refugees across Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. People immigrate, travel, go for a visit, spend holidays, there are many programs of political, economical, scientific and cultural exchanges. In many countries tourism became one of the leading components of economical income. Millions of tourists come every year to Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Australia and many other countries. Resorts in Spain, on Sicily Island, in South Asia are known all around the world. Just think of how many governmental and non- governmental exchange programmes there are, allowing students or economical agents to travel and to stay abroad for long periods of time for the sake of experience or economic profit.
In everyday life, in the age of mass migration and globalization, people, thanks God, are neither separated one from another, nor isolated. The human creatures are dependent on one another at different levels of the society. A modern society without intercultural communication, intercultural dialogue is something that is simply impossible to imagine. Dialogue is probably what people can not survive without. That may be the main feature making the human being different from other living creatures. Any human is supposed to have certain beliefs, to be able to defend his/her points of view, to be able to share them with others in communication and we also strongly believe to succeed in understanding the message addressed to our attention. It is a natural need of mankind to feel like having understood the other and having been understood by the others. Well, under the notion of communication in context of intercultural dialogue is understood the process of exchanging information, practices, and experiences, usually by a system of symbols. Thus, communication, as an intercultural dialogue, exists and works according to exact and well established schemata, which are typical for almost all societies. According to certain forms and using certain components, there are specific communication technologies working. Every society works according to fixed in it constructions. The constructions are in the steady process of development.
Communication within the context of intercultural dialogue could be explained on the example of a scheme that probably would remind you of a flying plane. The plane consists of six main parts that have the leading importance for the process of flying: selectivity of the speaker, ideology, observation of the listener, interpretation, means of communication, and finally the message itself. Without at least one of these parts the plane would be invalid and the process of communication would be either partially successful or even impossible. On the contrary, if every part works well, the plane will be brought to its intended destination, that is in literary language called pragmatics. Pragmatics I see in this sense as the achieved purpose of intended communication. If the communication fails in pragmatics that means the plane failed to come to its destination. M. H. Abrams, in his work The Mirror and the Lamp, introduced a model to systematize romantic literature theories. However, the concept of Abrams is worth being introduced.[3]
The magic plane might fly very well so far, but on its way it meets many obstacles anyway: clouds, holes in the atmosphere or simply bad weather, that sometimes disturb smooth moving. What are the difficulties of intercultural communication? Well, if the obstacles are so much serious in the process of flying, let us see then, what are they? Joseph A. Devito in Essentials of Human Communication develops an assumption of “noise” that might interfere in communication, “noise” in the sense of obstacle between communicators of different cultures and of different background and origin. He also defines three different types of suchlike difficulties, thus, organizing them into a classification.[4]
Type  Definition  Example
Physical  Interferes with the physical transition of the signal of message  Physical noise, sunglasses
Psychological  Cognitive or mental interference  Biases and prejudices in senders and receivers closed- mindedness
Semantic  Speaker and listener assigning different meanings  Different languages or styles, jargon, complex special terms

Generally I inclined to believe that being involved in intercultural dialogue demands much knowledge and many skills. A multicultural dialogue embraces knowledge of (both native and foreign) history, literature, sociology (the way a society works), psychology (people act very often in concrete extreme historical situational context. Psychology helps to understand the way people act and to classify a behaviour adequately), psycho- physiology (the way the human organism reacts to concrete inadequate situational contexts), politics, generation paradigm, paradigm of economical development (as politics, economy and culture are closely interrelated), scientific paradigm. Lacking knowledge in one of the fields would make communication impossible.
Speaking about the simplest classification of the problems people face, I would name the literary and non- literary ones; connected to the speaker and to the listener. Therefore, we distinguish levels of understanding:
1. Logical-Referential Level is possible when both sides of the communication belong to the same society. It requires the knowledge of the world and the language (allows using redundancy till 50%, using speech economy, using deictic words). Understanding works due to frames and structures.
2. Sociolinguistic Level implies the differences in age, social position, education and gender. It is obvious that a teenager will speak differently from the way his grandmother does.
3. Pragmatic Level implies the understanding of what should be done after the utterance. Linguists distinguish direct and indirect meanings. It is important to decode the rhetoric strategy.
4. Cultural Level: Culture is a homogeneous identity within a group of people socially or geographically, totally or partially separated from other cultural groups. Culture is like a list of priorities a group agrees upon. Culture is also the way we think and speak. Cultural communication is also difficult because of specific idioms, jokes and non- verbal signs.

