THE FAILURE OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION – FROM ALBERT CAMUS TO KAMEL DAOUD AND “CHARLIE HEBDO”
THE FAILURE OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION – FROM ALBERT CAMUS TO KAMEL DAOUD AND “CHARLIE HEBDO”

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims at analysing a sad paradox of contemporary civilisation: despite the extraordinary development of the technical means of communication, still multicultural communities (and especially cosmopolite cities) seem to be confronted to a serious failure of intercultural and inter-ethnic relationships. Although the postmodern world proclaims itself a society of “Difference” (Derrida, Deleuze) and a space of tolerance, the understanding of ‘the Other’ and of ‘otherness’ still remains problematic. This rather frustrating fact is reflected by literary works such as Albert Camus’s famous fiction “L’Étranger”/‘The Stranger’ and Kamel Daoud’s recent novel “Meursault, contre-enquête”/‘Meursault, Counter-Inquiry’ (Goncourt Prize nominee and winner of the “Prize of the Five Continents” in 2014). But nothing is more self-evident than reality itself: the violent attacks in Paris, of 7-9 January 2015, against the journalists and cartoonists of “Charlie Hebdo”, revealed (beside the over-discussed problems of security) a serious communication problem and a dramatic cultural hiatus between the Islamic and European cultural discourses.

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