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The Modern Myth of Foreign Policy with Dylan Burns - Modern Myth - Episode 8
738 Plays4 years ago
This is a very special episode of Modern Myth. We are talking all about foreign policy, what it is, how it affects our lives and why it is important that we are open about it. In this episode I talk to the youngest foreign policy advisor in the United States of America, Dylan Burns about foreign policy and its connection to heritage and history. We discuss modern conflicts and the relations between countries as well as what it means for repatriation in the future.
Also at the end of the discussion because this was livestreamed with Dylan, I answered some of the questions given to me in the chat.
LinksYou can watch Dylan discuss politics, articles and more over at www.twitch.tv/dylanburnsTV
or follow him on Twitter
Dr Donna Yates work can be found at Trafficking Culture
Insurgent Empire is written by Dr. Priyamvada Gopal, whom I interviewed in this episode of Modern Myth.
Contact- Tristan
- [email protected]
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Hello, it's the An Archaeologist and this episode is quite interesting. I got to sit down with one of the youngest foreign policy advisors in the US, Dylan Burns.
00:00:20
Speaker
We met kind of online and he's been on a number of different online shows and he works for a local campaign as well as a senator so he's got a lot of things to talk about and I really was wanting him to kind of talk about foreign policy.
Why Heritage Needs Global Insight
00:00:40
Speaker
With all this talk of repatriation and all this talk of relations between countries, I think it's really important that as heritage professionals, as people interested in heritage, we can't solely be interested in what internally happens in a country. We really have to focus on making sure that we have an international perspective
00:01:03
Speaker
and that we facilitate things happening across the world in a really robust manner. And that's going to take, that's going to take some organizing. It's going to take some getting involved in politics. So listen to this, it's quite a long one. Really great, great content. And I really, really want to say thank you, Dylan, to kind of asking me to kind of come on his livestream. So that's where this is.
00:01:32
Speaker
on his live stream on Dylan Burns TV so if you can hear us talking about the chat or anything like that it's just because of that. So yeah, enjoy.
00:02:04
Speaker
Taking up a story, all the knowledge that we seek, broadening horizons into me. It's a modern myth, oh yeah. In this age of darkness, we will fight for truth at night. In this age of lies, we will rise.
00:02:26
Speaker
Now it's clear, misconception too healthy They told you what you want to hear Why can't you see that the truth will set you free Expose this modern bill for me
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay Well, we won't come as the time goes on you probably you you can enter now you're allowed you're allowed to join the join the conversation me oh Yes, you
00:03:30
Speaker
Yes, child. Completely random. Why am I here, actually? Can you tell me? Because, you know, it was part of the deal. It was part of the foreign policy agreement we made recently with the UK. Basically, instead of us owning your guys' health care, we just got you. I don't think you got the best deal. And actually on this, the day of our glorious Brexit as well.
Brexit and Its Cultural Ramifications
00:03:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah, this is Brexit day, isn't it? I hate to say it, but yeah, no, it's it's technically well, it's the day the European Union agreed. I got to tweet out happy Brexit day, right? No, don't. It's absolutely awful. And, you know, like one of the most like performative thing about it is that they've got these special 50ps. So like,
00:04:22
Speaker
You know, 50p is like half a pound. So anyway, 50p's, they're kind of octagon shapes or hexagon shapes. Anyway, they're one of our coins and they usually come in fancy colors and flavors and stuff like that. And yeah, they're making a Brexit coin as well to mark Brexit Day, which, oh boy, you know, great use of public money, you know, because that's the thing, you know. Don't worry, though. Soon it'll be worth more than the pound just in weight.
00:04:49
Speaker
I don't even- I don't even want- like, I'm not an economist, okay? So I don't actually know what the real life and ramifications are, but I don't think they're positive. So that's- that's my take on that. Not positive. Hmm. Okay, so. Yeah. Uh, we should probably still do some more. Oh yeah, Brexit. Oh yeah, everybody forgot about that.
00:05:17
Speaker
So how is Bojo doing? How's good old Bojo? I think he's really taking a back seat. You know, in all the the lead up to the election, it was very much he was on the front page of a lot of things. There was very much a concerted effort to make sure he was like the front man. He was the front runner. But right now they've suddenly like after the election, like they've all disappeared. You know, there's there's no more headline grabbing nonsense.
00:05:45
Speaker
there's just like really weird insidious things happening in the background. Like I'm very concerned about the way in which post-Brexit our immigration system is going to be completely overhauled. It's going to be probably locked down and shut down. And it's going to be so, so difficult for anybody to stay here. Like I've heard stories of people who've lived in the UK for like 20, 25 years.
