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Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology
Author(s): Lynn Meskell
Source:
Anthropological Quarterly,
Vol. 75, No. 3 (Summer, 2002), pp. 557-574
Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
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Negative
Heritage
and
Past
Mastering
in
Archaeology
Lynn Meskell
Columbia
University
mages of the World Trade Center site flooded the media in the aftermath of
September 11, and have continued to do so in New York
City.
The World
Monuments
Watch moved quickly
to feature Ground Zero
in its October 2001 is-
sue as a place
of heritage,
requiring
both salvage
and commemoration. The site
was supra-positioned,
listed as site 101 in their register
of 100 endangered
sites
around the globe.
The
lingering
physical
marks of violence
coupled
with the mass
grave site have reconfigured
its value as a newly constituted tourist site, en-
couraging
us to reflect on the economic and symbolic
dimensions of heritage
making.
The president
and the chairman of the World
Monuments Watch de-
clared that "weapons
of mass destruction are not always
aimed at battleships
or
military
installations,
but at the cultural icons that bind and inspire
communi-
ties around the world,"
underscoring
the significance
of the WTC's historic
import
and potent symbolic capital. They describe how "our landmarks-the Mostar
Bridge,
the Bamiyan
Buddhas in Afghanistan,
and the World Trade Center-
have become prized
targets
for terrorists because
they are what defines the cul-
tures, ideals,
and achievements of the people who created
them, who use them,
who live with them"
(Perry
and Burnham
2001:3).
Quite
understandably,
the au-
thors have made a personal
connection between their
own expertise
in the her-
557
NEGATIVE HERITAGE
AND PAST
MASTERING
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
itage field and the events of September 11, yet they also reveal how the mate-
riality
of certain sites is enshrined in our own culture and how dominant the lan-
guage of heritage has become. Despite the potency of the WTC
site, it would be
unthinkable to preserve the site as it remains-it requires a complete reconfig-
uration including appropriate memorialization. In this regard it is a salient ex-
ample of what I would term "negative heritage", a conflictual site that becomes
the repository of negative memory in the collective imaginary. As a site of mem-
ory, negative heritage occupies a dual role: it can be mobilized for positive di-
dactic purposes (e.g. Auschwitz, Hiroshima, District
Six)
or alternatively be erased
if such places cannot be culturally rehabilitated and thus resist incorporation in-
to the national imaginary (e.g. Nazi and Soviet statues and architecture).
Monuments are mnemonics that may serve both as reminders of the past
and harbingers of the future (Lowenthal 1985). While seemingly uncontrover-
sial, "heritage"
occupies a positive and culturally elevated position within many
cultures, yet we should recognize that not all individuals, groups or nations
share those views, or have the luxury of affluence to indulge these desires.
Moreover, we uncritically hold that heritage, specifically "world heritage," must
necessarily be a good thing and thus find it difficult to comprehend groups who
support counter claims, whether for the reasons of a religious, moral, eco-
nomic, or political nature. Exploring how cultural difference is accommodated
or elided within the language and practice of archaeological heritage forms the
focus of this paper. Taking these two volatile landscapes as my starting point, I
argue that the Bamiyan Valley and Lower Manhattan are salient markers that
compel us to reflect upon the ordinary construction and conventions sur-
rounding heritage, at home and elsewhere.
The World Trade Center as Heritage
In New York
City
on December 31, 2001, the Waterford crystal ball dropped in
Times Square to herald the New Year. Literally marked by the events of
September 11, the ball was inscribed with the names of those who died and
some of the countries who lost citizens in the attacks. The memorialization of
the dead through material culture has become a hallmark of post-September
11 culture. Place-making in New York has similarly intensified, from temporary
memorials, to thousands of tourists viewing the devastation, to the planning
and implementation of new buildings and statues. Some have experienced
the materialization as helpful in the healing process, while others see it as
commodified outgrowth typical of tourist voyeurism.1
558
LYNN
MESKELL
Closer to home there was an outcry against the blatant profiteering
of a
Georgia
company
marketing
commemorative
medals
out of recycled
steel from
the WTC
site. Selling
for $30 on the web, the jewelry both represents
the twin
towers on the exterior
and is part
of the WTC
by its
very
fabric.2
Their
clearly cap-
italist incentive was couched in claims to historic
authenticity,
asking "who
wants a piece of history":
whereas relatives of the victims
were outraged
that
some are "making
money out of our loss." The
very
fabric
of the destroyed
WTC
towers will be an ever-present
reminder
of the attacks.
In December
2001 large
swathes of steel from the towers were hauled off to be recycled
into appropri-
ate memorial
structures:
"Fragments
of the terrifying
but graceful
facades of the
towers, which remained standing like some Gothic
cathedral amid the ruins,
had to be saved"
(Lipton
and Glanz 2002: 16). The structures will not be re-
membered in their present
state but in an aesthetic and culturally
acceptable
design. Discussion
over the potential
form of the memorial
and the projected
use of space itself started
almost immediately
following
the attacks.
We are witnessing
the desire
for
grounded
materiality
at a staggering rapidity,
to apprehend
the objects
and physical
signs
of a newfound
heritage
in real and
tangible ways.
This
familiar
desire for material
commemoration and the phys-
ical marking
of the event, is juxtaposed
against
the realization that the attacks
(and the subsequent war on Afghanistan)
have been experienced
through
vir-
tual means. The events of September
11 have inaugurated
a resurgence
of the
real,
and of the violence of the real,
supplanted
within
a supposedly
virtual uni-
verse (Baudillard
2001). The moments of impact
when the hijacked
planes hit
the towers were televised repeatedly,
a fantasmatic screen
apparition
turned re-
ality. It was the ultimate fantasy, albeit nightmare
fantasy, foretold in H. G.
