Tuesday, June 3, 2008
CONFINTEA VI
The Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) is to take place hosted by Brazil in 2009. It is to provide an important platform for policy dialog and advocacy on adult learning and non-formal education at global level. It will involve UNESCO Member States, United Nations agencies, multi-and bi-lateral cooperation agencies, organizations from civil society, the private sector and learners from all world regions. Member States are slowly submitting their national reports to the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, and are being made available on the conference website.
The New Issue of The UNESCO Courier is Online
The UNESCO Courier 2008 - number 5Claude Lévi-Strauss: The View from Afar
This month's Courier, published in his 100th year, pays special tribute to Claude Levi-Strauss, the trail breaking social scientist whose views have influenced people all over the world. It offers a selection of articles written by him and published in the magazine since the early 1950s. It also includes unpublished documents, along with his photographs and sketches from the 1930s.
Listen to "Race and Culture" read by Claude Lévi-Strauss in French at UNESCO in 1971.
Watch the video coverage of his last public speech, made on the same podium in 2005.
Laurent LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude's son and UNESCO's Chief of Museums and Cultural Objects Section was recently in Washington, representing UNESCO at the annual meeting of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Jobs at UNESCO
Americans should check out the job section on the website of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.
Right now there is a great job opening for the right person. UNESCO is seeking a Deputy Director of the World Heritage Center for Management. This is a new position, created by the organization to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UNESCO's flagship program.
Right now there is a great job opening for the right person. UNESCO is seeking a Deputy Director of the World Heritage Center for Management. This is a new position, created by the organization to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UNESCO's flagship program.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
News About Americans for UNESCO Board Members
Patrice Lyons is recently returned from Japan, where she was invited to participate in the award of the Japan Prize to her husband, Robert Kahn, co-inventor of the Internet. Check out the photos of the presentation and award banquet with the participation of the Emperor of Japan.
Roger A. Coate has been named the first Paul D. Coverdell Endowed Chair of Policy Studies at Georgia College & State University. To pursue the new challenge, Roger leaves the University of South Carolina where he has served since 2001 as the director of The Richard L. Walker Institute of International Studies.
Rita Colwell last year was presented the National Medal of Science by President Bush. The award is the nation's highest honor for scientists. (Robert Kahn was an earlier laureate of the National Medal of Technology).
Roger A. Coate has been named the first Paul D. Coverdell Endowed Chair of Policy Studies at Georgia College & State University. To pursue the new challenge, Roger leaves the University of South Carolina where he has served since 2001 as the director of The Richard L. Walker Institute of International Studies.
Rita Colwell last year was presented the National Medal of Science by President Bush. The award is the nation's highest honor for scientists. (Robert Kahn was an earlier laureate of the National Medal of Technology).
Americans for UNESCO Board Meeting
The Board of Directors met yesterday. The main topic of discussion was a review of last week's meeting of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. The views expressed of that meeting ranged from negative to positive, reflecting to some degree the different portions of the meeting that were attended by different members of the Board, and to some degree the differing personalities of the Board members themselves.
It was reported that only 44 of the 100 members of the National Commission were observed at the meeting, and some of them did not attend for all of the two day meeting. There was general agreement that the cultural events scheduled around the National Commission meeting were excellent, and that the presentation at the Commission on the U.S. funded project to develop museums in developing countries was excellent and widely appreciated.
It was recognized that Ambassador Oliver had achieved considerable skill in her diplomatic role leading the U.S. permanent delegation to UNESCO, but the State Department presentation was criticized as not having adequately reviewed the success of the delegation in encouraging UNESCO in directions that would better achieve U.S. policy objectives in international education, science, culture, and communications, nor in the more fundamental effort to secure the defenses of peace in the minds of men.
There was apparent agreement among the Board members that the National Commission still was not fulfilling the mandate of its legislation, and that its success in providing advice on UNESCO affairs to the Government was at best mixed. The session of the National Commission on the future of the Commission itself was seen as useful, while that on the UNESCO budget priorities was criticized.
The meeting also reviewed the course on UNESCO that was offered last semester at George Washington University, and the initiative of students from that class to create a student club at the university focusing on UNESCO.
A brief report was made on the online presence of Americans for UNESCO. The most relevant portion of which was the evolution of traffic on the Americans for UNESCO supported blogs, which is shown week by week in the following graph.
The resignation of two long time members of the Board, Sid Passman and Irv Lerch, was noted with regret. Both have found it impossible to continue devoting time to Board activities due to personal reasons. They will be missed!