00:06:12
Speaker
and they're now being told you have until December and then you're going to be deported. You know? Imagine. I mean, I mean, you know, America's quite well versed in that. You can't really tell us like imagine like, yeah.
00:06:28
Speaker
But it's this idea that America is somehow worse. Like, I think that's sometimes... I think it... To be fair, when you guys aren't putting children in cages right now. Oh, we're getting close. We're on our way. On your way? We do have, like, concentration centres. Congratulations. They're not camps yet. They're centres. But, you know, we're not innocent. We're not innocent over here. We're doing pretty awful stuff as well, so...
00:06:55
Speaker
Anybody who tries to make out that the UK is like, oh, not really doing anything, the UK is. So I just, yeah, I despair. I despair. Hopefully, hopefully, local politics.
00:07:11
Speaker
will have a better influence than national politics. Don't you guys have local elections this year, right? Yeah, local elections. There's always the occasional by-election as well. I mean, the thing is, Scotland, where I live, they've just voted to petition for a referendum again on Scottish independence.
00:07:33
Speaker
Actually, Bojo has basically said, Boris Johnson has basically said no in any case to Scottish independence. He's been very clear about that. But the other side of it is that every other part of the UK did not agree to his withdrawal deal. So his withdrawal deal from the EU was signed off by the EU today, but Northern Ireland, Wales and Scottish devolved parliaments all voted against it.
00:08:02
Speaker
So yeah, but they don't care. You know, usually they want a mutual kind of agreement or at least a majority agreement in the UK, you know, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, you know, their parliaments, at least performatively, you know, agreeing with what's happening in London and Westminster. But this time, no, no.
00:08:23
Speaker
It's, they're on their own and they don't care anymore. The facade is gone. They just want to get Brexit done. And what's really concerning is what's going to happen after Brexit. No clue. No idea. What was Scottish Prime Minister William Wallace stance on it?
00:08:40
Speaker
I don't know how, like, how annoyed to be at you. Like, at least you said William Wallace and not something else. He was, William Wallace, funny enough, was never a Scottish prime minister. That's the first thing. Really? I don't really. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was meant to I know I was meant to say freedom and that. But I don't know. That's that's over egged, overcooked. Secretary of State or.
00:09:10
Speaker
Like, we're literally talking hundreds of years ago, man. Like... Wait, let me see. When will you... Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure William Wallace was like, you know, he like... You know, he was the dude who was like, uh, yeah, yeah, freedom. And then like, you know, he punched Theresa May or something, right? Yeah, he was born in 1270, man. So... Yeah, that's about when Theresa May was alive.
00:09:38
Speaker
You know what's funny? Theresa May was never really roasted for age. I think it was her dancing that was the problem. Not Theresa May. I'm thinking of the wrong one. Who is the... Oh, Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, we can be mean to Margaret Thatcher. That's acceptable. Yeah, that's what I meant. Theresa May, it's like she's...
00:09:59
Speaker
In the overview of all conservative leaders, she's not the worst. I don't know why, but for me, Theresa May has very Elizabeth Warren energy in her demeanor, and I don't know what it is. Obviously, Elizabeth Warren is very professorial, but I think Theresa May just has that same kind of
00:10:21
Speaker
I don't know awkward kind of I've never thought you know when Elizabeth Warren kind of stands I don't know. I just find them very very similar similar energy to me Because you know, I think I get what you're saying I get what you're saying kind of that policy wonky. Yeah Yeah, I get what you're saying but I mean like
00:10:46
Speaker
policy wonk is a very specific thing too. And I know a lot of policy wonks and they're all like no matter like gender, race, religion, they're all pretty similar to Elizabeth Warren. Yeah. No, that's that's yeah, what I'm aiming for people who were in model United Nations.
00:11:04
Speaker
at school. Did you ever have Model United Nations at school? I was president of Model United Nations.
Dylan Burns on Diplomacy and Foreign Policy
00:11:10
Speaker
Let's see, I'm gonna really out myself here. I was, well, I was part of Model United Nations in my school as well. I was, one time, I was the country of Myanmar, but obviously they gave me a stick, like a name badge with Burma on it, so I just made a
00:11:28
Speaker
I just kept refusing to listen to the name Burma and just constantly said, no, I am Myanmar. I thought it was very topical at the time, but I was also the age of 17 and didn't really understand world politics.
