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Youngkin’s Virginia Mansion Row! (Full Marx in the Culture War) - WB 11th Feb 2022
100 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to Watching Brief. As the name implies, each week Marc (Mr Soup) & Andy Brockman of the Pipeline (Where history is tomorrow's news) cast an eye over news stories, topical media and entertainment and discuss and debate what they find.
#archaeologynews #thepipeline #archaeosoup
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/archaeosoup
***
0:00 Introduction
1:56 CIfA Salary Recommendations
6:59 Inflation & Archaeology
13:42 Gov. Youngkin Whitewashing History?
23:00 NOT Erasing History!
26:58 Finding Common Vocabulary?
30:05 Whither the ‘Culture War’?
41:02 Dr Neil Faulkner RIP (The Power of Archaeology)
53:59 Closing Thoughts
***
Link of the Week:
Neil Faulkner: Obituary:
***
Links:
CIFA - Current salary recommendations:
https://www.archaeologists.net/practices/salary
Youngkin's promise of education reform on race, critics fear a whitewash:
Youngkin’s win may spell changes for project highlighting history of enslaved:
Munira Mirza is not a household name, but her exit is deeply damaging for Boris Johnson:
‘Boris stopped listening’: How freezing out trusted advisers such as Munira Mirza left PM struggling to reset No 10:
***
Neil Faulkner, archaeologist, historian and ‘revolutionary socialist’ activist – obituary:
Neil Faulkner: obituary:
https://www.archaeologyworldwide.com/post/neil-faulkner-obituary
Obituary: Neil Faulkner, historian, archaeologist and revolutionary (1958-2022):
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Archaeosoup's Soupcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Soupcast, coming to you from Archaeosoup Towers. By popular demand, we're taking selected videos from the Archaeosoup back catalogue and bringing them to you as convenient podcasts. As the name implies, with Archaeosoup you get a bit of everything thrown into the pot. Archaeology, discussion, humour and debate. You can find out more at archaeosoup.com. So sit back, relax and enjoy our hearty helping of Archaeosoup.
Heritage Site Concerns and Planning Victory
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Watching Brief for the week of the 7th of February 2022. I'm joined as ever by my co-host Mr Andy Brockman. How are you doing this afternoon Andy?
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm, well, I'm happy and I'm apprehensive. I'm happy because last night I was involved in a local planning issue where the side I was batting for one, which is a good thing. But yep. It was only peripherally a heritage issue. Local democracy working actually with the elected councillors responding to concerns in the community. So that was a good one.
00:01:16
Speaker
But I've just had an email this morning saying that there's mechanical diggers working on a local grads who listed site where there's a planning application info which hasn't been decided yet. So after we finish recording I'm going to have to go down and see what's going on. Is that a news story or is that a local community concern?
00:01:40
Speaker
It's a local community concern at the moment because nothing's proven. If somebody has been doing work and worst case scenario is they're destroying a structure within the footprint of the site, within the courage of the site, which has for some reason been admitted from the heritage impact assessments, then it becomes an issue very quickly. Okay. Interesting. We'll keep an eye on that.
00:02:05
Speaker
Anyway, while we're waiting on that, our watching brief continues.
CIFA's Salary Recommendations and Inflation Impact
00:02:09
Speaker
And as ever, we're here to bring you the news from the archaeological world of the week for you to examine, discuss below and hopefully add to that understanding and that conversation.
00:02:21
Speaker
And this week we have a couple of threads that we're talking on, starting though with a preliminary look at the SIFA, that is the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, minimum salary recommendations, brackets, UK only.
00:02:38
Speaker
We are approaching the 1st of April 2022 and these have been announced as posts requiring competence slash responsibility at PCIFA.
00:02:54
Speaker
Practitioner level. Okay. Practitioner level basically starts at £21,100. The next level being £24,600 and the next level after that being £31,600. And just to compare that to last year's recommended salaries, recommendations, that's up from £20,400 to £21,100.
00:03:22
Speaker
And this is interesting because it seems to be making, well, for the first time in a while, certainly I've noticed people actually making waves as to what they will and will not tolerate in terms of job advertising based on the sort of salary levels. Is it just a good thing? Are we actually sort of slowly moving that boulder up the hill?
00:03:44
Speaker
Well, yes, in terms of if it's bringing more attention to wage levels in archaeology, which are notoriously poor, and the fact that people are talking about it, that is a good thing. It's an even better thing if people actually start doing something about it, but I'll come to that in a minute.
00:04:00
Speaker
And I think we also have to step back and see this against the sort of national canvas, as it were, when press politicians of all parties are talking about a quote, cost of living crisis.
00:04:17
Speaker
coming out of the COVID pandemic as we seem to be, hopefully, with society adjusting to a new normal, that means going back to as you were pre-March 2020 or whether it means adjusting to working from home some of the time or even all of the time. Some jobs gone, some jobs retained, heavy hits in retail and hospitality and all the rest of it. That is leading to
00:04:46
Speaker
an increase in inflation, basically something that most of us haven't lived with noticeably for a long time. So for the most eye watering impact has been in energy costs, where everybody is facing something like a 50% increase in the cost of their gas and electricity.
