Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

Sandra Pannellplace are different from the reason it is listed [for], and sometimes in conflict with it” (Sullivan2004: 52). Sullivan presents the example of the World Heritage property of Angkor, wherethe 1992 listing and subsequent management plan ignored the social and contemporaryvalues regarded as of great importance to the local community. Indeed, as Sullivan reports,listing of the property in terms of a ‘past civilisation’ denies the traditional and continuing linksthe local community has with the complex (see Sullivan 2004: 50, 52). Sullivan’s commentshighlight one of the other dualistic tensions associated with many World Heritage properties.That is, the relationship between universal and local values. All too often, as the examplescited here indicate, global culture displaces local culture. In the global diffusion of WorldHeritage-related values, the values local people attach to listed properties are either notacknowledged or are regarded as an obstacle to management. As the previously-citedexamples of the Wet Tropics and Komodo National Park illustrate, the very nomination of anarea for its natural values creates a space which necessarily excludes society and culture.Moreover, as the Military Fortress of Suomenlinna and the Historic Centre of Macauhighlight, history is also effaced in this displacement of the local by the global. Not only islocal history purged of its darker moments or even erased in this process, but it is also thecase that the world’s history is reconstructed and reworked to tell the international story ofthe World Heritage List.HISTORIC CENTRES ON THE WORLD HERITAGE LIST:RESTORING AND REBUILDING WHAT?In many World Heritage ‘historic centres’, such as Macau, where the past has been restoredand preserved as an enclave of colourful, colonial buildings, the issue of exclusion relates tomemory, the politics of forgetting and the creation of a collective amnesia. As the recentrebuilding of Dresden’s Frauenkirche dramatically illustrates, the restoration of the builtenvironment damaged as a result of war, or other acts of communal violence, can also beseen, somewhat paradoxically, as the destruction of memory. In the case of Frauenkirche,reduced to rubble by Allied bombers in early 1945, the post-war response to the issue ofwhat to do with these ruins was quite varied. As Jacob points out, “East Germany’scommunist leaders were reluctant to restore a building identified with values contrary to theirown” (2005: 18). Some local councillors wanted to remove the rubble to make way foroffices and new public structures. Many in the community believed that it was “better toleave the ruins untouched [as] a lasting reminder of the terrible bombing raid” (loc. cit.). Withthe decision taken in 1990 to rebuild the church, financial contributions from Britain to assistthe restoration work were seen by some as an attempt to efface the memory of the raids,while others saw the donations as a sign of reconciliation (Jacobs 2005: 18).A similar situation to Dresden’s Frauenkirche existed with the World Heritage-listed, HistoricTown of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most of the Historic Town and the old bridge ofStari Most were destroyed in the 1990 conflict. The bridge was recently rebuilt and many ofthe edifices in the old town have been restored or rebuilt with the contribution of aninternational scientific committee established by UNESCO. Like Dresden’s Frauenkirche, thereconstruction of Mostar is heralded by some as a “symbol of reconciliation, internationalcooperation and of the coexistence of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious communities”(UNESCO World Heritage website).The destruction of historic places and the desecration of sacred spaces are often seen asinevitable outcomes of war. For example, Liisa Malkki observes that throughout the‘mythico-historical’ accounts of her Hutu informants, and in media reports of later violence inBurundi in 1993, there are numerous reports of violations to “the most holy and valuedplaces” (1995: 292). The violence that Malkki records against these sacred and reveredspaces is also reported in a number of the regional conflicts in Indonesia. In the first twoweeks of the conflict in Maluku, for example, 23 mosques and 16 churches, including the56