00:11:43
Speaker
I was Myanmar too. And I remember we had a topic of child soldiers, which was super fun as Myanmar. Jeez, that's really hard. Like my model United Nations, I remember one year I had to, I was like chairing a committee and it was the science and technology committee. It was the first year they had done a science and technology committee. And I remember I had to get me and my two co-chairs had to make up topics about science and technology for Model United Nations.
00:12:10
Speaker
And so one of my co-chairs did about carbon sequestration, you know, really fun. And the other one was doing violence in video games, a medical pandemic. And what did I choose? For the United Nations. For Model United Nations. Yeah. This is back in like 2007. So this is like well ahead of time. So yeah. Yeah. I've always I've always had my hand in some sort of weird
00:12:40
Speaker
you
00:12:40
Speaker
foreign policy things, you know, like I do like, I do like the kind of, you know, this idea of the interplay between like states and how that kind of like has lots of different forms. Like I'm fascinated by the way in which all these different countries have, like there's an official channel, there's a back channel, there's a site channel, there's things you do to get something back. That's what I think is really, really cool. And that's what like really interests me when you start talking about it because I feel like
00:13:10
Speaker
I'm there like I'm really I'm focused in what that is about. Oh yeah because I mean yeah there's a lot of different ways you can talk to other nations and like make say for instance what really interests me is how North Korea communicates with the rest of the world through just
00:13:33
Speaker
actions during celebrations, like for instance, if they do not use like bring out warheads during a military parade, that could mean they're open to talking or the type of language they use during a demonstrate like one of those big like gymnastics shows could talk about like how open they are to diplomacy. I remember once they use English letters and then one of those shows and that like show the oh my god, they really want to talk.
00:14:00
Speaker
I always found it was really interesting, because that's so untraditional diplomacy. But it works. It works for that at least. Yeah. Well, that's actually the whole reason I wanted to talk to you anyway, because I do a podcast, you might have heard. Oh, really? Yeah. No, it's crazy. They have internet over there? Yeah. Don't even start. Don't you start.
00:14:28
Speaker
So I thought if I talk to you I can kind of inform my listeners, my audience about foreign policy and get them kind of on board. Yeah, because like I think there's a lot to be talked about when it comes to like cultural heritage and obviously I was on the stream a wee while back talking about like destruction of cultural heritage.
00:14:51
Speaker
And I think I kind of wanted to come back and really talk about some of the more intricate things to do with that, but also just a general overview of foreign policy. But also I've got lots of like links and places to go for people to get more info as well. So I'm hoping to share all that juicy, juicy stuff. So that's kind of where I am with this.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. So what's your first question? So my first question, Dylan, is the really difficult one. So what is foreign policy? Like, what is it in essence?
00:15:31
Speaker
Well, when Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger love each other very, very much, no. Foreign policy is basically the interaction of states and individuals being involved in it, right? So me practicing foreign policy,
00:15:49
Speaker
would be really it's everything between nations, right? If I'm working on a trade deal, that's foreign policy. If I'm declaring war, that's foreign policy. If I'm trying to get peace, that's foreign policy. If I am just doing diplomatic shows of friendship or opening embassies, that's foreign policy.
00:16:04
Speaker
Really, any interaction between two countries can be really considered foreign policy. Then, of course, the policy part is where it's important. Like, what is my policy of how I'm going to engage with this country and that country? And that's when you get to the hard foreign policy part of it. Is that like?
00:16:23
Speaker
Am I going to continue the embargo on Cuba, or am I going to get rid of it because it's idiotic? And that would be your stance on a foreign policy issue. So really, it's any interaction between states.
00:16:36
Speaker
And what I find really quite interesting is that like there's kind of aspects of foreign policy that are, you know, as you said, it's like it's a stance, but like you could have a policy stance, but not almost act on it, you know? So there's almost like, as you were talking about the examples of North Korea, like there are kind of really subtle levels to that. Like, I don't know, how would you distinguish between sort of like,
00:17:03
Speaker
I don't know, would hard policy and soft policy, like hard power and soft power, how would you describe that? Well, soft power can be a lot of things, right? And soft power is something that nations have a lot harder trouble controlling. I know that China pushes about 10 billion dollars in trying to influence soft power though.
00:17:24
Speaker
When it comes specifically to soft power, it's things like, for instance, America has a lot of soft power when it comes to Christmas. The idea that a holiday that has been very Americanized and consumerized and is influenced very much by how America has viewed Christmas and how it has evolved in the Americas has now been exported to the majority of the world. The problem is it's kind of hard to use that to your advantage.