00:05:07
Speaker
which obviously has an impact on all levels of society, whether from your local hospital in the public sector to your local manufacturer, your local baker who's baking your bread and then having it delivered by truck and so on and so on and so on. So basically the current estimates are anything between five and seven percent
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah. Now, now on our annual rise on cost impact on cost of living this year. Now, obviously, that is a particular impact on people on low incomes. And in terms of archaeology, the first two levels that of the SIFA recommended minima and they're only recommended. They're not statutory, they're not enforceable. No. But the first two levels are actually below the national average wage.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. They're already below the national average wage and this recommended, I keep on saying recommended, these recommendations, this recommended women's rise represents just shy of a 3.5% increase.
00:06:15
Speaker
That's right. In the context of that inflation, it's still a loss of money, actually. Real terms, it's a loss. Absolutely. What it boils down to is that everybody is effectively going to be taking a pay cut because of inflation, unless they can raise their incomes by more than inflation, which then drives inflation, which is the economic argument about all this. The Bank of England will be concerned about it.
00:06:42
Speaker
because inflation is generally seen as a bad thing in the economy. So you have people who are already on poor wages, who's, and I know companies, for example, in the public sector, who were budgeting for approximately one and a half to three and a half percent
00:07:04
Speaker
increase pay increase this year. Now being forced to consider whether they can actually afford almost twice that if their workforce is asked for it just to keep pace with where they were. Yeah, just for a standstill. Yeah. Clearly, that's a very difficult situation. And in archaeological terms, given that the bulk of people in archaeology work in planning archaeology,
00:07:33
Speaker
that would mean companies choosing to increase the costs that they pass on to their clients. The problem there, of course, is that we're in a situation where archaeological work isn't commissioned. It is hired after competitive tender. So that would require
00:07:57
Speaker
If, for example, company A bids 1,500 quid for a job and company B bids 1,250 quid for a job, who's going to get the job? Which one is the client going to choose? Even if the company A pays its staff better. Yeah. And particularly in the context of everyone along that chain.
00:08:18
Speaker
having increased costs. Precisely. Right down to the, for example, the freelance pottery specialist who works from home and is suddenly facing a 50% hike in their gas and electricity bill. Yeah. But even beyond that, you've got everyone, the people who are filing the documentation in terms of the legal rights to do something on certain pots of land, the materials costs, the
00:08:44
Speaker
that the cost at the sandwich shop around the corner is going up. Everything is changing. And so therefore, yeah, it's going to have an impact. Yeah. I mean, just to fill out the picture a little bit, I mean, one of the biggest sources of archaeology jobs in the country is Badger Bridge Archaeological Jobs Resource, that's what it says on the tin. And David Connolly, who runs Badger, has said that he will not accept ads for companies advertising posts below the minima.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah. Again, that's a decision that he's taken. I think very justifiable and in a sense laudable decision that he's taken because the pay is already low. Don't accept people who want to drive it even lower. But I think that there's a deeper question and I put this out on my
00:09:32
Speaker
Twitter account the other day when this list first came out. And I think that is SIFA, which is, we've talked about many times, it's the organization which looks after professional ethics and standards in archaeology. It's, again, you don't have to be a member, but pretty much most practicing archaeologists. You don't have to be mad to work around here, but it helps. So go on.
Role of CIFA: Trade Union Debate
00:09:56
Speaker
That's right. But SIFA is heavily influenced by people who are involved in contracting archaeology, the developer-funded companies, the Mollers and the Oxford Archaeologies and all the others, Wessex Archaeology, and just to name three of the most famous.
00:10:17
Speaker
And so there has always been a question as to whether SIFA has been a bit different actually about raising the issue of what pair of pair of conditions. It puts out these minima, but it doesn't really take any kind of active action in the way that, for example,
00:10:39
Speaker
the junior doctors, who are members of the British Medical Association did a few years ago when they were offered changed contracts, and it went to industrial action. Seifer always says it isn't a trade union. Now, I think you can immediately see the problem there is that you're not a trade union, you won't try and enforce it, but you do try and set minimum wage standards. So therefore, how do you do it? And you get a sense here that we're back into the
00:11:09
Speaker
what Peter Hennessy, the historian, calls the good chaps theory of government, which is basically everyone's a good chap. They're all settling over a table at the club, and everyone will do the right thing in the end. And I think for archaeologists at the trench face,
00:11:32
Speaker
face with inflation like we're facing now on already low wages, I think there's a question of whether that kind of representation sorted out behind closed doors is actually good enough. And also in a national context where we decidedly are seeing international institutions
00:11:53
Speaker
pulled to the point of fraying, if not breaking, by people abusing this notion of good chap governance, you know. What happens when you're, I don't know, for example, your Prime Minister openly lies in Parliament? I mean, can you imagine? No, no, no, no, he's not, he's not, he's been very clear, the rules were followed at all times, and I have plenty to say about all this when the processes are finished, as he said yesterday.
00:12:17
Speaker
I'm not even talking about that lie. I mean, that's the point. That's exactly the point. It's not one, it's lots. And so this is the context in which these sorts of recommendations are being passed on. So people are having their wallets squeezed, but also culturally, some of the standards in terms of best practice. And I'm not saying everyone is tarnished with this brush, but it's a cultural problem at the moment that leaving people to do the right thing doesn't feel as though it's enough just now, I suppose is what I'm saying.
