Avoiding the question of Legal and Statutory Protection of Heritage: Leiden MOOC Week 5
Sunday, 20 May 2018, 19:43
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Steve Bamlett, Sunday, 20 May 2018, 20:09
Avoiding the question of Legal and Statutory
Protection of Heritage: Leiden MOOC Week 5
How could international conventions and
measures help to protect your heritage? How is your heritage placed in these
frameworks (is it national/international, tangible/intangible)? Would your
heritage be, for instance, eligible for 'enhanced protection?'
This piece of information
rather perturbs me and stops me, perhaps from answering this question, in an
appropriate way – not least because I only discovered this fact today in
reading up to answer this exercise (20/05/2018).
I may be muddled here but it
remains a point to me then about the extent to which ‘my heritage’, that part
of the set of forces that have co-determined my inheritance of an identity that
is to some extent based on being an UK citizen, includes the resistance of my
nation to this convention. It is obviously still too early to decide what
effect ratification might have.
What appears to be the case is that the UK has a troubled
relationship to the idea of ‘cultural property’ precisely because so much of
its heritage, including that it took from colonies – even the word ‘bungalow’,
was taken from, copied from, gained at the expense of or glorifies in the subjection
of its colonial ‘property’ (those things it took to itself). Even in long-dead
and less obviously ‘alive’ cultural property such as that of the Parthenon (Elgin)
marbles, the UK establishment plays fast and loose with any interference with
what it owns, supposedly in the interests of preserving ‘everyone’s global’
heritage. In preparation of
going to the new exhibition on Rodin next week in the British Museum I am
looking at the wonderful Farge et. al. (2018) book on the ’Rodin & the
art of ancient Greece' (BM) exhibition book. Lo and behold it is sells itself
as a self-defence of the universal survey museum. Clearly the
debate about ‘cultural property’ remains edgy. The Director of BM, Hartwig
Fischer says in his Foreword:
If we are to
understand the place of the encyclopaedic museum and its influence in world
culture, we have to acknowledge the extraordinary creativity in art and thought
it has engendered.
But do we really have
to? Surely such an argument means that 'creativity' stands for a means
of justifying the status quo, a way of saying that there is and was no
alternative to the cultural imperialism of the great art centre, where because
Elgin was able to buy, through duping the Ottoman holders of this Greek art, it
therefore belongs to the UK? Is Rodin inconceivable without the BM (as Rodin
himself seemed to suggest).
How are we counter this strand of colonialism in everyday
thought and how disentangle them from what I call ‘my heritage’? To a certain
extent, my failure not to know about this late ratification of the Hague
Convention and my validation, by remaining silent, of Hartwig’s disguised colonial-imperialist
arguments (because I love it that in a couple of weeks I can see Rodin’s and
great Ancient Greek art together) make me
complicit in a ‘heritage’ that essentially has claimed rights to make national
judgements about our own interests that it passes off as interests in universal
values about art and culture. I have a hand in the maintenance of the marbles
in the Duveen Room as evident as Hartwig’s, Duveen’s, & Elgin’s.
To look at my ‘heritage’ and considers its right to ‘enhanced
protection’ seems problematic. It has had that because the might of a colonial
past has passed itself off as a citizen’s right and I have swallowed that hook,
line & sinker.
For this reason, I feel I have to take an oblique approach
to this question? Many elements of ‘my heritage’ are reflections of an attitude
to ‘heritage’ that analyses it (literally takes it apart) to see how the same heritage
site looks to different stakeholders with different values. As an adolescent,
as I said in my first piece, Castle Hill meant something different to me from
my heterosexual male friends. As a working-class boy in a grammar school,
various signs of heritage seemed to me to speak of values with which I couldn’t
identify – such as the English nationalism associated with interpretations of
the pre-Roman fort and the imperialism built into the stones and legends of the
Victoria Tower.
For citizens of nations that has died-in-the-wool its imperialist
past and a related value-set, I can’t talk about ‘my heritage’ very simply. The
signs of symbols of working class community are swept away hastily – as were ‘pitheads’
after the NCB victory over miners’ unions in 1987. Those of the gay community
are barely recognised – even by ourselves – in ways that makes sites tenable,
or protectable (even the Stonewall bar in the USA).
Hence, I don’t know how to answer this. When in the late
1960s I was in the sixth-form, I taught English to first-generation migrant Pakistani
boys. Can I remember reading the legend of the Empress of India on Victoria
Tower? How could I do so in order to allow this young man (about 16) to make it
his heritage as much as mine, and to see in it the reality that our heritage is
a bag of mixed, and mixed-up, value systems, some of which oppress some of us,
as he was oppressed and, as, at that time, was I (much more so than now).
To protect heritage without looking at the meanings we are
protecting (and those we let go by the wayside), especially in the declining
old imperial cultures, is not responsible. It will fail to see the power
politics of heritage as it is disguised (not necessarily intentionally) from
citizens. In the rage about Persepolis, we might forget (may never have been told)
about the complicity of US forces in the destruction of Babylon or of UK forces
in Moussa that Isakhan also tells us about (this text has really got to me!).
Sometimes I just want to find an ancient (or aesthetic –
Rodin) stone to hide behind rather than face this moral conundrum. However,
that is why this piece does not really do what it is asked to do. I needed to
say this first and then reflect! And perhaps the latter will take time but not
the 64 years from 1954 (also my birth-date as well as that of the Hague
convention) to now. I can see why this course is run from the Netherlands – a culture
that has always renewed itself through principle.