00:17:50
Speaker
I'm not going to be able to take your city or any of that sort with that. But what you can do is make populations more favorable to you. Now, there's different types of soft power. For instance, just jeans being available or American products being available everywhere is a form of soft power, the idea that that's a cultural icon that's being influenced.
Soft vs Hard Power Explained
00:18:14
Speaker
Hard power is when you get into more issues of
00:18:17
Speaker
the amount of military force someone has or the economic power or stuff like that when you're getting more into what is something that's more tangible than something that's like more cultural. So I would say that like soft power usually falls more along the lines of culture and in like kind of like softer influence where hard power is like strength and strength overall and like economic strength. I think you get the picture.
00:18:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But obviously, different countries, depending on their like resources, their economies and all that, they all have different kind of varying levels of soft power and, you know, hard power and stuff like that. So, I mean, when we're talking about foreign policy titans, I mean, we are just talking about like, the US, China, Russia, I mean, who are the people who are really pushing their
00:19:11
Speaker
foreign policy at the moment. I know you said China spends a lot of money on it. Are there other places that maybe people wouldn't expect to be quite influential in the world? There's a lot of countries that are influential in the world that people don't expect. I believe Liberia has one of the biggest trade fleets in the world.
00:19:30
Speaker
Well, and that is yeah, I believe actually let me look up Liberian trade fleets for you really quick Liberian trade fleets. Sorry about the clicks
00:19:44
Speaker
But I believe it's I believe it's Lee. Well, it's like I believe it was either Liberia or it was Togo or one of those nations or in Panama as well. But these smaller nations that have decided to deregulate what it takes to basically be a flagship by the nation.
00:20:01
Speaker
has basically gotten them a lot of power when it comes to international trade, which is an untraditional way of trying to pursue foreign policy strength, but it's been very effective for them, and it's also a good source of income for the nation. That's an untraditional way, and in a nation you wouldn't really think to have that much power.
00:20:20
Speaker
I mean, you could also look to other nations that are just of strategic importance by their location Turkey is of extreme strategic importance to NATO because it's located between Russia and the Middle East which are two hot zones for us and therefore when they do stuff that I personally don't find very good and a lot of NATO doesn't find very good people tend to look the other way because of the fact of how strategically important they are
00:20:44
Speaker
Israel falls in a similar circumstance where they're an extremely small nation with a small population, but because of their location and military strength, they're a very important ally to the United States, not to mention the religious significance, which would be actually a form of soft power that actually really is important, definitely when it comes to American elections and support for the Israeli state. So there's a lot of untraditional ways people can pursue
00:21:14
Speaker
foreign policy and actually make a nation that you would never really think to be that very powerful along the world stage compared to like America or Russia becoming a very important geopolitical location.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But
Foreign Policy's Domestic Impact
00:21:27
Speaker
what I think is quite important is a lot of people see this as kind of like policy wonk kind of stuff. This is the kind of stuff that people think about in their free time for fun. It's very difficult, especially in the rise of populism, to make the case for good foreign policy, because a lot of people kind of see foreign policy, especially things like foreign aid, which I don't know what we really mentioned, but like foreign aid, oh, why are we sending them over to
00:22:08
Speaker
Well, I would say that we have constantly thought about foreign policy as something that's overseas, doesn't really have to do with us. I'll leave that to the general and big brain people, basically, right? Foreign policy is a tabletop issue and it should be treated as a tabletop issue because we can see that, for instance, with Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods and how that has affected a lot of American workers.
00:22:19
Speaker
other countries if we could use them here, that kind of distinction.
00:22:34
Speaker
and their ability to actually do their work because the tariffs have actually significantly hurt their income. So trade is something that significantly affects Americans all the time. I remember when we had to deal with the oil crisis in the Middle East and how that affected oil prices at home, and that affects people's ability to put food on the table. And let's say, for instance, that the South China Sea
00:22:58
Speaker
For instance, the Chinese, for whatever reason, was able actually to get to South China Seas and actually put a bottle cap on world trade during an international crisis. Then that would affect prices of goods at home and the ability for Americans to get the products they need and want to survive.
00:23:14
Speaker
So that's just one aspect of how foreign policy is born, not to mention the ever concerning like actual just physical safety of American people or Yorkies British people or people all around the world. So foreign policy is a tabletop issue. It's just never been really treated as such. And even though it should be treated as such.