00:12:48
Speaker
That's all I'm getting. And I think it starts at the top, really, in that sense. But yeah. Yeah. And I think just to finish up maybe on this particular segment, the prospect arcs, prospect archaeology, the trade union prospect, which is generally speaking a union for what's seen as professional people often in the public service, has become increasingly influential in recent years. Many archaeologists are joining prospect as well as SIFA.
00:13:16
Speaker
And I think they'll come a point when either CFS can have to act more like a trade union or more archaeologists will say, actually, I want to be represented by prospect because my actual paying conditions are better defended by a trade union whose job is to do that professionally than a trade organization, a trade standards organization, professional standards organization.
00:13:42
Speaker
And the question is, will such a body trying to do that work be tolerated by these other bodies who don't quite seem to want to do that work, but claim the space? That's a big question, Mark, which I'm sure long-time listeners and watchers of The Watching Brief will know that we touched on earlier this year in terms of... And I'm sure we'll come back to it again soon. Yeah, how welcome new players are in archaeology.
Governor Youngkin and Historical Narratives in Education
00:14:07
Speaker
Speaking of therefore, speaking of the culture coming from the top and what happens further down the pyramid, we now move on to the story of Governor Glenn Youngkin, I believe the Virginia Governor.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes. Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Yeah, which actually, according to the Richmond Times dispatch, it's 31 and clear today. That's quite pleasant weather, isn't it? Especially compared to the minus two degrees Celsius I woke up to this morning. And that was indoors, for goodness sake.
00:14:44
Speaker
Anyway, he campaigned on giving parents more control over their children's education. Sounds like a good thing. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, he wasted no time banning quote, inherently divisive concepts and quote in schools. And this move alarmed many educators, including the former Secretary of Education under Ralph Northam, or was that Noram, who worry that the audible once again lead to Virginia schools, whitewashing history.
00:15:14
Speaker
The first is a decorative order order by Youngkin signed that he signed rather bars critical critical race theory a term incorrectly used by Republicans to refer to lessons about any form of systematic racism in schools and and it really went from there even affecting it seems Employees within the governor's mansion in Virginia and people who were charged with educating the public about the building in which the governor operates
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, again, it's setting the tone from above, and it has implications below. But what do you make of this move? I mean, technically, I suppose he's within his rights to act on what he said he would, giving parents more control over their education, and they don't have to listen to things that they don't want to have to listen to. Possibly, maybe, he asks mischievously. Okay. With a wink.
00:16:09
Speaker
Exactly. Let's step back from this. Obviously, this is a story we're observing from across the Atlantic. Where we have no such problems, which we'll come to later on in this segment. We'll come to that later on in this segment. There's been a particularly hilarious example of that this week.
00:16:36
Speaker
The non-problem we have. Governor Yunkin is well known in Republican circles and the Republican Party recently began with the Tea Party, but it's accelerated under Donald Trump. The party has moved
00:16:55
Speaker
rightwards, it's become more white. It's become more paranoid in some respects about things like critical race theory, which has seen as the worst cases of wanting to create a socialist America and doing down American history and great American heroes, even Lincoln has been linked to slavery and things like that. So that's
00:17:17
Speaker
It's trying to shut down certain kinds of discussion, as you say. Now, there's an immediate question whether that's actually compatible with the First Amendment, which gives you freedom of speech. You can say what you want. Now, it doesn't mean you have to listen, but you're not supposed to be able to shut down a particular line of argument you don't like.
00:17:38
Speaker
So that's just one issue that's playing here. The immediate touch point here, the reason we're talking about this, is that Governor Yunkin won the election and he said he's a mandated politician, so he's entitled to move into the Governor's Mansion, which he did in January after winning the election in November.
00:18:03
Speaker
When she returned to work in January, an archaeologist and historian called Kelly Fanto Dietz found that basically her office had been cleared and the teaching materials that she prepared
00:18:21
Speaker
for the teaching strats, for example, about the role of black African, you know, enslaved people in the governor's mansion, historically. And, you know, black African and African Americans in the in the role of in the governor's mansion and the Commonwealth of Virginia had been basically moved aside, put away whatever with no notice to her.
00:18:46
Speaker
Um, it, um, basically they, uh, and she worked on particular projects, which were, have been contacting descendants of workers who'd worked in the governor's mansion. Um, now what has effectively happened now is that, uh, these has resigned. Yes.
00:19:10
Speaker
Um, after that treatment. And I should say she wasn't just over here, for example, we often have great old houses, you know, the equivalent of mansions.
00:19:25
Speaker
where you'll have different levels of archaeologist and historian involved and there'll be conservators and so on and so forth. It looks here as though actually she wasn't just running the show as it were, but she was actually very hands-on. So there's a photo, including the article here where she's got some example foods, she's got a picture of what the kitchen ones look like, she's talking to a class in the room, there's some teachers there presumably.