Wells
novel War
in the
Air
(1908),
Lorca's
New York
poetry,
penned in 1929, and
in innumerable Hollywood
disaster movies (Zizek
2001: 17). "The
Attack on
America" and its sequels, "America
Fights
Back"
and "America
Freaks
Out"
have
continued to unspool as a succession of celluloid hallucinations each of which
can be rented from the corner video shop: The Siege, Independence Day,
Executive
Decision,
Outbreak,
and so on" (Davis
2001). But even in The Matrix
with its desert
of the real,
famously recaptured
by Zizek,
the twin towers of the
WTC
survived
civilization's
destruction.3
The American
public has been thrust back and forth between these two
poles: the endless virtuality
of the media coverage with its endless repro-
ducibility
and the aura of the real, material and spatial realities that have fol-
lowed from the attacks. As a consequence of the virtual material tension,
Ground
Zero has been mythologized
in what Blake
has referred to as the "seis-
559
NEGATIVE HERITAGE
AND PAST
MASTERING IN ARCHAEOLOGY
mic shift of the spatiality of American patriotism" (Soja and Blake 2002:157). As
part of a patriotic resurgence we have witnessed an increasing desire for ma-
teriality, for historical marking and heritage creation and consumption. We can
be sure that another landmark will be added to the list, a yet untitled museum
dedicated to the disaster, for which the selection of objects is already underway.
A team of architects, museum experts and city officials have been sifting and
gathering artefacts and architectural pieces from Ground Zero for some time.
They are compiling the "raw materials" for potential display as part of a mu-
seum collection and memorial. "The attempt is to create an archive that is al-
ready attracting interest from dozens of museums and artists, from the
Smithsonian Institution to a museum in France to a sculptor in Greensboro
North Carolina"
(Lipton and Grlanz
2002:1). Yet the fetishization of the site and
the objects within it has been left unchecked, they are simply "artefacts of an-
guish". There is something inherently disturbing about the incipient museal-
ization of Ground Zero, about the desire to instantly represent it, capture its
aura, commodify it, and publicly perform it again and again, simply because we
can. "The
artifacts, as the collectors call them, will be invaluable, if only as a tac-
tile, three-dimensional expression of the unspeakable scale of the
disaster...they serve as an ad hoc museum, though one unlike any museum
that has existed before" (Lipton and Glanz 2002:16)4
In December 2001, the Coalition for the Rebuilding of Lower Manhattan re-
leased a pamphlet and reconfigured map of the area, simply entitled Above
Ground
Zero. It mirrors the site's transformations; a walking trail is delineated,
viewing platforms are marked, ghost buildings are delineated by dotted lines,
and temporary memorials are mapped onto the site with the iconic symbol of
the teddy bear. Yet the map is not static, it has a built-in periodicity. The map
makers indicate which buildings were struck by other buildings, and where
debris is being hauled from cranes to barges on the Hudson river.
This endless
reproducability of the event in two and now three dimensions, inflected with
an equally vehement desire for authenticity and material expression, has be-
come the hallmark of our relationship with the recent past in Lower Manhattan.
Yet one has the sneaking suspicion that already this negative heritage will be-
come at best a global commodity fetish or, at worst, a nightmarish theme park.
Coupled with the presidential mandate to buy, travel, visit, dine out, go to
the theatre and generally consume, some are encouraging us to voyeuristical-
ly participate in the constitution of a new tourist enclave. A Pennsylvania com-
pany planned to charge $2000 (U.S.)
for an exclusive weekend package with
extensive tours of the site. As one grieving family member remarked, "it is a bur-
560
LYNN MESKELL
ial ground...a cemetery, where the men and women we loved are buried."
Others
have likened it to "a
freak show" where visitors
gaze in the hope of see-
ing bodies retrieved
(Murphy
2002), complaining
that the site constitutes an
open grave that does not have to be publicly
viewed in its present state, but
could rather
wait till all operations
were completed and a memorial erected.
The new musealization
(Huyssen 1995:14) down town iterates the deathlike
qualities of heritage, made famous by Benjamin
and Adorno. Museum
and
mausolea have more than a semantic overlap,
both entomb dead visions. So
how do we responsibly
tour,
much less capitalize upon, such a recent
and dev-
astating nightmare
come true?
Surely
this is the real unimaginable.
The Bamiyan Buddhas: Politics and Negative
Heritage in Afghanistan
With
political
intent,
the president
and the chairman of the World Monuments
Watch
(Perry
and Burnham
2001) situate the destruction
in New York
City
next
to that of the Taliban
erasure of the Bamiyan
Buddhas,
suggesting
an overt
par-
allelism in both the perpetrators
and causalities. Discourse
surrounding
de-
struction of the statues is linked to that of the WTC
towers
themselves, iterating
a discursive culture
of barbarity
and cultural
iconoclasm. Both were undeniably
political
acts with devastating
results
of differing
extremes.
As
archaeologists
we
might pause to consider the Bamiyan
destruction since this does fall within our
purview
and we are obliged
to think
through
the entangled
and uncomfortable
issues this episode presents. Here I want to explore the polymorphous
inter-
ventions of negative heritage, since it can be mobilized in strategies of re-
membering
or forgetting.