00:23:37
Speaker
I know this is probably just like putting on the spot, but do you have an answer to the whole, oh why are we giving away so much foreign aid? We should pay to spend it back home. Do you know, would you have an answer to that?
00:23:49
Speaker
I would say that when it comes to foreign aid, we do not nearly spend as much as they think we do in comparison to guns and military spending or really anything else when it comes to the budget. Foreign aid is a very small part of the budget. I actually think it should be expanded. I would make the argument, number one, that we should be treating humans around the entirety of the world with respect and dignity. We should be helping all of our fellow humans up, including the ones at home.
00:24:15
Speaker
And the amount of aid we give does not impact our ability to help people at home. The reason why homeless veterans are homeless are not because we gave Togo some aid or any country aid. That's not the reason why. It's because of the ineffectiveness of certain politicians in D.C. You should be pressuring them to do both. Now, I would also make the argument that they actually become economically beneficial for Americans.
00:24:41
Speaker
For instance, South America. If we were to send aid to a lot of South American countries that are having migrant issues that a lot of the people are migrating from over here and we have a migrant crisis, then there would be less people having to flee their country. They would be able to stay home. Not to mention as time progressed, they would be in an economic position where they might be able to buy American goods and produce goods for us to buy. So not only is it economically beneficial,
00:25:07
Speaker
And not only is the humanitarian gift, but it also can help bring stability to the regions of the world, which are producing huge amounts of migrant crises, refugee crises. So there's a multitude of good reasons why we should actually increase the amount of foreign aid we give.
00:25:24
Speaker
No, that really does make a lot of sense. So if a country is employing the tactic of foreign policy, what is the kind of thing that they're trying to achieve? Do you have any examples of a foreign policy
00:25:44
Speaker
a fallen policy that was followed through and there was some sort of reciprocal measurable response to it that was positive, you know?
00:25:57
Speaker
What do you mean? Well, like, so if I, if I change, for example, if I instead of increasing tariffs, I decrease tariffs and then money comes floating back into the economy and pushes things up, do we have examples of when foreign policy was actually used in a positive way? Because... Like when foreign policy was good? Yeah. I would say that a good example of this would be the Cold War.
00:26:23
Speaker
The fact that we had two nations who spent billions and billions of dollars making the most destructive weapons on planet Earth and neither of us ever dropped bombs on each other. And the fact that that happened because of diplomacy, because we actually invested into foreign policy is of extreme importance. Because if it wasn't for that, nobody here would be talking because we'd all be dead. So I mean, I think that's a good example of foreign policy being put to use.
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, I find it very difficult to agree on that, disagree on that point. Yeah, no, I totally want to fall out. You know, that's really what I'm looking for.
00:27:04
Speaker
You know, I mean, the Iran deal or somebody just said, Metro, he and they're right. The Iran deal as well is a good example of another. Well, it's just that didn't get to play out. So I don't want to use that as an example, even though at first for the first two years of its implementation, it was working very effectively. Do you know, I mean, how well read up on the Iran deal? Are you?
00:27:26
Speaker
I'm well-read enough to fight conspiracy theorists online Would you would you mind briefly like outlining the Iran deal before it got messed up? Do you have any basically what the Iran deal did was it would it allow it allowed? Inspections it within the nation and it basically cut off every path they had to pursue a nuclear weapon in the future in the near future, right?
00:27:51
Speaker
Uh, there is there's some people who said well 15 down the years down the line They could maybe have the ability to then produce the equipment to then produce weapons and okay, you're you're going right out way outside the realm of realm of like what's realistic at this point, but uh, basically what it did and what and what it was effective in doing is basically cutting off all routes for iran to get a nuclear weapon
00:28:19
Speaker
Now, the main criticism of the Iran deal that I heard when it wasn't somebody just saying, well, actually, they're going to get into it because most experts don't really agree with that, was the fact that it did not deal with proxy conflicts that we've been having with Iran.
00:28:33
Speaker
Whether it be in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon, with Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, all the major conflicts that we are involved in. And my argument would be that trying to put all of that into one agreement would be next to impossible.
00:28:54
Speaker
I mean, imagine trying to solve, you live in Europe, imagine trying to solve every single conflict issue within Europe between nations in one agreement.
Understanding the Iran Deal
00:29:05
Speaker
And if there was one hitch up on any of those parts, the entire thing would go under.