00:19:47
Speaker
So I can imagine that must be quite difficult to return from a break to find that, you know, I guess the big question is, well, what's the provision going to be? Presumably there would be bookings, wouldn't there be schools wanting to come through, wanting to have historical context given to their visits? It must be difficult. And then to have to resign as well. It's not easy.
00:20:13
Speaker
No, no, no, we have to say that, um, after the row that this, uh, provokes in, in, in, uh, in the, in the immediate and particular media in, in Virginia, um, there are a number of statements were issued, uh, through the official spokespersons. Um, for example, uh, young kids, first lady, Susan, young kin, um,
00:20:36
Speaker
said that her staff are in the decision-making process regarding the executive mansion. We have to remember, under the American system, the executive persons are usually, their partners normally take quite an active role. The first lady of the, you know, the president's first lady is the most famous example. So they can be quite influential as well. Suzanne Young issued a statement through her spokesperson who said that the
00:21:04
Speaker
she and her staff were, quote, in the decision making process regarding the executive mansion. The executive mansion is open to the public. They do do tours, they do this educational work. It's a very historic building. Virginia is one of the oldest political foundations in the States. Obviously, it's named after Queen Elizabeth, Virgin Queen, famously. And the spokesperson added that
00:21:27
Speaker
First Lady Yunkin looks forward to finalizing the executive mansion layout and tourists. The Yunkins are excited to welcome Virginia's back to the executive mansion. So I'm not cutting people, I'm not cutting them any slack here, but I am saying that we have to look at this in the context of reopening after COVID and also a change in political regime. Now it does look as though, and certainly critics of the Yunkins fear,
00:21:55
Speaker
that the new political regime is also leading to a new history or at least a new take on history.
00:22:07
Speaker
One of the leaders of a community project that Ms. Dietz was involved with said that the work was going to continue and said, this is Justin Reid via Twitter, the work of telling our executive mansions whole history, and that word whole is doing a lot of lifting there because that's talking about everybody involved, including those black Americans, African Americans.
00:22:37
Speaker
telling the executive mansions whole history is bigger than an elected or staff position. A remarkable group of descendants of the enslaved educators and historians have built a foundation strong enough to withstand four years of any administration.
00:22:53
Speaker
So I think this is an interim report really, this is one that's going to run. It really crystallizes, points out the probably one of the most divisive fractures in American civic society and politics.
00:23:12
Speaker
at the moment. And we've seen it elsewhere. We've talked about it on RoxyBrief before, the 1619 report and so on, and other things. This is going to run, I think, sadly. It's funny, at the moment, we're seeing a lot of people making
00:23:31
Speaker
the case for not erasing history, especially on, for example, on Facebook, I'm seeing lots of history groups, often with a very conservative, small c conservative approach to history, posting memes along the lines of, you know, you can't ban statues, you can't erase true history, you can't, you know, if you're going to do that, you might as well be a book burner, this kind of thing.
00:23:55
Speaker
I'll just read you an example, so the other day I shared on the RKC Facebook page a couple of days ago now actually, one of these memes that's shared around, it's a quote from Dwight D Eisenhower, quote, don't join the book burners, don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
00:24:16
Speaker
don't be afraid to go into your library and read every book." End quote. Now that was being shared by someone who was implying that lefties want to burn books and hide the past, want to destroy a proud national heritage. I shared this with the additional comment, or indeed don't conceal truth by slapping a statue on them, for example at an Oxford College maybe, and criticising historic properties for taking a closer look
00:24:45
Speaker
to the heritage that's represented around them. Often they're making the case in the context of preserving an established history as opposed to a history that is being added to.
00:25:00
Speaker
And so I find these conversations fascinating because, for example, Youngkin apparently is quoted as saying that, yeah, history, all history, the good and the bad, is something that he embraces the teaching of. In response, Dietz, who has resigned, went on to say that I hope his quotes of teaching the good, the bad and the ugly is actually implemented and that we won't need to shy away from talking about the very important parts of our nation's history that presumably she was touching on in her work at the mansion.
00:25:30
Speaker
And it's interesting to me because I think when people talk about this, they're bringing their own bias to the definition of censorship, if you say so. And so in a British context, there are people right at the top of the decision-making process in education who say, we can't erase our past.
00:25:54
Speaker
And they talk about that in the context of people who are wanting to highlight difficult topics in our past. It's a subversion and an inversion of the meaning of erasure and censorship, such as to preserve a relatively benign and unchallenging, particularly if you are in a particular position in society, worldview.
00:26:16
Speaker
I think, as you say, we can but hope, fingers crossed, that they find their way forward and that we shouldn't presume too much here. But the definitions, the terms of engagement on these issues have already been quite badly skewed by
00:26:37
Speaker
by notions, for example, that someone who wanted to topple say the Colston statue in Bristol wanted to do anything other than highlight the slave trade. It's been talked about as though
00:26:50
Speaker
that toppling was an attempt to forget that Colston never existed. No, not at all. Of course not. It's highlighting his actual role in history. It's additive, ironically enough. The only statue in Britain has actually been toppled illegally in recent years. No, no, it wasn't toppled illegally.