For
the Taliban,
the Buddhist statues represented
a
site of negative
memory,
one that necessitated
jettisoning
from the nation's con-
struction
of contemporary identity,
and the act of erasure
was a political
state-
ment about religious
difference and international
exclusion. For
many others
today
that site of erasure
in turn
represents
negative
heritage,
a permanent
scar
that reminds certain
constituencies of intolerance,
symbolic
violence, loss and
the "barbarity"
of the Taliban
regime.
Decried as "cultural
terrorism,"
the iconic
destruction
of the Bamiyan
Buddhas
is inexorably
the major
episode that defined the Taliban's
relationship
with the
past. They
were destroyed
using strategically placed dynamite
as onlookers
pho-
tographed the detonations. While a full discussion of the mediating circum-
stances lies beyond
the scope of this paper,
I
attempt
to briefly
chart
the diverse
and sometimes contradictory
agendas
of both the Taliban
and the internation-
561
NEGATIVE HERITAGE
AND PAST MASTERING
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
al community, using recent reports
that epitomize the conflicting politics
sur-
rounding
heritage and cultural difference. Recognition
of cultural difference
does not entail Orientalist
notions that Middle Eastern societies have failed to
constitute
a civil
society
(Turner
1994)
or that
"primitive
modernities"
lack the cul-
tured priorities
of their Euro-American
counterparts, simply
that certain
groups
may have different
relationships
with their different constituent
pasts.
On February
26, 2001 the Taliban leader Mullah
Mohammed
Omar issued
an edict that the statues "should
be destroyed
so that they are not worshipped
now or in the future." UNESCO and the international
community
had fought
off
an earlier threat of destruction in 1997. His decision to rescind the earlier
agreement
occurred
in tandem with
Taliban clerics'
opposition
to the display
of
pre-lslamic
figures
in the Kabul museum and may have been spurred
by a vis-
it by Italian Buddhists.
A proponent of the ultraconservative
Wahhabi line of
Sunni
Islam,
Mullah Omar had previously
issued
a decree to protect
the nation's
cultural
heritage, suggesting
that unilinear
explanations
based singularly
upon
religion
or politics
cannot suffice. Others cite collateral
factors,
involving
mili-
tary operations,
internal
politics
and international
relationships (Gamboni
2001)
to explain why heritage was held hostage. We cannot overlook
the fact that
Bamiyan province
is home to the Afghan
Shiite Muslim
minority
and, directly
before
the edict, control of this unstable
region
vacillated
between the Taliban
and their opposition.
Another
determining
factor
was certainly animosity
over
the Taliban's
inability
to achieve international recognition:
the subsequent
economic
sanctions
imposed
by
the United
Nations
Security
Council
were on ac-
count of alleged links to Islamic
terrorism.
Ironically,
since the United
Nations
failed to recognize
the Taliban,
they made it impossible
for them to nominate
the Bamiyan
Buddhas
for the World
Heritage
List of protected
sites.5
The destruction
formed a nodal point in national
and international
politics,
yet religion
and politics
are not easily disentangled.
Gamboni
(2001:11)
argues
that "returning
or reducing
the Buddhas
to their original religious
function
(against
all evidence to the contrary)-and exercising
upon them the most rad-
ical right
of the owner-amounted to a provocative
affirmation
of sovereignty,
not only upon the territory
and the people but upon the values."
Some inter-
national commentators
saw these statues as part
of living
Buddhist
tradition,
while many saw them simply
as static markers
of the past that had passed in-
to the realm
of artefactual
history.6
These various
assertions
underscore
the con-
flictual nature
of heritage
in multi-religious,
transnational
contexts.
And while
UNESCO
is making
new attempts to recognize
cultural
and religious
diversity,
these do not extend
to extreme
beliefs
involving
idolatry.
According
to a Taliban
562
LYNN MESKELL
envoy,
the destruction
was undertaken
as a "reaction of rage
after a foreign
del-
egation offered money to preserve
the ancient works at a time when a million
Afghans
faced starvation."
The Metropolitan
Museum
of Art
in New York
had
previously
offered to buy the statues. What was clearly
an iconoclastic
gesture
might have also been considered
a vital international move to draw attention
to the nation's
plight,
while simultaneously reinforcing
its religious
specificities.
That most countries, organizations
and individuals cannot condone this ac-
tion is a given, my point here is to demonstrate
the volatility
of negative her-
itage, and its mobilizations,
in specific political
climates.
Just
as there has been a new rhetoric of heritage
around the site of Lower
Manhattan,
there has been an almost deafening cry
over the "antiquities"
toll
in the devastated
and war-ravaged Afghanistan.
While
many of these reported
incidents are not new, they have suddenly been foregrounded
as a result of
Operation
Enduring
Freedom,
American
politics, and more cynically, by the
U.S.-backed
desire for the UNICAL
pipeline that would potentially
traverse the
country. Archaeologists
have recently been interviewed about the loss of an-
tiquities
and archaeological
sites in Afghanistan
and, given our profession, per-
haps it is not surprising
that many speak exclusively
about the cultural toll of
the war. One
archaeologist
stated that the American
bombing
would not do as
much damage as the Taliban had done themselves, while another comment-
ed that archaeologists
"would
need to include a new line in the their
grant
pro-
posals-for a "herd of goats"
to walk first through suspicious terrain"
(Cook
2001:2). Archaeologists
are not generally known for their political acuity. In
the widespread coverage of reported looting (museums and archaeological
sites), little mention is made of the foreign intervention
and warmongering
that have framed the current situation.7 One Afghani
interviewee
encapsulat-
ed the problem
very simply:
"What can we do? We are hungry.
