Culture

Keep out of politics

Thursday, 19th October 2006

Museum professionals from the UK have become involved in social outcomes that ‘affirm identities’. Jack Loman maintains that museums can be agents for identity affirmation and peace-building and has worked in Kosovo to do just this. He argues that museums have ‘broadened our role from being merely a “stage” to being “actors” on the broader stage of life itself’.

The British Museum trustees contend that museums, their staff and collections can play a role in state-building, and promoting peace and stability between and within states in Africa. And its staff are involved in work that is actively trying to construct civil society in that continent.

The ideas behind affirming identities, peace-building and state-building are politically questionable and professionally irresponsible. What makes a member of the British cultural elite, a museum director or its staff the right people to affirm the identity of those from different countries?

This is a dubious and patronising role for cultural practitioners to play. Do they know more than, say, the people in these countries? Do these practitioners still have a problem trusting the natives? Loman and Neil McGregor, the director of the BM, don’t know better than everyone else what is best for the African or Kosovan people. They should stop interfering. People need freedom to develop as they see fit, not have ideas imposed on them by cultural leaders keen to play a part on the international stage.

Apart from the arrogance of this condescending interference, it assumes that the problem of identity, state-building and the solutions to peace can be solved through the work of museums. But museums are about the past, and often thousands and thousands of years in the past.

We can understand far more about present-day Sudan by looking at the current international situation than by delving into the 12th century or even 10th century bc. And to suggest the opposite, as the British Museum has done in its recent work, is to categorise the Sudanese people as warmongers, and to ignore the influence of international relations on the situation in that area today.

Much of what is discussed as identity affirmation is in fact about preserving cultures. Trying to ensure that the African tribes maintain their ‘authentic’ ways is one example. Here, there is a real danger of romanticising the past, and of preventing the country from developing as its people would like, encouraging them to remain ‘traditional’.

This policy will intrude on people’s lives and cause more harm than good. The professionals should concentrate their efforts back in the UK, on running institutions and supporting the arts. If they want to work in war-torn countries they should pursue a different career. Arts practitioners could be experimenting with cultural forms, colour, textures and new ideas. Museum managers could be learning more about the material artefacts in their collections and sharing that knowledge. It’s just a small point, but they do already have a job to do. Cultural foreign policy is one piece of political theatre where the cultural sector should bow out.

Tiffany Jenkins is director of the arts and society programme at the Institute of Ideas.