00:27:11
Speaker
The people who toppled it were cleared. Oh, sorry. Yes, sorry. Toppled as part of unsanctioned action at the time of toppling, I should say. They were indeed cleared. You're right after the fact. But it's interesting how right at the beginning of these conversations, we seem to have people who are either deliberately or mistakenly misapplying the notion of censorship to history. And I wonder how
00:27:42
Speaker
I wonder what chance we have of actually moving forward in a constructive way, both in the US and also actually here in Britain as well.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's a difficult conversation. I mean, I think in the end, this is what it's all about. History done properly is the whole series of conversations, and some of them can be very difficult. And this is a difficult conversation. It's a conversation about one group of people enslaving another group of people for their own political and social and economic benefit.
00:28:14
Speaker
and the ripples of that coming all the way down through over 300 years to the present and still working themselves out.
US Politics Influence on UK Cultural Contexts
00:28:25
Speaker
So that's not easy. And I think
00:28:29
Speaker
But the immediate issue, and certainly the immediate issue in Virginia appears to be, I mean, one of the critics from the right, from the Republican side of the argument, from the right of the argument said that we're teaching children that America is a bad place. That's about a modern concept.
00:28:48
Speaker
It's about a concept of what the country represents in the here and now and that by implying that maybe it's never been perfect and that some people have been treated very badly in the past and may continue to be treated badly in the present for institutional reasons, for example, that is actually divisive and destructive and shouldn't be there for shouldn't be aired.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose another way of putting that is to say that you're teaching people that America is a place as opposed to the greatest country on earth. You know, America is a place where bad things happen, folks. But as you say, people want to have a simple narrative taught in many cases. The problem here is in recent years, the very definition of what's true and how we establish truth has been warped
00:29:43
Speaker
tremendously and that's outside of our purview and control that's been done on a level that that that has infected all men of discourse but when you have people and let's just say everyone here is approaching with an open honest good faith
00:30:01
Speaker
you know, a right heart. They want to learn and teach about the history of the building. This definition of what concealing evidence is, and who wants to do the concealing from Dwight Eisenhower here, is a crucial thing to get right from the offset, and it feels as though at the moment it's very difficult to get right in public discourse, especially social media discourse, in and around history and archaeology.
00:30:30
Speaker
Now, you have connected these events in Virginia with what actually feels now like old news, given that the Met Commissioner has resigned last night, the head of the police in London resigned last night, news relatively recently in the past few days of senior aides to the Prime Minister leaving.
00:30:54
Speaker
because he's gone a step too far on this front of twist of truth twisting and and moving the goal post when it comes to standards of public discourse. Why did you feel the need to include it? Because I should say folks at home I did push back on this a little bit as much as this feels like it's you know we are political geeks but we are moving a little bit more into number 10 here but it's connected isn't it? It's connected I think in some way. How did you think it was connected?
00:31:23
Speaker
The reason I think it's connected is that, put it this way, the people talk about the current government playing the Trump playbook in terms of you talked earlier about what is truth. The famous Kellyanne Conway quote about alternative facts.
00:31:45
Speaker
Um, and it just so happens that in the last week, there have been a couple of instances where if you like the ripples of the, uh, pushback on sort of quotes, woke history, um, from a
00:32:01
Speaker
from the Republican Party across the Atlantic, as the reports have washed up in London and in British practice and in British politics. And two little stories to highlight it. One is that Boris Johnson's senior advisor, a woman called Monira Mirza, who he's worked with over 10 years since he was mayor of London,
00:32:25
Speaker
resigned last week in protest at Boris Johnson, citing a false claim that the Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer had failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile, the famous BBC disc jogging and appalling predatory pedophile.
00:32:43
Speaker
She said that Johnson should never have said it and should have apologized and the remarks Johnson refused to do that and she walked. Now she is the person most closely identified in number 10 with the policy of
00:33:02
Speaker
of the culture war, which we talked about many times before, including attacking organisations like the National Trust, which have in recent years
00:33:15
Speaker
followed perfectly normal historical practice and done deep dives into the history of many of the buildings that they are, which they hold for the nation. It's a charity and they've done particular research on the role
00:33:34
Speaker
of people of color in the history of those buildings, both directly and indirectly through those buildings being funded by, for example, the sugar, the Virginia slave trade. Yeah, the Virginia slave. Yeah, the sugar plantations in the in the Caribbean, which were operated by enslaved African people. So anyway, I'm calling me.
00:34:03
Speaker
and cotton in the States. Absolutely. Sugar in the West, sugar in the Caribbean and West Indies and cotton in the States and tobacco, of course. Anyway, Mirza walked. Now famously, she was a former, what's called a revolutionary communist party.
00:34:21
Speaker
which was a far-left organisation, which it's curious how a number of its members have actually moved to the far right. People might be familiar with Spiked magazine, I think we've talked about it before. Okay, so this is the horseshoe in action, isn't it? Absolutely. It takes less to go from far left to far right than it does to go all the way from all the way
00:34:48
Speaker
Oh, wow. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. But anyway, on this occasion, there's a, in her, absolutely, it's creating a resignation letter, said that, you know, enough was enough and Johnson misrepresenting a truth was, you know, that wasn't acceptable. Now, that's the serious part of it. And the question is now, along with how long has Boris Johnson's government actually got?