The Board approved modest changes in the Bylaws for Americans for UNESCO, and appointed committees to work on support for the Man and the Biosphere Program and to draft with the aid of the Advisory Committee a paper for the transition team to begin working on the new Administration after the November 4th election.
It was reported that only 44 of the 100 members of the National Commission were observed at the meeting, and some of them did not attend for all of the two day meeting. There was general agreement that the cultural events scheduled around the National Commission meeting were excellent, and that the presentation at the Commission on the U.S. funded project to develop museums in developing countries was excellent and widely appreciated.
It was recognized that Ambassador Oliver had achieved considerable skill in her diplomatic role leading the U.S. permanent delegation to UNESCO, but the State Department presentation was criticized as not having adequately reviewed the success of the delegation in encouraging UNESCO in directions that would better achieve U.S. policy objectives in international education, science, culture, and communications, nor in the more fundamental effort to secure the defenses of peace in the minds of men.
There was apparent agreement among the Board members that the National Commission still was not fulfilling the mandate of its legislation, and that its success in providing advice on UNESCO affairs to the Government was at best mixed. The session of the National Commission on the future of the Commission itself was seen as useful, while that on the UNESCO budget priorities was criticized.
The meeting also reviewed the course on UNESCO that was offered last semester at George Washington University, and the initiative of students from that class to create a student club at the university focusing on UNESCO.
A brief report was made on the online presence of Americans for UNESCO. The most relevant portion of which was the evolution of traffic on the Americans for UNESCO supported blogs, which is shown week by week in the following graph.
The resignation of two long time members of the Board, Sid Passman and Irv Lerch, was noted with regret. Both have found it impossible to continue devoting time to Board activities due to personal reasons. They will be missed!
The Board approved modest changes in the Bylaws for Americans for UNESCO, and appointed committees to work on support for the Man and the Biosphere Program and to draft with the aid of the Advisory Committee a paper for the transition team to begin working on the new Administration after the November 4th election.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thinking About Cultural Property
Edward Rothstein has a review in today's New York Times of the book Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage by James Cuno. The review begins:
The tangible cultural property to which the Rothstein-Cuno analysis applies is movable -- paintings, sculptures, etc., the antiquities we often associate with museums. Of course it was not UNESCO that first treated these objects as property. Kings and the wealthy did so for millenia. UNESCO helped recognize the concept of "cultural property", reflecting the fact that such objects often have transcendental value within a specific culture. Thus a religious artifact may have huge value among the adherents of the religion involved and little value to others.
UNESCO has also helped recognize the concept of World Heritage. Thus everyone has a legitimate interest in some objects of transcendental beauty and cultural importance, such as the Mona Lisa or the contents of Tutankhamun's tomb. The crux of the issue addressed by Rothstein and Cuno is the property that is both claimed by specific cultural groups and as broader world heritage.
It would seem that the custodian of any cultural property or item of world heritage should have a responsibility to protect that property and pass it on to future generations. The owners of a cultural property or item of world heritage would also seem to share that responsibility, and indeed the responsibility to allow others to act as custodians of such objects only if they can realistically guarantee to safeguard the property.
So who are the owners of cultural property. The oldest statues in the world were found in what is now Jordan, and date back some 8,000 years. Jordan is a historic crossroads and modern Jordanians have little in common with the folk who lived i that geographic area 8,000 years ago. So, one may ask, why should they have ownership of those ancient statues? In this case the answer is clear. They have them, the artifacts were found in their land under their law, and the Jordanians ascribe cultural value to them as well as recognizing their status as world heritage.
The situation is not so clear when a piece of cultural property found in one country is located in another, both claiming legitimate ownership. Greek antiquities in the United Kingdom or Egyptian antiquities in the United States come to mind. UNESCO has developed conventions that help to allow the parties to such disputes to negotiate their solution, or at least adjudicate them. They don't always work, but those conventions represent a major advance over the anarchy of the past. Still, Rothstein and Cuno suggest that often countries have gone too far in seeking to recognize the rights of cultural property ownership based on things being found in areas now occupied by the claiming party.
In last week's meeting, the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO recommended that UNESCO institutionalize mechanisms that would allow long term loans of cultural property from one nation to another without the transfer of ownership. There have been loans of museum exhibits for many years, but the new mechanisms would be for a decade or more. The new mechanism would allow sharing of experience of world heritage, while recognizing ownership rights to cultural heritage. Sounds good to me!
John Daly
(The ideas expressed in this posting are mine alone, and don't necessarily reflect those of any organization.)