We have no food
in our homes. We have to dig up these things and sell them...We don't worry
about our history.
We
just think of our hunger."
And while Afghanistan's
provi-
sional government
claims a cessation of looting, others report
that digging
has
continued. A local police chief retorted
quite rightly
that in the midst of such
devastation archaeology
seems like a small matter: "The
government is very
busy
and has more important
things
to deal with, like
kidnappings
and killings."
There are uncomfortable
repercussions
from the outcry
against Afghanistan
and other developing countries over the protection
of their own heritage. For
example, many counties have yet to sign the 1954 Hague
Convention,
includ-
ing Afghanistan,
the United States,
the United Kingdom,
and Japan.
The con-
vention states that "damage to cultural property belonging to any people
563
NEGATIVE HERITAGE AND PAST MASTERING IN ARCHAEOLOGY
whatsoever
means damage to the cultural
heritage
of all mankind,
since each
people makes its own contribution to the culture of the world"
(UNESCO 2000:1).
The Cold War destabilized the U.S.
and Britain's
commitment to preserving
heritage
in the context of war,
and certain countries were unwilling
to place
lim-
itations
on the means of warfare. Since the Balkan crisis there has been active
prosecution
of offenses
against
cultural
property by an international tribunal
in
the Hague, specifically
the destruction of the Mostar
Bridge
and Dubrovnik
(Prott,
de la Torre,
and Levin
2001:13). Phrased
in terms of war
crimes,
this has
set a precedent
for future
actions, perhaps potentially
even those such as the
bombing
of Afghanistan.
Speaking
specifically
about
Afghanistan,
Colin Renfrew
has stated that "the time is ripe
for an international convention to make the de-
struction of cultural artefacts
a crime
against humanity"
(Bone 2001). The loss
of heritage
can easily be decried as a crime that effects multiple
generations,
erasing
cultural
memory and severing links with the past that are integral
to
forging
and maintaining
modern identities. Yet it is dangerous
to place com-
mensurate
value on people and things and to couch these acts in a language
reserved for genocide, since they do not inhabit the same order
of existence.
There are other contradictions
for archaeologists
to face, such as the recent
UNESCO
recognition
of cultural
diversity.
Within the discourse
of global heritage
there is little room for specific
cultural,
political
or religious
positions
that di-
verge
from
Western,
secularist
viewpoints.
World
heritage
is but one facet of the
move towards
globalisation
and while a shared world
heritage
is desired
by cer-
tain countries,
it is not a universal
presumption.
The strategies
through
which
such a construct would be achieved are also fractious. As of 2001, various coun-
tries
including
Britain,
Germany,
Switzerland,
and Japan
have failed to ratify
the
1970 UNESCO convention
to prevent
the international
trade
in stolen art and an-
tiquities. Since the 1950s there have been separate inter-American and
European
conventions
in operation.
Given these inequities,
how can specific
na-
tions and institutions take the initiative to legislate for others? I am not sug-
gesting
we relinquish
the desire to preserve
international
heritage,
simply
that
we acknowledge
the hypocrisy
of specific organizations
and institutions,
espe-
cially
the media, in their outcries
to implement
certain
global policies
and that
we recognize
the complexities
of embracing
real
cultural
diversity
on the
ground.
Moreover,
there are cultural
politics
of a more transparent
nature. First,
on
October 14, 2001, hundreds of right-wing
Hindu militants stormed the Taj
Mahal and defaced the white marble walls with graffiti,
although it was bare-
ly covered in the Western media (Ghazaleh 2002). The religious
nature of these
destructive actions
(i.e.
anti-Muslim)
had to be elided in the face of political
ne-
564
LYNN
MESKELL
cessity. Second, Saudi Arabia has recently been charged with "cultural
mas-
sacre"
by the Turks over the demolition of an Ottoman fort in Mecca
(al-Ajyad
Castle).
The
220-year-old
castle,
which was demolished despite protests
and re-
assurances from the Saudis,
was built on a hill overlooking
the Grand
Mosque
by the ruling
Ottomans in order to protect
the city
and its Muslim shrines
from
invaders.
The Turks believe that the Saudis are trying
to erase any memory of
the Ottoman
empire, while the Saudis claim that more space is needed to ac-
commodate the increasing
numbers of pilgrims
who visit the holy shrines.
The
Turkish cultural minister has already made the obvious claim, likening the
Saudi government to the Taliban and their destruction at Bamiyan.
Yet the
Saudi Arabian
situation is formulated upon ethic cultural difference rather
than religious,
since both are Islamic contexts. This
incident has received little
coverage
and, since Saudi Arabia is an important
American
ally
and oil provider,
it is unlikely
to cause many ripples.
To
date neither
the U.S. or UNESCO has in-
tervened for a number of reasons:
politics,
timing, and cultural
value. This in-
cident provides
a sobering
example of the political
dimensionality
of heritage,
and what constitutes worth
saving.8
Destruction of a specifically
"monumental"
past
was at issue in the Bamiyan
valley.
Yet the past is destroyed
in every
excavation
performed;
it is a central un-
derstanding of the discipline that archaeology is a destructive process.
Professionals also make choices about what is saved and what is not; "salvage
archaeology"
is premised
on the recognition
that not everything
can be main-
tained or preserved.