00:35:16
Speaker
There is a sense looking at the political pundits and listening to quotes from politicians on that we are almost in the end times. It is likely that Johnson will be given a fixed penalty notice for these work events, stroke parties.
00:35:36
Speaker
in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown, and it is questionable whether any Prime Minister could survive being given a notice that they've broken the law that they wrote. Yeah, yeah, especially potentially a fine of tens of thousands of pounds. Well, it could be as much as that at the moment, it's all speculation, we don't know, but it's very likely. But anyway, anyway, I did promise to go home, I'm going to drag you back a little bit.
00:36:03
Speaker
Relevance, yep. But yeah, relevance. It's all relevant. Archaeology doesn't, doesn't happen in the back. No, no, but okay, but the help. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help. Actually, I'm gonna help you. This is actually funny. Because quite coincidentally, the question is, as well as how long Johnson's government is going to last, and whether any successor will pursue the culture more in quite the same way that Johnson has. Yes.
00:36:31
Speaker
because it does appear to be a niche issue. There's another exponent of the culture war, who's a conservative MP called Andrew Morrison. Now, Andrew Morrison has been very critical of the National Trust. For example, he accused the National Trust of quotes tarnishing the reputation of Winston Churchill.
00:36:56
Speaker
Now it emerged, thanks to the Guardian newspaper on the 4th of February, that Mr. Morrison was going to start what's called an all-party parliamentary group dedicated to scrutinising the National Trust. Now this was somewhat odd for two reasons. One is that basically the National Trust is an independent charity governed by the Charities Commission and nothing to do with Parliament.
00:37:26
Speaker
So it's not the same, but it's not the same, for example, as English heritage or historic England. No, that's right. Exactly. And it doesn't receive direct government funding, right?
National Trust and Political Pressures
00:37:37
Speaker
So, okay. So why was Mr. Morrison floating the idea of this whole party parliamentary group anyway? All party parliamentary groups, by the way, they're informal groups of MPs with a particular interest. They don't have any statutory role, but they do produce reports. They're like little mini think tanks about various issues.
00:37:53
Speaker
For example, I think there's an all party parliamentary group on beer. Now you can wonder why any MP would want to join a group that is there to discuss beer and have links with the brewing, discuss things with the brewing. Absolutely. I would point that you just put an addendum on to your addendum there. Help us stay with you. Okay. The other curious thing about Mr. Morrison, wanting to start an all party parliamentary group to discuss the National Trust is that he didn't tell the National Trust he was going to do it.
00:38:25
Speaker
And the news leaked out the suspicion was that what he was doing was starting something with the status of a part of a parliamentary group, the state of group MPs that could just produce more critical material about the National Trust saying how it was work, how it was doing down British history and all the tropes that we've heard in the last
00:38:48
Speaker
the last few years from that particular wing of British politics. And of course by besmirching the reputation of Winston Churchill, I think what really they were likely doing was examining the history of Winston Churchill.
00:39:04
Speaker
you know, or rather not simply repeating the mythology thereof. So yeah, again, this is where it's important to get your starting terminology correct. That's right. Anyway, I interrupted you. Go on.
00:39:20
Speaker
Anyway, cut to the chase. It appears that the meeting went ahead in early on this week, and in a glorious piece of trolling, Hilly McGrady, who's the Director General of the National Trust,
00:39:37
Speaker
tweeted out thanks to all the MPs and peers who attended today. I'm looking forward to working with you, ensuring that we continue to care for places for everyone forever, which is of course famously the National Trust's principal slogan.
00:39:55
Speaker
In other words, it's a got it was a gotcha. You tried to sneak this one past didn't work. Yeah, exactly. So, and a minor skirmish in the culture war, but I think rather delightful one.
Legacy of Dr. Neil Faulkner
00:40:15
Speaker
But nonetheless, all of this, all of this, this, this, this,
00:40:21
Speaker
The field that we find ourselves on, all of this is framed by the behavior of those people who set the tone. The field has been laced with all manner of landmines and there have been attempts to full on sow the ground with salt in some instances.
00:40:45
Speaker
I suppose one, especially in the UK context, one interesting, or one specifically in the English context, one interesting development is that whenever it seems the government or right-wing press are attacking, in particular the right-wing press, are attacking the National Trust's independence of thought, their membership tends to go up. So thankfully the public
00:41:08
Speaker
have minds of their own. It'd just be nice if our leaders could meet people in the real world as opposed to in a world that's defined solely by what they like and what they find appealing in that sense or politically experienced.
00:41:28
Speaker
Anyway, one person who would very much enjoy this conversation is someone that we want to mention as an obituary this week. The archaeologist Dr. Neil Faulkner recently passed away and Andy brought this to my attention and it sounds as though he was a right character who would have been in like Flynn on a conversation about
00:41:54
Speaker
about the system. What should we know about Neil, do you think?