00:29:13
Speaker
It's a ridiculous proposal to think we could do that. The Iran deal was just a first step into door, into then dealing with the rest of those conflicts. After we deal with the nuclear weapons, which of course was the imminent threat, then after that we could deal with Yemen, we could deal with Bahrain, we could deal with, I hope I was pronouncing that right, we could deal with Syria, we could deal with Iraq, we could deal with
00:29:40
Speaker
Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon. We could deal with all of these issues. But the idea that we could have all of this in one agreement, when it was already an agreement where moderates in Iran had to jump through hoops to get it through, is fantasy land. It's just a fantasy.
00:29:56
Speaker
I mean, even you are giving the nice conspiracy theories or the almost like the very soft kind of like critics of the Iran deal. I mean, I remember saying absolutely awful, like, you know, completely weird kind of like kind of stories about I think was Clinton like giving dealing with Iranian uranium at one point? I can't even remember at this. I have no interest in entertaining any of that.
00:30:25
Speaker
but yet
00:30:42
Speaker
But Obama once said 150 billion when he shouldn't have, so people have stuck with that number. It's between 50 and 60 billion, and that money was their frozen assets, which if you're making an agreement and it's their frozen assets and it's legally their money, we're not giving them anything. They're just taking their money.
00:30:59
Speaker
And the only money we actually did give them that was like us actually giving them money was about like $1.3 billion, which was money from weapons that we sold them that we never gave to them. They bought fighter planes of some sort. I forget the model.
00:31:20
Speaker
for about $400 million while the Shah was still in power. And so the revolution happens and obviously we don't give them the fighter jets. And so that money's, that price tax went through some inflation and that's how we got to the 1.3 billion. And that was ruled to be their money in an international court. So either we violate international law or we give them the money that is theirs because they paid us for a product, we didn't serve them during the 70s.
00:31:49
Speaker
well I can say there's, yeah I'm not going to say anybody's broken international law, I'm not a lawyer but yeah I think you can just gesture wildly at history for who's broken international law in the past or who's threatened to break international law as well.
00:32:06
Speaker
Yeah, just about every world power to be fair. Yep, absolutely true. I was kind of wondering, you don't just talk about big foreign kind of policy things and you kind of deal with local politics as well, is that correct? Yes, that would be true. Is it Michael Williams, if I get that correct?
00:32:28
Speaker
Michaela Wilkes and Senator Jill Carter. Oh, right, right, right. So what I want to know is, how does a citizen of a country advocate for good foreign policy? Like, what is the, like, how would somebody like me or yourself actually, you know, it's all good, well, good talking about foreign policy, but what, like, how do we get good foreign policy?
00:32:58
Speaker
Well, of course, first thing you should do is, you know, get educated, right?
Educating on Foreign Policy
00:33:02
Speaker
And I like to recommend a few ways for people to get educated. I would say that there's a lot of things going on in the world in any particular time in foreign policy that's of interest. You can't really find like a week where nothing happened. There's always something that happens somewhere.
00:33:20
Speaker
Now, it might not be in areas that you care about, but something usually happens. So what I advocate for people to do to generally take the first steps in learning about foreign policy is take any news story about foreign policy. It doesn't really matter which one, it could be about any country on planet earth. And just read three to five articles on it. Any amount of articles you want, just make sure it's decent enough so you understand the issue. And after you understand the issue and you found that you're interested in it,
00:33:49
Speaker
then try to find other words in the article. For instance, everybody's really interested in the outbreak in China right now.
00:33:58
Speaker
Well, what if you, when I learned about, you read one of the articles, oh, well, the Chinese government lied about the SARS virus. What's the SARS virus? And then you go learn about the SARS virus. Then you learn about the Chinese Communist Party. Then you learn about the Chinese Revolutionary War. And you learn about the Chinese Communist Party's current relations with other countries. And oh, wow, what are they trying to do with Taiwan? And then you use that first jumping off point.
00:34:21
Speaker
to learn so much about the region, you can slowly build upon that knowledge. And then once you do that with multiple articles, then you're actually building a base of knowledge. Now, if you want to concentrate that on a certain continent, be it Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, North America, wherever.
00:34:39
Speaker
or you could just learn to do that for anywhere sporadically like you learn one country in the Middle East about Bahrain and then you learn about Ukraine and Trenistra and Moldova Soon after so I would say that
00:34:53
Speaker
that articles are a good jumping off point to learn more and more and more about foreign policy. And then from there, you can you can build off of current news. That's what I like to do. Yeah, no, definitely. Well, I mean, like I'm going to know I take the reins more than usual. And I want to talk about my wheelhouse. You know, I know this is kind of like on your stream, Dylan, but I'm taking over. This is sending over. I'm going to. Yeah, this is reversing 1776. You know, I'm taking it back.