Innumerable sites are also destroyed
for economic reasons,
mostly
for the purposes
of development,
and decisions are made on a daily
ba-
sis about what constitutes historical
significance
and what falls short.
Conservation is a critical act and a means of extending
and cementing
cultural
identities and historical
narratives over time through
the instantiation of cultural
heritage
(Matero 2000:5).
Similarly,
the very concept
of destruction
is a culturally
situated
one. For
example,
the implementation
of the ICAHM
charter in Thailand
ensures the integrity
of existing physical
fabric of religious shrines (stupas),
whereas Thai practice
acknowledges
the inevitability
of decay,
mirrored in the
Buddha's final lesson on impermanence
(Byrne
1995).
Furthermore,
the practice
of removing antiquities,
preserving
them and even museum containment
may
be considered
destructive
by indigenous
groups:
Native
American
and Aboriginal
communities would be the most obvious
examples.
What
happens
when the di-
rective to conserve
results
in a cultural
construal
of loss? If
heritage
must
be prob-
lematized
through
the lens of cultural
difference,
then the related
antithetical
concepts of conservation
and destruction also have to be rethought.
565
NEGATIVE HERITAGE AND PAST
MASTERING
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Past Mastering
Both the World Trade Center
and the Bamiyan valley
give us pause
to ask an un-
pleasant question. What is to be done with dissonant heritage, heritage
that
does not conform
to prevailing
norms or sites that are inherently
disturbing?
Archaeologists
and other cultural arbiters make decisions about erasure,
the
forms of history
that are designated
as unworthy
or undesirable. All
negotiations
with conflictual
heritage
ultimately
entail a certain
past mastering.
A salient
example
of negative heritage,
as played
out over the long
term, can
be seen with certain
strands
of recent European history.
Europe
has witnessed
a long history
of war and persecution
between nations, classes, races
and reli-
gions
that has left its own legacies,
which inevitably
contradict
putative
notions
of unity
and thus present a clear challenge to any deployment of the past to
promote
integration.
In
the 1985 Convention for the Protection
of Architectural
Heritage
of Europe,
cultural
heritage
is to be deployed at three prioritized
lev-
els: European,
national and regional (UNESCO 2000:70)-integration being
the
prime
motivation.
Negative
heritage
will undoubtedly
be elided in a deliberate
policy
of collective
amnesia,
or will
alternatively
be re-interpreted
(fictionalized)
within a new commodification of European
heritage (Ashworth
1995:81).
Not everything
can be saved or perhaps should be. An obvious example
would be the remnants
of a Nazi past, as symbolic
capital inflected with the
emotions of guilt, loss and mourning.
Negative
heritage
has been so pervasive
in post-war
Germany
that a specific
term, vergangenheitsbewaltigung,
is used to
convey
the process
of coming
to terms with the past,
of mastering
it (Rosenfeld
2000). Post-war Munich confronted its survivors
with an enormous
task
with re-
gard
to its architectural
legacy:
some opted for a radical
purging
and denazifi-
cation,
others
for adaptive
normalization.
Three
constituencies
emerged in the
decades that followed: modernist, traditionalist,
and those that saw the didac-
tic potential
of a "critical
preservation"
of the Nazi
past. Monumentality
was in-
timately tied to memory, but also with forgetting and moving forward. By
preserving
the monument the social obligation to engage in more active re-
membrance is partially
removed,
its inherent
exteriority
affects
the internal
ex-
perience (2000:108).
Moreover,
Holocaust monuments have been accused of
topolatry, especially
at the sites of extermination.
This
view holds that monu-
ments betray
the memory,
since memory
is internal and subjective
and thus in-
compatible
with public
display
and musealization
(Huyssen
1995:258).9
There has been no fixed policy over the ensuing decades towards dealing
with Nazi
heritage.
While
numerous
buildings
and symbols
were eradicated
af-
ter the end of the war,
in the 1970s some were protected
as potential
didactic
566
LYNN MESKELL
heritage in the ongoing project
of penance, resulting
in an inconsistent treat-
ment of Nazi architecture.
Problematically,
these sites have also been reinvig-
orated as neo-Nazi
places
of pilgrimage
and operate as staging grounds
for the
potential resurgence
of Nazi ideology. Germany
still wrestles with the polar
positions
of cleansing
the Nazi
past
or mobilizing
it as a didactic ruin field: ver-
gangenheitsbewaltigung
remains an ambiguous concept of past mastering.
Ironically
and hauntingly
parallel
to the heightened activities at Ground
Zero,
Rosenfeld
suggests
that touring
Nazi
buildings
in cities like
Munich
may provide
the most effective strategy of economic and emotional adjustment so that
tourism may represent
the ultimate past mastering.
Past Talk: The Language of Heritage
From
the outset, heritage
has concerned itself with issues
of identity, locality,
ter-
ritory, ethnicity,
religion
and economic
value. Western
constructions of heritage
have also been consistently
informed
by the fabric of Christianity, despite the
avowedly
secular nature of contemporary society,
and have
yet to find a way of
incorporating Christianity's
historic enemy, Islam (Graham
et al 2000:25).
Historically,
our present concept of heritage crystallized
in Europe
in synchrony
with
the origins
of the nation-state,
while
the notion of the past
as a resource
for
the present
is also characteristic of the modern era. Intimately
connected to the
Enlightenment,
the formation of national
identity
relied on a coherent nation-
al heritage
that could be deployed
to fend off the counter
claims of other
groups
and nations.10
Heritage
is connected to issues of ownership
and like other natural,
non-re-
newable
resources,
is seen as a scarce
commodity
or property.
