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The results of the SAFE petition on the Greece MOU? Despite everyone's best efforts, by 12th October, a pathetic 648 signatures. The United States of America has a population of 310 million, 50 000 of them are reputed to be ancient coin collectors. Every year, the value of ancient coins and antiquities sold on the US market is many millions of dollars. There are virtually no regulations in place to ensure that any of that trade is respecting export laws of the source countries, there is concrete evidence from the publicised ICE border seizures that some of it most certainly is not. And do Americans care? Well, according to the SAFE petition, not enough to actually do anything about it.
It is time to stop the farce, nobody (except dealers in dugups) is interested in what the CPAC is debating, despite being represented on it by a token (!) two members, "the public" really does not know about the debate or simply does not care. American dealers and collectors on the other hand are quite happy for their advocates to present them in the role of cultural property bandits: xenophobic, neo-colonialist, introverted, self centred and careless consumers. The American people as a whole apparently is unconcerned that any examination of the state of its antiquities consumption prompts the rest of the world seeing their country in those terms. Or rather those that care are too few to reach or affect public opinion. As the recent Four Corners fiasco shows us all quite clearly, the US judicial system cannot even be bothered to uphold the local laws about not stealing archaeological artefacts from state-owned land. One can only get the impression that the outlawry of the collectors' market over there is total. So let the US make it official.
I think it would save a lot of people a lot of time and angst if the USA was to simply withdraw from the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property. Let the rest of the world see that in fact the American people do not see there is any need to find any way to prohibit and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of any cultural property. Let the USA stop hiding the real (lack of) feelings of its citizens behind the pretence of an ineffective and half hearted application of an international convention represented by the cop-out and deliberately hobbled law which the CCPIA actually is. A law which ignores the majority of the articles of the Convention and their implications, focussing just on article nine and then quibbling amongst themselves about what even that means. Pathetic.
So why should the USA pretend to uphold a convention that in fact nobody over there (except a few kudos-seeking ICE agents and politicians) actually gives a hoot about in the scramble for making displayable, or wearable dugup "pieces of the past in your hand at home" a highly profitable industry?
While it is sad that the issues aren't yet taken on board by the public I don't think it is true that they never will.
ReplyDelete"Collectors rights in preference to public rights" is certainly not being called for by the public, nor even with much conviction by collectors. No, it is dealers alone - who of course have a lot to gain.
Strangely, you can see the same thing happening on this side of the pond this very day with British archaeologists being told on Britarch -
"I also wonder just how many of the British General Public, if asked about the countries heritage, what they thought of detectorists, private ownership
, couldnt actually give a toss"
No prizes for guessing who said that. A detector dealer.
Take out the noise from those who have a financial axe to grind and it may be that the public is well able to understand in the end. It's hardly rocket science is it?
The number of signatures was depressing, no doubt. However, for what it's worth, at the CPAC meeting yesterday, there were 19 people who made comments, 10 pro MoU, 9 con.
ReplyDeleteThank you Senta, that was of course not a criticism of SAFE or those who did show their support.
ReplyDeleteI think it important to look at the reason why the result was as it was - I am pretty sure that the number of US citizens who actually want their country to become the sewer of the global illicit antiquities trade is nowhere near the percentage of the US population which did not step forward and express their support for a cultural property MOU with Greece.
What I think is clear here is this "involvement of the public" is a total myth in the US. In England if English Heritage (or similar body) want to do a public consultation, they frequently use the national press and TV interviews to widely publicise that fact. This is news. The "nighthawking survey" was a case in point with many articles in the news about it while they were gathering information and then a load more when the results were out. Many EH policy documents are indeed widely publicised and consulted. It may be just my distant vantage point, but I certainly get the impression that we see in the US more "lobbying" than real public consultation, which rather puts a slightly different perspective on "by the people for the people".
Do the CPAC not have access to the national press? How many articles in the national newspapers were there which originated from the CPAC in the consultation period? There were lots from the coineys and dealers, but what about genuine outreach to the wider public? (By the way note what Article 10 9a) and (b) - and the related Art. 5(f) - of the 1970 UNESCO Convention says: where is this in the US?).
Because if the CPAC or whoever (State Department?) are not spreading the information to your 310 million people, how can they claim that they've done any real "public consultation" on the issue? And as I say, actually if Art. 9 is really the only of the Convention's 26 which the US CCPIA in effect acknowledges exists, why does the US not withdraw from the Convention and carry on contracting bilateral MOUs with individual nations that ask nicely if that is how they - unlike the rest of the states parties - understand "implementing the convention"?