00:35:23
Speaker
Oh boy. Because one of the things we talked about when I was last on stream was about heritage and foreign policy because, you know, if we remind both audiences that Donald Trump threatened 52 cultural sites.
00:35:44
Speaker
52 cultural sites? Yeah, it was in Iran. Yes, yes. So obviously, I mean, the thing is, this is nothing new. You know this idea that certain heritage has to be protected in the world?
00:36:01
Speaker
and there's kind of has to be a global response is something that is it's not a new trend. It's definitely been around for a very long time. And there's actually several organizations that actually sort of, you know, are in place to kind of sort that out. Obviously, UNESCO has something called the Blue Shield program, and the Blue Shield programs
00:36:23
Speaker
Basically, Blue Shield International is about recording sites that have either been destroyed or in the process of being attacked. It's about recording those sites and making sure that you're almost trying to preserve as much as you can by putting yourself in danger.
00:36:48
Speaker
I think for me, these things are really, really important because especially Blue Shield International, they don't just do heritage in war zones, but also they cover things like, you know, I don't know if you've seen recently Venice has been subjected to far more flooding than it usually.
00:37:09
Speaker
has I have seen that I've seen a lot of videos of tourists stumbling into water yes and I mean like when I was in Venice it wasn't that bad I went in during summer and it was like you know you could you could tell that like the water is quite high but
00:37:26
Speaker
I think there's certainly a concern that with places like Venice with so much history, so much material heritage, and that's kind of like the physical heritage that you see around with so much of that, it's very vulnerable to the kind of decay that will be caused by kind of environmental things. So I think
00:37:46
Speaker
You know, when we're talking about the destruction of heritage, you know, we have to make sure that we're not just talking about acts of violence, but also climatic kind of changes. I mean, the really interesting work which is being done in assessing the role of climate change on coastal erosion and coastal heritage,
00:38:08
Speaker
Because in the UK, obviously, we've got a lot of coastline. And so there's a project called the Citizen Project, which is about mapping out heritage on the coastline here in Britain. And that's really quite interesting. But to round it back to a little bit more on your wheelhouse, I don't know how much you actually know about heritage in foreign policy. Have you ever really come across it before?
00:38:36
Speaker
Until the Iranian cultural sites, and of course, ISIS is destruction of culture and heritage and historical sites. It wasn't really my wheelhouse. I've always been concentrated on human lives, right? And then, of course, I believe culture and history is extremely important.
00:38:57
Speaker
I mean, the whole, we can see from what's happening in China right now with the locking up of Uyghur Muslims and Xinjiang that how important culture is. But the majority of my work has been within just saving human lives and trying to stop human rights abuses.
00:39:18
Speaker
I mean the thing is for me I definitely agree that human lives are really really important and as I said on the last stream you know I'd be more than happy for a thousand pieces of heritage to be destroyed for human life to be preserved and I still maintain that. I think there's certain reasons why people kind of almost
00:39:41
Speaker
I don't know. I think there's a lot of times in conflict people downplay or disregard the value of human life because you almost get desensitized to it. And I think that's something that it's a trap you can fall into. But the thing is, for me, I don't think there's really a lot of ways that you can destroy cultural heritage without actually probably having a collateral damage of human life as well.
00:40:07
Speaker
Oh, yes. I mean, I think we talked about Yemen before. Yemen is a perfect example of us destroying them, destroying the people who are living currently and also the history of the people all with one fell swoop with the type of airstrikes that are being done within Yemen. Yeah.
00:40:25
Speaker
I mean, that's the very physical and violent acts of war. And I mean, this happens in every war zone. There's no place on the planet that doesn't have some sort of cultural heritage or some sort of cultural history. Every single place in the world has some form of it. So if you have a conflict zone anywhere, you are going to have situations in which cultural heritage and
00:40:54
Speaker
the people who live in and around that culture of heritage are under threat and that's why I think what's very important is that we have a way of talking about heritage in Poland policy because it is very tied to conflict. I do, I think you read on the
00:41:21
Speaker
You're right on point. And I would say the issue when it comes to cultural heritage, for me, when I look at the world, for me right now, it's what's going on in Xinjiang, which is a perfect example of someone of a government forcibly trying to erase people's culture, erase their religious identity and everything and everything that like has held a certain community of Uyghur Muslims together for centuries. Right.
00:41:52
Speaker
I see that as what's going on there as one of the worst human rights abuses in the world. And much of it is tied to the idea of people's cultural heritage.