2. CHAPTER TWO. Tolerance as a Solution

It is important to observe that none of the levels of understanding listed above is perfect, allowing 100% of understanding. Understanding in intercultural context is highly limited. Thus, lack of understanding presents one of the essential problems of human communication as a whole. Conflicts, whether intentionally or not, are sure to be jazzed. It is difficult to strike a balance; different societies do not always agree on the details. Thus, as it comes to be evident, there is only one way to keep balance between polygenetic environments, to be tolerant. “Tolerance is not only a cherished principle, but also a necessity for peace and for the economic and social advancement of all peoples”[5]
It is normal or natural, if the two or more sides after having come into contact with a foreign environment wish to accept some elements. If not, nobody can impose. This means a culture and individual sensibility that pays attention to that old liberal adage that we must learn to live together- not attempting to construct oppositions based on hierarchies of values and power, not through that politics of polarity, but in the recognition of the otherness, through the transformation of relations of subordination and discrimination.[6] What can’t be cured must be endured.[7] No cultures can peacefully live together, if attempting to be exclusive.[8] If the sides are not ready to tolerate, the conflict is sure to burst out. What is being implied by some authors is that tolerance would be a solution. If tolerance might be a solution in such a case, is the question of the present section.
First of all, the meaning of the term ‘tolerance’ has to be introduced. The meaning of ‘tolerance’ is, generally, often closely bound to the meaning of one’s ‘human’, ‘generous’, ‘forbearing’, ‘patient’, and ‘considerable’ behavior in respect to the other identities. It implies also one’s ‘understanding’, ‘agreement’, ‘respect’, and ‘acceptance’, in terms of not only legitimate rights behavior, culture, and even religion but whatever. Acceptance, as it is observed, is in most cases used in context with ‘necessity’, ‘moral duty’, and even ‘requirement’ and ‘imperative’.
“Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. […] It is not only a moral duty; it is also a political and legal requirement…”[9]
In its passive sense, tolerance suggests: ‘everyone has the right to have his/her own opinion or to adapt and practice a particular way of living’. This can be imagined in a couple of situations like: when a Christian comes to the celebration of the Bar-Mitzvah of his Jewish friend, a Western woman who takes off her shoes while entering a Japan house, when someone listens with attention a report about one’s culture and religion, or people simply live peacefully together and respect the ‘others’ of whatever religion, sex-orientation, race, and origin.
Tolerance (also ‘toleration’) is an abstract term used in areas of social, cultural and first of all, religious contexts, to mean one’s attitudes or practices that would prohibit discrimination of the rights of the ‘other’. Previously, the term ‘tolerance’ was used to refer to the religious toleration of minority religious sects following the Protestant Reformation. Today, the term is used to refer to a wider range of tolerated practices and groups. Thus, at the official level is stated, the notion of tolerance has to be promoted at educational institutions. An extract from the UNESCO Declaration literary says the following:
“Education is the most effective means of preventing intolerance.” […]
“Education for tolerance should be considered an urgent imperative; that is why it is necessary to promote systematic and rational tolerance teaching methods that will address the cultural, social, economic, political and religious sources of intolerance - major roots of violence and exclusion. Education policies and programs should contribute to development of understanding, solidarity and tolerance among individuals as well as among ethnic, social, cultural, religious and linguistic groups and nations. […]
According to my observation, the term ‘tolerance’ is primarily used by the teachers, politicians, social activists, outstanding people, students, pupils, Mass Media. Most modern societies are normally understood to be ‘secular’, but any inevitable decline of religious beliefs and practices cannot be detected, nor any inevitable privatization of religion in modern societies; and the institutional differentiation of ‘Western’ state-societies into relatively autonomous subsystems should not be misconceived as strict or ‘complete separation of church and state’. In a democratic environment, the state recognizes religious diversity both individually and organizationally; it stimulates legitimate religious diversity; it prevents a hidden majority bias; and it provides a legitimate role for organized religions in the provision of a wide range of services, including education, on one hand, and in the political process, on the other hand. That organized religions should be informed, heard, and consulted in contested issues should be a crucial component of democratic participation. This also might help prevent the development of religious fundamentalism.[10]
Thus, state has the role of the primordial guarantee of equal human rights. In the modern understanding of rights all citizens, irrespective of their ‘race’, sex, gender, ethnicity, class, and religion have to enjoy the same rights set by the state. Democratic principles and the corresponding political rights seem to preclude also all forms of institutional political representation of organized practices.
When conflicts do emerge, deliberative democracy requires that citizens have equal standing and influence in the process that shapes their resolution. […] Yet, deliberation also demands more of citizens than the silent toleration of reasons and attitudes that they abhor, especially if they accept that an important goal of public deliberation is to find the best possible, mutually acceptable solution to a problem or conflict.[11]
The core of a liberal constitution is the guarantee of equal individual liberties for everyone, of whatever beliefs or views. This corresponds to Kant’s “Universal Principle of Right,” according to which, “the freedom of choice of each can co-exist with everyone’s freedom according to a universal law.” At the same time, on the one hand, the idea of equal individual liberties for all satisfies the moral standard of egalitarian universalism, which demands equal respect for and consideration of everyone; on the other, it meets the ethical standard of individualism, according to which each person must have the right to conduct his/her life according to his/her own preferences and convictions.[12]