There are two im-
plications
here worth exploring:
the first deals with notions of ownership
and
control,
the second with an essentialized vision of the past as akin to a natural
resource.
Among many Native
American or Australian
Aboriginal
groups "the
past"
is not to be bought
or sold, studied or scientifically
tested, displayed
or ob-
jectified in ways that Western
participants
might
see fit or unproblematic.
The
past is a teleological
category
in our case, whereas
other
groups
do not perceive
our version
of the past
as past
at all. Contemporary
repainting
of Aboriginal
rock
art sites is a case in point: some may see this as tantamount to vandalism,
whereas indigenous people are appropriately
conducting
their traditional
life-
ways, living
and interacting
with what outsiders
deem a separate, reified cate-
gory, the past (Mowaljarlai
et al. 1988:692). Relationships
to heritage such as
these cannot be captured in the male-biased language of patrimony
or own-
567
NEGATIVE
HERITAGE
AND PAST
MASTERING IN ARCHAEOLOGY
ership,
nor can they reside within
the dominant
perspective
that valorizes a val-
ue-hierarchical,
dualistic, rights based framework
(Warren 1999:15-6), thus
challenging
the adequacy not only of our semantic categories,
but of our fun-
damental conceptual taxonomies that reflect the very hallmarks of our dis-
tinctive modernity.
Residues of the past
exist in the present
as archaic
reminders of a world that
was,
albeit
in infinite
variability
rather than monolithic
expressions
or reflections.
Those
material residues
cannot be "authentically"
recreated
and are thus finite.
In
the U.S. the first
steps
toward site protection
came about
with Roosevelt's
1901
Forest
Service,
followed by the 1906 Antiquities
Act,
the natural
preceding
and
shaping any notions
of an archaeological
past.
The
Antiquities
Act
gave
the pres-
ident
discretion
to protect
"historic
landmarks,
historic and prehistoric
structures"
that were situated
on lands owned or controlled
by
the government
and also to
create reserves.
This act also recognized
that "significance"
is tantamount to
"historical,
scenic
and/or
scientific values"
as mirrored
by
the first sites nominated
(Grand
Canyon,
Death
Valley,
Joshua
Tree etc: McGimsey
and Davis
1984).
Natural
resources
and places provided
the model for this paradigm
of non-renewabili-
ty and are similarly
marked
as sites and places
that entreat protection
and visi-
tation.11
Employing
the same language
and criteria for inclusion
(i.e.
outstanding
aesthetic
and scientific
value, universal
value, historical
import),
archaeological
remains
are literally
naturalized,
perhaps
even perceived
as "god
given?"
It is un-
likely
that the two are ideologically
or conceptually
comparable (although
living
communities
are similarly marginal
to each),
and the conflation
eschews
the so-
cial construction
and value systems
inherent
to both. Such
compounding
serves
to present
the role of archaeologists
as good conservationists
or ecologists
(lit-
erally saving
the planet).
I focus on the construct of global world heritage,
since its discursive
formu-
lation has assumed an overwhelmingly positive mantle in recent decades.
However,
global world
heritage
could be perceived
by some as an extension
of
the colonial
project,
traveling
to, knowing
and mapping
territories
outside
one's
own national
boundaries.
The language
of the UNESCO
conventions
reinforces
Western
notions of value and rights,
while the ownership
and maintenance
of the
past is suffused
with the concepts surrounding
property.
A close reading
of the
language
of heritage,
specifically
the UNESCO
conventions
embody older para-
digms of cultural
history
and traditional
art historical
value-systems
instead
of
the more recent alignment of archaeology
with social anthropology
and the
social sciences.12
The convention
clearly recognizes
that not all property
can be
listed, rather
only those select few that are outstanding
from an "international
568
LYNN
MESKELL
viewpoint." Further it states that the committee can act with "full independence
in evaluating the intrinsic merit of property, without regard to other considera-
tion" (UNESCO 2000:26). First of all, this operates within the language of pre-
sumed objectivity, a hangover from the era of positivism, and second, it erases
the centrality of cultural issues whether, social, political or religious. Other sec-
tions of the convention make overtures to "local people" that might be construed
as cultural pluralism: "participation of local people in the nomination process is
essential to make them feel a shared responsibility" (2000:27). However, much
of this redeeming language is paternalistic, interpolating "locals' and their her-
itage into predetermined schemes of global world heritage.
The notion of a common heritage has recently been amplified by the bur-
geoning global museum, heritage park and tourist industries. World heritage
and world tourism recursively reinforce and enhance each other in an ever-grow-
ing and influential lobby. Since the proliferation of global tourism after WWII,
high
profile campaigns such as the "Save Venice" movement or the UNESCO rescue of
Abu Simbel are salient examples of this connectivity (Ashworth 1995:71-2).
Furthermore, the very concept of world heritage is flawed by the fact that it priv-
ileges an idea originating in the West and requires an attitude toward material cul-
ture that is also distinctly European in origin. The fact that world heritage is
underpinned by the globalization of Western values has ultimately prompted
challenges, resistance, and misunderstandings. UNESCO
policy (2000:1) analo-
gously attempts to conflate global and local interests: "cultural and natural prop-
erty demonstrate the importance, for all the peoples of the world, of safeguarding
this unique and irreplaceable property,
to whatever people it may belong...parts
of the cultural or natural heritage are of outstanding interest and therefore need
to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole." French ar-
chitectural historian Francoise Choay, has referred to this imperialism as the "ec-
umenical expansion of heritage practices"
(Gamboni 2001:9). Any real success of
world heritage will depend upon the degree to which the Enlightenment in-
spired universalism gets sanctioned as truly universal.