00:42:06
Speaker
Carl's on the table. I did have, I worked with Neil Fauntler on a number of occasions. He commissioned me for an article when I was, when he was editor of a current archaeology magazine. And also we worked together on an excavation here at Shooters Hill through his Great War archaeology group. So I'll always be grateful for those sort of contacts in enabling work. Neil,
00:42:30
Speaker
died of cancer last week. He was only 64 and he leaves a partner and three children and a lot of colleagues and a portfolio of work both in archaeology and politics and that's the reason really I wanted to talk about him today. Many people will be familiar with Neil from his appearances on television. He
00:42:52
Speaker
appeared on programs ranging from Tim Ting to documentaries about the Boudicca and the 9th Legion and various other things. He was a familiar talking head for TV producers and he led historical tours. He basically was a Jobbie freelance archaeologist, wrote quite prolific out positive books as well. But underlying everything
00:43:20
Speaker
with Neil was his politics. He's the only archaeologist I've ever heard introduce a talk by saying my name's Neil dot Neil Faulkner and I'm a revolutionary socialist. Wow. Just leave.
00:43:40
Speaker
And that's the point. The talking question was about conflict archaeology and to say that conflict archaeology covers the gamut of political opinion would be somewhat understating it, even more so perhaps than archaeology nor. And particularly some people involved with it have very conservative views about, for example, the role of the armed forces. For example, in recent years, the notion that people fighting in the Second World War were, quote, fighting for freedom.
00:44:09
Speaker
fighting against fascism, that's something else entirely, especially in the British context of the British Empire. So yeah, I imagine
00:44:16
Speaker
coming up against that kind of rhetoric, Neil would have been an interesting flavour to experience. Absolutely. We use the phrase Marmite character very glibly. I mean, in those terms, Neil's archaeology was Marmite, Neil's politics was Marmite, put the two together, it was a big thick slab of Marmite on the bread and butter of archaeology. But it was certainly stimulating in terms of it made you think.
00:44:46
Speaker
He was also a huge proponent, it's one of the reasons we worked together on the Shoot to Sail project, was he wanted to make archaeology accessible. He ran a long-term project which is still running, obviously we don't know what's going to happen now, but it's still functioning at Sedgford in Norfolk.
00:45:05
Speaker
and which was designed to enable people to take part in finding out about their community and also in practicing archaeology. And they looked at everything from prehistoric sites to a World War I airfield that was within their study area.
00:45:29
Speaker
He wanted to practice the kind of archaeology and it's one that I'm absolutely in lockstep with, which is that, for example, if you're doing a training dig and the most junior excavator finds a skeleton, human remains skeleton,
00:45:47
Speaker
they're not taken off so that somebody more experienced can do the job. You put somebody more experienced with them to mentor them while they do the job. Yeah. Yeah. And then you went, you hopefully end up with two people who can do better work. Yeah, exactly that. And he wants, he wants people to question. And, you know, he wants people to debate why they were doing it. As I say,
00:46:17
Speaker
whether that is not whether that's that that's right and he has left behind as I say a big corpus of work both political and archaeological you know he was criticized by many archaeologists other archaeologists found it you know his work stimulating and thought provoking and valuable so you know it's it's it's a very interesting life cut rather too short I'm
00:46:40
Speaker
just leave you with a give you a flavor of how he brought his politics and his archaeology together. This is from a review of a book by Randall H McGuire that Neil wrote in 2008. McGuire's book is called Archaeology as Political Action.
00:46:56
Speaker
And I just read you a couple of paragraphs to give you a flavor of where Neil was coming from and why perhaps, whether you agree or whether you violently disagree with him, we need maverick voices in archaeology to make us think, to question our preconceptions.
00:47:12
Speaker
He said archaeology is political, it can even provoke a deconfrontation. Over 3,000 people died during communal riots in India and Bangladesh after a Hindu nationalist mob destroyed the Barbary mosque in Ayodhya. The attack had been triggered by an archaeological claim that in 1528 the first Mughal emperor had demolished an earlier Hindu temple on the site in order to build a mosque.
00:47:36
Speaker
And he went on to say, archaeology is at once trivial and significant. Nothing we find out about the debt can make any difference to them. But the claims we make about the past can be ideologically charged for the living. Nazi archaeologists claim to have discovered an area master race in the midst of German prehistory.
00:47:53
Speaker
Israeli archaeologists bought those Islamic levels to find substantiation of Zionist myths beneath. Ulster Unionists see a series of linear earthworks known as the Blackpig's Dyke as an original Iron Age partition of Ireland. Now obviously those statements are controversial. Many people are lesser about the Nazi one but the latter ones about the Israeli practice and practice in the north of Ireland.
00:48:17
Speaker
North of the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland, will be very controversial with a number of people. But Neil wasn't afraid of that. Some would argue he maybe wanted to provoke sometimes. But you can see, you know, why it's about it's about asking, okay, digging up something, it's interesting. But why are you digging it? And how are you interpreting it? And is how are you is the way you're interpreting it actually dangerous?
00:48:46
Speaker
And I suppose in that context, why does the senior advisor to the Prime Minister take a particular interest in leaning on museums and trying to guide them in what they can and can't and shouldn't say about the past?