Conclusion

Language, literature, Church, performing arts, visual arts, architecture, crafts, the cinema, press and broadcasting are all part of evidence proving the today’s Western world’s cultural diversity. In the age of mass migration, belonging to a specific country or region, multiple identities represent, in a way, a part of common cultural heritage. Thus, the present paper primarily concentrated on the investigation into problem of cultural diversity, intercultural communication as well as tolerance, as a solution of intercultural misunderstandings and conflicts.
Thus, based on wide close reading, referring to research methods of text analysis and text interpretation, keeping to the basic laws of Linguistics and Logics, as well as using inductive and deductive methods of investigation, as well as use of comparison as research method, and at the same time introducing a wide range of statistic data, the present investigation had its three basic goals: to introduces the problematic of the notions of intercultural dialogue; to look for a possible definition of the nature of existing inter-cultural communication; and finally, to put into question, whether and in what way tolerance might be considered a solution for the existing and constantly growing problem within the borders of polygenetic Western societies, thus, give the guaranties to provide the citizens with equal rights and to prohibit discrimination.
The question my grandmother used to ask me still remains very present in my memory. Since those times, it is constantly at the back of my mind. So that I often ask myself, like she did: “Whose kid am I”? Whom do I really belong to in both my personal micro life and global macro world? What constructs and forms or influences my belonging to a language, to a culture, to an identity? May be you still ask many the same questions of the kind, whose kid you are, whose kids are we, whose kids are they. In the highly polygenetic Western world of today is of primordial importance for all ‘kids’ indifferently whom they belong to: of whatever belief, of whatever gender, sex orientation, identity, and whatever origin to live peacefully together, tolerate and love, thus, further developing and contributing to intercultural dialogue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Main Sources:
1. Bader, Veit “Religious Diversity and Democratic Institutional Pluralism” in Political Theory, Vol. 31 No. 2, April 2003 265-294, DOI: 10.1177/0090591702251012, University of Amsterdam, © 2003 Sage Publications, (pp.265 – 294).
2. Beiner, Ronald (ed.), Theorizing Nationalism, State University of New York Press, New York, 1999.
3. Bohman, James “Deliberative Toleration” in Political Theory, Vol. 31 No. 6, December 2003 757-779, Saint Louis University, DOI: 10.1177/0090591703252379, © 2003 Sage Publications, (pp. 757 – 779).
4. Chambers, Iain, Migracy, Culture, Identity: London and New York, A Comedia book published by Routledge, 1994.
5. Devito, Joseph A., Essentials of Human Communication, second ed., New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.
6. Habermas, Jürgen, “Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism” in The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 13, Number 1 Philosophy, University of Frankfurt and Northwestern University, 2005, pp. 1–28.
7. Rutherford, Jonathan (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference: London, LAURENCE & WISHART, 1990
8. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Articles 21 and 22, 2000.
On-line Sources:
1. Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, http://www.answers.com/topic/european-union, (24.04.07).
2. Report on “Islamisches Wort im Internet Gestartet”,
3. http://www.swr.de/nachrichten//id=396/nid=396/did=2102294/x70dza/index.html Stuttgart, 25.04.07.
4. Europe, Gateway to the European Union, http://europa.eu/pol/cult/index_en.htm, (24.04.07).
5. Declaration derived from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization: Declarations meeting in Paris at the twenty-eighth session of the General Conference, from 25 October to 16 November 1995, Articles 4.1 and 4.2., 1.1., 1.4..:
6. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=12027&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=-471.html,(25.04.07).

 An old typically Romanian saying: “A cui eÅŸti?”.
[2] Refering to America Will Be: Houghton Mifflin Social Studies, 1991.
[3] see Abrams, M. H., The Mirror and the Lamp, 1958.
[4] Joseph A. Devito, Essntials of Human Communication, 1996, (p. 12)
[5] Declaration derived from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
[6] Jonathan Rutherford, p. 26.
[7] English saying
[8] Mahatma Gandhi quoted by Joseph A. Devito, p. 7
[9] Declaration derived from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization: Declarations meeting in Paris at the twenty-eighth session of the General Conference, from 25 October to 16 November 1995, Articles 4.1 and 4.2., 1.1., 1.4..: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=12027&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=-471.html,(25.04.07).
[10] Veit Bader “Religious Diversity and Democratic Institutional Pluralism” in Political Theory, Vol. 31 No. 2, April 2003 265-294, DOI: 10.1177/0090591702251012, University of Amsterdam, © 2003 Sage Publications, (pp.265 – 294).
[11] Referring to James Bohman “Deliberative Toleration” in Political Theory, 2003, (pp. 757 – 779).
[12] Jürgen Habermas, “Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism” in The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 13, Number 1 Philosophy, University of Frankfurt and Northwestern University, 2005, pp. 1–28.
Nicolai RUDAC
Nicolai RUDAC
Whose Are You, Kid?
Inter-Cultural Dialogue, Tolerance and Love
An Article for “FundaÅ£ia Tuna”
10 May – 13 June
Bucharest, 2007