The language of UNESCO
might seem pervasive and implacable; however there
are clear national alternatives already in operation. I
see real potentials for the fu-
ture of heritage as crystallized in the language and expressed sentiment of the
Australian Burra Charter.
The charter recenters the place of culture in a living
context termed "places
of cultural
significance,"
rather than as reductively
static ob-
jects of outstanding artistic or scientific merit. These places are important be-
cause they provide an "inspirational sense of connection to community and
landscape" that are part of lived experience. Place is connected to "tangible ex-
569
NEGATIVE HERITAGE
AND PAST
MASTERING
IN ARCHAEOLOGY
pressions
of Australian
identity
and experience"
with the acknowledgement
that
places
of "cultural
significance
reflect the diversity
of communities."
Heritage
is
both to be cared
for and used
by various
groups,
if deemed appropriate.13
There
are
well known cases
where public
information is withheld,
such as the locations
of sacred
sites,
and entire tracts
of countryside
have been returned to Aboriginal
custodians
such as Uluru.
Correspondingly,
there
is
a clear
recognition
that
for
some
places "conflicting
cultural values
may
affect
policy
development
and management
decisions...including,
but not limited
to political,
religious,
spiritual
and moral
be-
liefs. This is broader
than values associated with cultural
significance"
(Burra
Charter
1999).14
While this national
document cannot
double as a global
mandate,
it certainly
does reflect a heightened
awareness and concern for cultural
difference,
the clear
inclusion of indigenous
groups
with
whom ultimate decision
making
re-
sides,
and a focus
on conflict resolution
that
is not evident
in the older UNESCO
con-
ventions.
Moreover,
it explicitly
advocates
a multi-disciplinary
approach,
ongoing
negotiation,
and aims
for,
where
possible,
the co-existence
of differing
viewpoints
and traditions.
Australia has
effectively
been a world leader
in constructing heritage
in partnership
with indigenous
communities
and has not been open to the types
of criticism
sustained
by
the United
States
(see Lilley 2000).
Closing Thoughts
Violence,
sanctioned memory and the politics
of place have inescapably
con-
stituted sites of heritage in Lower Manhattan and in the Bamiyan valley.
Through
these extreme examples we are impelled to rethink the more mun-
dane, but no less political,
constructions
of the past
and those specific
sites that
are consecrated
as heritage.
After
all, the material
world
is a constant
reminder
of an ever-present past and yet certain decisions by particular
individuals
and
organizations
render particular
places as valuable, important,
aesthetic and
meaningful. Heritage
inhabits spatial, temporal, cultural
and economic do-
mains, however the notion of cultural
good is often synonymous with eco-
nomic
success.
The language
of cultural
heritage
is synchronous
with that of the
natural
world-a non-renewable
resource
that is to be preserved
for the ben-
efit of a common humanity.
But
who defines a "common
heritage"
and "com-
mon humanity"
in the age of recognized
cultural
difference?
The Burra
Charter
has been used as a positive
example of one nation's
attempt to negotiate,
and
even relinquish
control
of heritage,
in the face of cultural
diversity.
This
essay has revolved
around the deployments
and interventions
of some-
thing I have termed negative heritage,
which operates between the dual poles
570
LYNN
MESKELL
of transformation and erasure,
depending on the social and temporal context.
Timing
is key in decisions to erase heritage
sites, whether Nazi
architecture
or
the Bamiyan Buddhas,
where specific national modernities cannot rehabili-
tate or accommodate specific manifestations of the past. And
only time trans-
forms negative
or dissonant
heritage
into the romantic monuments
and theme
parks
of collective nostalgia.
Ancient sites are purified
through the march of
time and the cultural amnesia that accompanies
temporal
passing.
How
can we
define or apprehend
an arbitrary
moment in time that transforms the product
of the past into an object of heritage?
Preservation
privileges
the construct of
historical respect rather than the needs of the present (Adorno
1981:175).
Archaeologically,
an object re-touched or re-worked
in antiquity
is of interest to
scholars,
yet this same process
is denounced or actively prevented
when it oc-
curs in living contexts. By what mechanism is authenticity compromised?
It
can only be the arbitrary
passing
of culturally
determined time that sanctifies
the past as past.
Returning
to Ground
Zero, we have witnessed the rapid and devastating
transformation of the World
Trade Center from the penultimate
site of virtual
capital into a site of negative heritage, replete with numerous instances of
contemporary
and potential musealization.
It is timely that we thus ask what
constitutes
appropriate
memorialization in this volatile context. What
will be re-
membered and forgotten?
How
will the didactic
potential
of the site and the cul-
tural capital of museums and memorials be balanced against the extreme
pressure
of economic and political
forces?
Numerous
groups remain
buried at
the site: occupants of the WTC,
fireman and policemen, migrant
workers
and
the highjackers.
We are now at an important juncture:
the ongoing memorial-
ization
of the event can take the shape of current
nationalist
fervor,
highlight-
ing the "axis of evil"
and the war against
terrorism,
or can attempt to mediate
between the numerous
agendas and interest
groups
and mobilize
the materi-
als of the very
recent
past
to confront
religious,
national
and cultural
difference,
and to perform
a service in the public
sphere. Given
the disenchantment of a
post 9/11 world,
the latter
calls for a hybrid
heritage
where multiple
meanings
and a multicultural
agenda are tacitly
embraced
from the outset. New
York
City,
the ultimate world city,
can make a public
and powerful
connection between
the events of September
11 and thus potentially
further
the understanding
of
cultural
difference
and intolerance
in a global context.