To what culture does the concept of “cultural property” belong? Who owns this idea?The so called tragedy of the commons recognizes that if no one owns a resource, then there is little incentive to manage it well. We often institutionalize property rights to protect such resources. (An alternative is to retain the resource in a commons, but to institutionalize systems to manage that common.)
It has, like much material property in the last 50 years, often changed hands. And in doing so, it has also changed meanings and grown in importance. It now affects the development of museums, alters the nature of international commerce and even seems to subsume traditional notions of property.
It was brought to modern prominence in 1954 by UNESCO as a way of characterizing the special status of monuments, houses of worship and works of art — objects that suffered “grave damage” in “recent armed conflicts.” In its statement Unesco asserted that such “cultural property” was part of the “cultural heritage of all mankind” and deserved special protection.
But the framers of that doctrine with its universalist stance would hardly recognize cultural property in its current guise. The concept is now being narrowly applied to assert possession, not to affirm value. It is used to stake claims on objects in museums, to prevent them from being displayed and to control the international trade of antiquities.
The tangible cultural property to which the Rothstein-Cuno analysis applies is movable -- paintings, sculptures, etc., the antiquities we often associate with museums. Of course it was not UNESCO that first treated these objects as property. Kings and the wealthy did so for millenia. UNESCO helped recognize the concept of "cultural property", reflecting the fact that such objects often have transcendental value within a specific culture. Thus a religious artifact may have huge value among the adherents of the religion involved and little value to others.
UNESCO has also helped recognize the concept of World Heritage. Thus everyone has a legitimate interest in some objects of transcendental beauty and cultural importance, such as the Mona Lisa or the contents of Tutankhamun's tomb. The crux of the issue addressed by Rothstein and Cuno is the property that is both claimed by specific cultural groups and as broader world heritage.
It would seem that the custodian of any cultural property or item of world heritage should have a responsibility to protect that property and pass it on to future generations. The owners of a cultural property or item of world heritage would also seem to share that responsibility, and indeed the responsibility to allow others to act as custodians of such objects only if they can realistically guarantee to safeguard the property.
So who are the owners of cultural property. The oldest statues in the world were found in what is now Jordan, and date back some 8,000 years. Jordan is a historic crossroads and modern Jordanians have little in common with the folk who lived i that geographic area 8,000 years ago. So, one may ask, why should they have ownership of those ancient statues? In this case the answer is clear. They have them, the artifacts were found in their land under their law, and the Jordanians ascribe cultural value to them as well as recognizing their status as world heritage.
The situation is not so clear when a piece of cultural property found in one country is located in another, both claiming legitimate ownership. Greek antiquities in the United Kingdom or Egyptian antiquities in the United States come to mind. UNESCO has developed conventions that help to allow the parties to such disputes to negotiate their solution, or at least adjudicate them. They don't always work, but those conventions represent a major advance over the anarchy of the past. Still, Rothstein and Cuno suggest that often countries have gone too far in seeking to recognize the rights of cultural property ownership based on things being found in areas now occupied by the claiming party.
In last week's meeting, the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO recommended that UNESCO institutionalize mechanisms that would allow long term loans of cultural property from one nation to another without the transfer of ownership. There have been loans of museum exhibits for many years, but the new mechanisms would be for a decade or more. The new mechanism would allow sharing of experience of world heritage, while recognizing ownership rights to cultural heritage. Sounds good to me!
John Daly
(The ideas expressed in this posting are mine alone, and don't necessarily reflect those of any organization.)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures of the National Museum
Members of the National Commission for UNESCO were treated to a preview of a wonderful exhibit at the National Gallery of Art (East Wing) that will be available to the public starting next week.It had been thought that over the decades of war and Teliban domination of Afghanistan the archaeological treasures that had been excavated during the 20th century had been lost. The building of the National Museum had been destroyed.
Amazingly, those treasures had been hidden for many years, and survived intact. Unfortunately, the restored museum still does not have the security systems needed to protect the treasures, especially given the current level of violence. Therefore the decision was made to allow the greatest treasures of the country to circulate through Europe and the United States in this great exhibit.
The exhibit combines the findings of a great deal of archaeological research with understanding of Afghanistan's history. The artifacts are themselves often of the greatest possible artistic value. Under any circumstances the survival of gold, ivory and glass objects of such beauty for thousands of years would be amazing. For Afghanistan their survival appears miraculous.
This exhibit will revise your understanding of Afghanistan and Central Asia!
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