00:49:05
Speaker
uh you know it's by pointing to an extreme example where people um potentially erroneously look at look at the notion of an earthwork preempting the uh the division of Ireland by thousands of years what you're doing is you're pointing is you're also actually asking well why is it that for example uh you know johnson and co wanted to use history in the way that they're using it and more to the point don't want to see it used in ways that they don't like um
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's inescapably thought provoking at the very least. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'll finish just with one sentence about the Maguire book. And in the course of the review, and again, a lot of his work is available on a number of websites, including marxist.org, we'll link to it. The number of
00:50:02
Speaker
You know, people who turn up on this YouTube channel, on the RKC YouTube channel, if you're listening to some podcast, you won't get that you won't see this, but people who turn up with, you know, bulldog avatars, et cetera, calling us Marxist. Now we're linking to marxist.com.
00:50:16
Speaker
I'm linking objectively in terms I'm citing a source. Like I said, Neil's archaeology was Marmite. It was about confronting what he... Neil came from a branch of socialism which sees everything as a struggle, a class struggle.
00:50:39
Speaker
And I think this points out in the final paragraph of this book review, which is how I'm citing as a source, why his voice is significant, whether you agree with it or whether you disagree with it. It's sad that it's been silenced too soon. Because even if you fundamentally disagree with it, it makes you think. And I think the enemy of any intellectual study is thoughtlessness and blandness.
00:51:09
Speaker
Anyway, and one of the things that it was particularly critical of was what he called, in this review, soft postmodernism, the post-processual archaeology that seems divorced from political realities as he would see them.
00:51:34
Speaker
He says, you cannot deal with difference of analysis and strategy between socialists and bourgeois feminists, for example, or those between socialists and third world nationalists by blandly announcing that there are simply so many entry points. McGuire wants us all to be nice to each other. If the aim is to change the world, we have to base practice on clear understanding. And that means not fudging arguments with people alongside whom we find ourselves fighting.
00:52:10
Speaker
very interesting and also not to not to elongate this endlessly but that also comes in the context of last week when we highlighted a paper where the argument was being made that archaeologists should first of all be archaeologists you know and so in some ways that there's notion of having
00:52:32
Speaker
an approach which is first and foremost about the basic protection of the past in order to have it there to study marries up quite before then you bring in your own, your other personal stuff or your professional stuff, marries up quite interestingly with that sort of statement where you've also got to be as it were accountable to and with your allies in a way that presumably leads to better and greater understanding if not a little bit of friction as well.
00:52:57
Speaker
Absolutely. And just one last comment really that links back to what you said about the Horseshoe theory of politics when we were talking about Muneer Amirza. I think we see that in Neil's career as well. He was a prolific contributor but also an editor and he
00:53:17
Speaker
and to a number of magazines, including Current Archaeology. And of course, Current Archaeology was created by Andrew Selkirk, who's a right-wing libertarian and has written pamphlets and studies, for example, for the Adam Smith Institute. So to have a revolutionary socialist and a supporter of the Adam Smith Institute working together on an archaeological publication, that really epitomizes Neil's career. And in fact, the most comprehensive obituary is in the Daily Telegraph, which is the leading light of the war on woke.
00:53:45
Speaker
So the irony is in this story are rich. But as I say, a poet, a political archaeologist, and very significant in those terms, and somebody who has introduced many, many people to archaeology. So whatever you think of his politics, I think that that part of his career is very significant generally.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah, rest in peace. Indeed. Rest in power as you say on the left.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, this has been a fairly beefy episode this week. And actually, just between you, me, and the offense post, dear viewer, we actually dropped a whole segment because we realized that we were far too interested in connecting up the dots here. Partly for your benefit, because I just really didn't want to just seem as though everything was
00:54:47
Speaker
and was disconnected but actually I feel as though there's actually been quite an interest. You know we're thinking a thinking presentation here and hopefully there's lots to think about. Any idea what we might be talking about next week Andy?
00:55:01
Speaker
Um, if the ducks line up, hopefully a significant update on a maritime archaeology story. Okay. Maritime archaeology. Cool. I'll get my, uh, my scuba gear primed and ready. Um, or is it not wet? Is it dry?
00:55:20
Speaker
Oh no, it's extremely wet. Extremely wet. Okay, cool. I'll get the appropriate gear. Thank you guys for watching, for listening. Please do consider examining the notion of supporting us via the Patreon that we have. We don't mention it often, but we do this every week and we want to be able to continue doing it.
00:55:43
Speaker
Absolutely. I was going to say, in Monty Python terms, we are not a fully autonomous and archecynicalist commune. We are actually, in that respect, capitalists. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, despite the Marxist reading material, we say you don't want that.
00:55:59
Speaker
Oh I do, I love, I mean archaeologists are, okay, a couple of days ago and on Twitter I saw someone saying why do archaeologists look so weird? Yeah they have, you know, coloured hair, half their head is shaved, they'll have tattoos and rings and this is the answer. Archaeology is a really mixed bag of people and so it's not
00:56:25
Speaker
easily characterisable, and I think, yeah, this conversation and the glorious mess that comes out of this other conversation is precisely, for the most part, what archaeologists are studying and what we're interested in. We're interested in people, often because we don't fully understand people, certainly in my case anyway. Right guys, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Bye bye.
00:57:02
Speaker
This podcast episode has been produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network in collaboration with Archaeosoup Productions. Find out more podcasts at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com
00:57:18
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.