Why Africa must endeavour to preserve its heritage

The developed world has a way of preserving its history. Yet, nearly all of Africa’s archeological sites, including other sites of historical importance are being systematically looted with whole sections of Africa’s history wiped out and may never be reconstructed or see the light of the day.This looting of cultural material has gone on with impunity and has actually grown into a vast commercial enterprise, which has reached what some people are already calling “cultural genocide” – thanks to globalization and free market enterprise that have come along with the ingenuity of commerce and trade. The excavated remains of the Mijikenda in coastal parts of Kenya are likely to be found somewhere in European museums than at the Kenyan coast. Not only that, but the statutes of famous Mali Terra Cotta, the bronze of Ife of Nigeria, similar cultural objects of Benin, Burkina Faso, Democratic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Rwanda, Egypt, and several other African countries have become a thriving business to unscrupulous local middlemen who have shamelessly helped the transfer of their cultural heritage to other art-capitals worldwide. Just like Ethiopia managed to reclaim its 1,700-year old stone obelisk looted by Italy nearly 70 years ago, in 2005, other African countries could make similar claims for their looted artifacts. Some of the artifacts are sacred symbols of a nation’s identity like the Zimbabwe soapstone carved bird that was returned about six years ago from a German museum. The bird is an emblem of the country and appears on the national flag and currency and who knows, it could well contribute to the resuscitation of this great nation’s fortunes! There is the other popularly held view that many works of art from Africa have been preserved ‘better’ as a result of being ‘carefully handled’ in foreign museums away from the ‘chaos’ that has characterised a large part of Africa for many years. The good news is that a number of African countries are already making breakthroughs, economically, in comparison with other global economies. In any case, the point is that these precious objects at some stage must be returned to their rightful creators and the culture that had bred them in the first place. Ability to maintain these objects should be separated from right ownership. This brings me to the much debated issue of the custody of archives held by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. It must be known that the ICTR archives contain some of the best documentary and legal evidence of what happened during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, ranging from witness testimonies in varied forms, to confessions and the final judgments. If most of the material regarding the Genocide is from Rwanda and nearly all the witnesses are Rwandans, then for God’s sake who else deserves the right to have the archives? Isn’t this actually crying more than the bereaved? It should be recalled that some time in 1970, a number of nations entered into an agreement that Africa’s cultural heritage should be preserved by forbidding the export of African antiquities and returning those outside the continent of Africa.There is current fear, however, that should the West return these precious artifacts they would simply be sold out of the back-door of the museum or mysteriously “disappear” through the hands of their custodians. Besides the mysterious “disappearance” of the artifacts, however, there is need to preserve those that have ‘survived’. Rwanda’s national museum in Huye, to the South of the country, is a national heritage which is a custodian to numerous cultural heritage artifacts and records. We should know the past as a precious asset and a limited resource, its future is entrusted to us alive today. The purpose of the said centre would, among other things, be to identify and ensure protection of our historical sites and other vitally important documents and memorabilia.Besides teaching the Rwandan people their history, these sites and other artifacts of varied nature will attract visitors to Rwanda, thereby giving us the much needed foreign exchange. It would be a shame if Rwanda were to have only new buildings and sites and post-Genocide literature and artifacts. Surely, we have a history, however murky, that our future generation has to contend with. The challenge is now to our national museum and other repository centres to identify these sites and artifacts and document them for purposes of protection, preservation, recognition and indeed for our posterity.

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Why Africa must endeavour to preserve its heritage