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By
Diana Walters, museum and heritage consultant specialising in peacebuilding,
Daniel Laven, head of the Department of Tourism Studies and Geography at mid-Sweden University,
Peter Davis, Emeritus Professor of Museology in the International Centre for Cultural
This is a hopeful book that seeks to address the imbalance of academic and theoretical considerations of heritage by focusing on areas where it is possible to show contributions towards peacebuilding. At its core is a belief that heritage can provide solutions and that much work is being done in this area internationally to ‘solutionise’ heritage rather than ‘problematise’ it. In these troubled times it may seem almost futile to talk of peace. A global crisis of migration and refugees from war in many parts of the world brings daily images of the impact of conflict, poverty, corruption and intolerance. Within Europe the cooperation of the European Union seems increasingly fragile and the impact of the UK's vote to leave in 2016 is, at least in part, symptomatic of associated identity politics and a turning inwards of individuals, communities and nations. In many cases, fear, distrust or even attacks upon ‘others’ appeal to a sense of heritage for justification; ‘our’ borders, ‘our’ heritage, ‘our’ identity are appropriated to serve specific and, increasingly, violent agendas. At the time of writing it is difficult to overstate the urgency of the question that lies at the heart of this book: how can heritage contribute to peacebuilding?
The issue of conflict is often examined in relation to heritage (see, for example, Sather-Wagstaff 2011; Logan and Reeves 2009; Gegner and Ziino 2012), but the contribution heritage brings to peacebuilding has been largely ignored. Where the relationship between heritage and peacebuilding is discussed in the literature, heritage is often reduced to simply a way of encouraging community-based initiatives that have limited impact on creating conditions for sustainable change. This view implies that such ‘bottom-up’ discourse and practice has less value than examinations of heritage rooted in official approaches to management or academic and theoretical frameworks.
Divisions between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches mean that the very real contributions of community-based heritage initiatives to peacebuilding have not received the serious attention that they merit. This debate is to some extent mirrored in wider approaches to contemporary peacebuilding, where top-down initiatives are regarded more seriously, even though a growing body of evidence and experience points to their frequent failures to build lasting peace.
This volume explores one of the most critical issues of our time: whether heritage can contribute to a more peaceful society and future. It reflects a core belief that heritage can provide solutions to reconciling peoples and demonstrates the amount of significant work being carried out internationally. Based round the core themes of new and emerging ideas around heritage and peace, heritage and peace-building in practice, and heritage, peace-building and sites, the twenty contributions seek to raise perceptions and understanding of heritage-based peace-building practices. Responding to the emphasis placed on conflict, war and memorialization, they reflect exploratory yet significant steps towards reclaiming the history, theory, and practice of peacebuilding as serious issues for heritage in contemporary society. The geographical scope of the book includes contributions from Europe, notably the Balkans and Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Kenya. Diana Walters is an International Heritage Consultant and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter; Daniel Laven is Associate Professor of Human Geography, Department of Tourism Studies and Geography/European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University; Peter Davis is Emeritus Professor of Museology, Newcastle University. Contributors: Tatjana Cvjeticanin, Peter Davis, Jonathan Eaton, David Fleming, Seth Frankel, Timothy Gachanga, Alon Gelbman, Felicity Gibling, Will Glendinning, Elaine Heumann Gurian, Lejla Hadzic, Feras Hammami, Lotte Hughes, Bosse Lagerqvist, Daniel Laven, Bernadette Lynch, Elena Monicelli, Yongtanit Pimonsathean, Saleem H. Ali, Sultan Somjee, Peter Stone, Michèle Taylor, Peter van den Dungen, Alda Vezic, Jasper Visser, Diana Walters.
By
Feras Hammami, assistant professor of critical heritage studies and urban planning at the Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg,
Daniel Laven, head of the Department of Tourism Studies and Geography at mid-Sweden University
There is inherently no ‘peace’ in heritage, an argument that will be explored in this chapter within the Palestinian–Israeli context. This exploration is a confluence of the professional and personal experiences of the authors, who are active scholars in the field of critical heritage studies. They also have deep roots in the Holy Land, but on either side of the West Bank barrier that separates the West Bank Region of Palestine and the State of Israel.
The contested history of the Holy Land has been well-documented (Barat et al 2015; Pappe 2006; Falah 1996; Said 1992; Masalha 1992; Rouhana 1997), and the authors will not further examine this contested history here. Instead, the authors use their different perspectives on the Palestinian–Israeli problem to uncover the overlooked colonial dimensions of the problem, to understand the role of heritage as a weapon to maintain them and to explore opportunities for heritage to serve a more hopeful purpose in the region.
The Belfour Declaration of 1917 is often viewed as the result of ‘British sympathy’ towards European Jews’ desire to establish their national home. However, little attention is given to British colonial interests in the region and how the British–Zionist alliance sought to reproduce the ‘primitive features of Palestine’ and establish a foundation for the Jewish State of Israel (Pappe 2006; Masalha 1992; Shafir 1996; Lockman 1996). Between 1943 and 1948 Jewish paramilitary groups destroyed and/or forcibly evacuated more than 531 Palestinian villages and 11 urban neighbourhoods, expelled 800,000 Palestinians from their homes and settled Jewish immigrants in these emptied homes (Pappe 2006). This was followed by the unilateral declaration of the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel on 15 May 1948 and the subsequent Arab–Israel War of that year. To the Jews, the result of the war was their political independence and the end of the Diaspora. To the Palestinians this was their Al-Nakba (catastrophe), the destruction of Palestinian society and national identity, the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes and lands and the beginning of the Palestinian exile.