Avoiding the question of Legal and Statutory Protection of Heritage: Leiden MOOC Week 5
Avoiding the question of Legal and Statutory Protection of Heritage: Leiden MOOC Week 5
How could international conventions and measures help to protect your heritage? How is your heritage placed in these frameworks (is it national/international, tangible/intangible)? Would your heritage be, for instance, eligible for 'enhanced protection?'
I learned from Isakhan (2015) that at the time of writing, the UK had still not ratified the Hague Convention (1954). In fact it was not ratified until just over 6 months ago (UK ratified on 12/09/2017 (http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?KO=13637&language=E&order=alpha).
This piece of information rather perturbs me and stops me, perhaps from answering this question, in an appropriate way – not least because I only discovered this fact today in reading up to answer this exercise (20/05/2018).
I may be muddled here but it remains a point to me then about the extent to which ‘my heritage’, that part of the set of forces that have co-determined my inheritance of an identity that is to some extent based on being an UK citizen, includes the resistance of my nation to this convention. It is obviously still too early to decide what effect ratification might have.
What appears to be the case is that the UK has a troubled relationship to the idea of ‘cultural property’ precisely because so much of its heritage, including that it took from colonies – even the word ‘bungalow’, was taken from, copied from, gained at the expense of or glorifies in the subjection of its colonial ‘property’ (those things it took to itself). Even in long-dead and less obviously ‘alive’ cultural property such as that of the Parthenon
(Elgin)marbles, the UK establishment plays fast and loose with any interference with what it owns, supposedly in the interests of preserving ‘everyone’s global’ heritage. In preparation of going to the new exhibition on Rodin next week in the British Museum I am looking at the wonderful Farge et. al. (2018) book on the ’Rodin & the art of ancient Greece' (BM) exhibition book. Lo and behold it is sells itself as a self-defence of the universal survey museum. Clearly the debate about ‘cultural property’ remains edgy. The Director of BM, Hartwig Fischer says in his Foreword:If we are to understand the place of the encyclopaedic museum and its influence in world culture, we have to acknowledge the extraordinary creativity in art and thought it has engendered.
But do we really have to? Surely such an argument means that 'creativity' stands for a means of justifying the status quo, a way of saying that there is and was no alternative to the cultural imperialism of the great art centre, where because Elgin was able to buy, through duping the Ottoman holders of this Greek art, it therefore belongs to the UK? Is Rodin inconceivable without the BM (as Rodin himself seemed to suggest).
How are we counter this strand of colonialism in everyday thought and how disentangle them from what I call ‘my heritage’? To a certain extent, my failure not to know about this late ratification of the Hague Convention and my validation, by remaining silent, of Hartwig’s disguised colonial-imperialist arguments (because I love it that in a couple of weeks I can see Rodin’s and great Ancient Greek art together) make me complicit in a ‘heritage’ that essentially has claimed rights to make national judgements about our own interests that it passes off as interests in universal values about art and culture. I have a hand in the maintenance of the marbles in the Duveen Room as evident as Hartwig’s, Duveen’s, & Elgin’s.
To look at my ‘heritage’ and considers its right to ‘enhanced protection’ seems problematic. It has had that because the might of a colonial past has passed itself off as a citizen’s right and I have swallowed that hook, line & sinker.
For this reason, I feel I have to take an oblique approach to this question? Many elements of ‘my heritage’ are reflections of an attitude to ‘heritage’ that analyses it (literally takes it apart) to see how the same heritage site looks to different stakeholders with different values. As an adolescent, as I said in my first piece, Castle Hill meant something different to me from my heterosexual male friends. As a working-class boy in a grammar school, various signs of heritage seemed to me to speak of values with which I couldn’t identify – such as the English nationalism associated with interpretations of the pre-Roman fort and the imperialism built into the stones and legends of the Victoria Tower.
For citizens of nations that has died-in-the-wool its imperialist past and a related value-set, I can’t talk about ‘my heritage’ very simply. The signs of symbols of working class community are swept away hastily – as were ‘pitheads’ after the NCB victory over miners’ unions in 1987. Those of the gay community are barely recognised – even by ourselves – in ways that makes sites tenable, or protectable (even the Stonewall bar in the USA).
Hence, I don’t know how to answer this. When in the late 1960s I was in the sixth-form, I taught English to first-generation migrant Pakistani boys. Can I remember reading the legend of the Empress of India on Victoria Tower? How could I do so in order to allow this young man (about 16) to make it his heritage as much as mine, and to see in it the reality that our heritage is a bag of mixed, and mixed-up, value systems, some of which oppress some of us, as he was oppressed and, as, at that time, was I (much more so than now).
To protect heritage without looking at the meanings we are protecting (and those we let go by the wayside), especially in the declining old imperial cultures, is not responsible. It will fail to see the power politics of heritage as it is disguised (not necessarily intentionally) from citizens. In the rage about Persepolis, we might forget (may never have been told) about the complicity of US forces in the destruction of Babylon or of UK forces in Moussa that Isakhan also tells us about (this text has really got to me!).
Sometimes I just want to find an ancient (or aesthetic – Rodin) stone to hide behind rather than face this moral conundrum. However, that is why this piece does not really do what it is asked to do. I needed to say this first and then reflect! And perhaps the latter will take time but not the 64 years from 1954 (also my birth-date as well as that of the Hague convention) to now. I can see why this course is run from the Netherlands – a culture that has always renewed itself through principle.
All the best
Steve