| This issue of the Bulletin
does two important things. First, it sees
the publication of President Martin Hall’s
ideas about what WAC is and does, and where
it should head in the immediate future.
This is a critical matter for the organization
as it heads into the new millennium. Martin’s
proposals have been thoroughly discussed
by the Officers and with Peter Ucko, and
I ask all members to give the issues serious
attention. Martin’s piece makes reference
to the Ilisu Dam in Turkey, a subject often
addressed in the Bulletin, and a
letter from Martin to the Council of Europe
regarding the dam follows his statement
about WAC’s future. A longer piece about
Ilisu by Maggie Ronayne will appear in the
next Bulletin. I note, though, that
the UK company Balfour Beatty, its Italian
partner Impreglio and the Union Bank of
Switzerland have now withdrawn from the
Ilisu project as a result of the efforts
of WAC and many other groups to highlight
the project’s problems.
The second important feature of this issue
is that it heralds the publication of the
introductory chapters of Routledge’s One
World Archaeology (OWA) volumes. In addition
to providing an ensured supply of quality
copy for the journal, it is hoped the dissemination
of the chapters in this manner will help
spread the word about the OWA series, about
WAC’s endeavours and about Routledge’s very
great assistance with our efforts over the
years.
The first OWA volume to be showcased is
The Dead and their Possessions: repatriation
in principle, policy and practice. It
is thus a happy coincidence that this issue
also brings news of the long-awaited and
much-publicized return of Sara (Saartjie)
Baartman’s remains from Paris to South Africa.
This welcome development renders Fforde
and Hubert’s (this volume) observation that
“the Museé de l’Homme in Paris does not
allow the return of named individuals, such
as Sara Baartman to South Africa…or Vaimaca
Pirú to Uruguay…” at least partly obsolete.
The ungracious might think that the
return ultimately had less to do with emerging
‘best-practice’ repatriation policy than
with the inconvenience of having to find
new homes for controversial material now
that the Museé de l’Homme is being disestablished.
I am not going to quibble about motives,
though, if it means people are returned
home when it is requested. I would rather
congratulate the French on the move and
concentrate on seeing the rest of the extraordinary
collections in Paris appropriately cared
for. Nick Shepard’s observations in this
issue regarding the 2001 Mapping Alternatives
conference in Cape Town takes off from Sara’s
return to discuss other matters concerning
South Africa’s heritage.
Another recent ‘win’ of a similar nature
in France concerns the decision by the incoming
French Government to reconsider plans for
a new Paris airport in the Somme Valley.
This region was the scene of unspeakable
slaughter during the First World War. Hundreds
of thousands of war-dead are buried in the
Somme and surrounding areas, including one
of my great-grandfathers, who was among
the great many Australians killed on the
Western Front. There was international agitation
against the airport by those concerned about
the proposed destruction of war graves,
but it seems it was local French objections
to noise and the like which actually stopped
the development (a local mayor is also the
new national Minister for Transport). I
am very glad it happened. I cannot imagine
what a constant stream of aircraft movements
would do to a visit to the Windmill at Pozieres
(http://users.netconnect.com.au/~ianmac/pozieres.html)
or the Australian Memorial at Villiers Bretonneux,
near Amiens (http://www.dyadel.net/~landos.y/memorial.htm).
I wonder, though, if media focus on the
issue has had any positive effect on the
generally skeptical and sometimes still
hostile views of many ‘middle Australians’
towards Indigenous people’s concerns about
cultural patrimony. I hope that some, at
least, would make the connection.
Finally, I relay disturbing news from João
Zilhão in Lisbon regarding the closure of
the Instituto Português de Arqueologia (IPA).
As underlined by João’s contributions in
the last issue of the Bulletin, the
Instituto has been centrally involved in
the preservation of the palaeolithic rock
art threatened by the damming of the Côa
Valley. It is puzzling that the Portuguese
government would chose the course of action
João describes below. It may just be another
sign of our times, when governments with
little knowledge of and less interest in
archaeology and cultural heritage pay no
heed to professional advice and continue
to make short-sighted, politically-expedient
decisions about these sensitive matters.
Perhaps this trend is tied to the much-remarked
‘turn to the right’ in Western liberal democracies,
which has seen Centre-Left and Centre-Right
administrations adopting elements of Far
Right agendas to mute the electoral impact
of such odious characters as Jean-Marie
Le Pen in France and Pauline Hanson in Australia.
I urge all readers to make representations
to the Portuguese Government about the matter.
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World
Archaeological Bulletin