571
NEGATIVE
HERITAGE AND PAST
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IN ARCHAEOLOGY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper owes much to the thoughtful insights of Emma Blake, Richard Fox, Patty
Gerstenblith, Chad Gifford,
Martin
Hall, lan Hodder, Rosemary Joyce, lan Lilley,
Claire
Lyons,
and Nan Rothschild who each read various drafts, provided critical references and helped
clarify many of the ideas presented in the paper. The students of my graduate class
"Revealing Identities" also provided wonderful feedback on many of the arguments. Some
very helpful references were provided by James Conlon, Marisa Lazzari,
and Claire
Smith.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the help of my research assistants Anna Boozer, Scott
Kremkau,
Aziz Meshiea, and Daniel Puertas who helped with the collection of materials.
END NOTES
1Material
signs also serve to link nations and individuals, making emotional and semiotic
statements. A battered flag, raised by firefighters
at the WTC site in the early aftermath of the
attacks, was sent to Afghanistan to be flown at the site of a temporary prison holding
Taliban prisoners. As a material referent for the events of September 11 (inscribed with the
names of the victims), it was a symbolic act that instantiated and justified the retaliation.
Original ownership of the flag was then called into question by yacht owners, Shirley and
Spiro, who claimed it was taken from their boat moored in Lower Manhattan. Chen, D. W.
2002. "For
History
or Tax Break,
Claiming
a Sept. 11 Icon,"
in The New York
Times,
pp.35. New
York, March 3. In all these mobilizations, authenticity is paramount.
21tems such as shell casings and bullets from European battlefields in WW1
were also craft-
ed and transformed into material culture memorabilia by soldiers and widely distributed.
The processes of commodification and profit were, however, not the primary motivation or
concern. Saunders, N.J.
2000. "Bodies of Metal, Shells of Memory: "Trench Art"
and the
Great War
Recycled," Journal of Material Culture
5:43-67.
3In
the film human beings are mere batteries for the new mechanical world order, although
they live in a perpetual dream state, deluded through virtual means by a simulation program
called the matrix. Many
cultural commentators have drawn attention to the present blurring
of genres.
4A
comparable example would be the musealization of Hiroshima.
5The
timing of Mullah Omar's
edict was key: it was issued while a SPACH
delegation was in
Afghanistan and during a high-profile UNESCO conference on the fate of cultural heritage in
Central Asia.
6Pakistani archaeologist Ahmed Hasan Dani, argued "they are not here to be worshipped.
They are works of art."
7Looting in the US and other nations similarly remains a significant concern. Brodie, N,
Doole, J and Renfrew, C. Editor. 2001. Trade in Illicit Antiquities: the Destruction of the
World's
Archaeological
Heritage. Cambridge:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
8Cases which evoke the most vociferous outcries over loss are those which represent aesthetic
sites-those which tacitly fit Western criteria for artistic merit and cultural meaning. While
not all heritage is salvaged, many cultural commentators feel more able to point the finger
at developing countries such as Afghanistan citing reasons of ignorance and barbarism,
while downplaying religious sensitivities, local feelings, economic necessity or the imple-
mentation of other systems of knowledge and value. Archaeological heritage in these spe-
cific locales can easily be transformed by political machinations: the Buddhas were in
desperate need of conservation for many years with little concern. Higuchi,
T,
and G. Barnes.
1995. "Bamiyan: Buddhist Cave Temples in Afghanistan," World
Archaeology 27:282-302.
Righteous indignation fomented when Afghanistan
became a flash point and the Taliban be-
came demonized throughout the world, reiterating
the truism that archaeology is imbricated
in political struggles and is far from value-free.
572
LYNN MESKELL
9Auschwitz receives over 70,000 visitors or pilgrims each year. Cole, T. 1999. Selling the
Holocaust. New York:
Routledge.
11ln England,
John Ruskin and William Morris were confronted with the mass destruction of
the past from burgeoning capitalism and industrialization.
They were among the first to pro-
mote stewardship, arguing that one generation had no right
to destroy remnants of the past
since heritage belonged equally to future generations (Gamboni 2001:7).
1An examination of the UNESCO Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage
Convention and the European Landscape Convention clearly reveal the isomorphic rela-
tionship between cultural and natural heritage.
12Article 1 of the convention purports
three categories: monuments, groups of buildings and
sites. In defining what constitutes "outstanding
value," criteria are listed as "history,
art or sci-
ence" as opposed to living
traditions, communities etc. Criteria include "a masterpiece of hu-
man creative genius," "a civilization," or "a significant stage in human history" that can
"meet the test of authenticity."
UNESCO. 2000. "Convention
Concerning
the Protection of the
World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Paris 16 November 1972)." US/ICOMOS
Scientific
Journal-International Cultural Heritage Conventions 2:19-36.
13Here
Aboriginal people are the most important stakeholders, Article 32.2.
14The Cultural Diversity
Code (essentially an ethics code that accompanies the Charter)
ac-
knowledges that "cultural difference is the responsibility of society as a whole; in a pluralist
society,
value differences exist and contain the potential for conflict;
and ethical practice
is nec-
essary for the just and effective management of places of diverse cultural significance."
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