Cultural Erasure and Artifact Trade
00:42:02
Speaker
Now, this isn't particularly has to do with historical sites, but it does show that like culture and heritage is of extreme importance in foreign policy.
00:42:12
Speaker
And I would actually advocate for fighting the Chinese government significantly on this from a national perspective, from a foreign policy perspective, and advocating for human rights abuses. And I would also do the same within Yemen when it comes to airstrikes that are destroying the living history, that is Yemeni infrastructure.
00:42:34
Speaker
I don't know if people know this, but usually the houses that people live in in Yemen are a lot of times older than anybody who's lived in those houses who are currently living in those houses. I mean, those houses can be hundreds of years old. It's not rare to see a village where the youngest house or the youngest building is like 100 years old.
00:42:58
Speaker
I think I wanna pick up on your kind of like, I think you were absolutely right in placing human life at the center of all of our efforts because ultimately that's something that is really, that is a huge cost to the world, you know? I would like to say, I think fundamentally it's, I significantly care about protecting cultural sites in history.
00:43:25
Speaker
But what's the point if there's nobody there to enjoy them? Exactly. There are other aspects of heritage and foreign policy that I think illustrate when we were talking originally about the differences between soft and hard power.
00:43:40
Speaker
and I feel that there's almost, there's another kind of destruction of cultural heritage that's just not as, it's not bombing, it's not war and conflict per se directly, it's actually the trafficking of illegal artifacts.
00:43:56
Speaker
So there's a great researcher, her name's Dr. Donna Yates, who I know personally. I met her a number of years ago when I was, I had organized a session at a conference and she came to speak at it. And she has worked for a number of years on something called the Trafficking Culture Project. It's meant to be kind of like looking at illicit trade in antiquities.
00:44:25
Speaker
So the problem is the sale of heritage and art is not very well regulated. A lot of the time the provenance or the origin of these artifacts and these items is either not well known or not properly recorded and there have been many cases in which
00:44:46
Speaker
it's kind of overlooked and it's not really followed up on because the laws are just simply not in place to deal with that. So there's been a lot of research recently in the last like maybe 5-10 years that's actually focused on the kind of people who are
00:45:06
Speaker
buying these items and the people who are selling them. Because the thing is that a lot of these heritage items, they come from places of lower economic development and they're sold to the countries where people have the buying power to
00:45:25
Speaker
you know, purchase these illegally and get them kind of smuggled through. And what it effectively creates, it creates this like funneling system of all this cultural heritage going from poorer countries into richer ones.
00:45:40
Speaker
which, I mean, that was already a project of colonialism of, you know, kind of like othering and putting people in their place. And it seems to still be happening today. One of famous American example is Hobby Lobby. No, what is it? Yeah, Hobby Lobby. Am I saying that right? The big company? Let me look it up quick. No.
00:46:06
Speaker
I'm hobby lobby. Yeah, the arts and crafts store. Yeah, it's Creative Center. It's a private for profit corporation which owns a chain of American arts craft stores. So they had illegal, illegal artifacts.
00:46:21
Speaker
they set they actually had to forfeit the artifacts and pay a fine of three million dollars for the return of over five thousand five hundred oh i didn't even know it was that many but yeah they they had a number of different artifacts that they are kind of like they took in for one reason or another from all parts of you know parts of the middle east
00:46:50
Speaker
And just what I'm trying to explain here is that- I'll be sure to get my popsicle stick somewhere else from now on. You should. Like arts and craft stores? No. Don't go Hobby Lobby. For other reasons as well. Hobby Lobby I'm pretty sure is really not a great company. I'm not libelling anybody am I? I'm not slandering by saying that. No. I'm gonna lose on my Hobby Lobby and Christmas and donations.
00:47:14
Speaker
Oh, should you do your hobby lobby advert? If you want illegal heritage in your arts and crafts fair, come to hobby lobby. Yeah, I think that'd be a good one. But going back to like some of the problems with trafficking culture is it's actually
00:47:33
Speaker
there's another kind of paper by Dr Yeats which is focusing on museum collections and the subjective value of artifacts and what happens a lot of the time is that these items of heritage, their value is very subjective and so there's a question whether
00:47:57
Speaker
you know, but you can kind of offset your taxes by donating to charities and through kind of like the donation antiquities and there's some people who are thinking that there's quite a lot of tax fraud committed in light of, you know, overvaluing items or undervaluing large collections of items just to get them smuggled through and get them into private collections where they can't be touched.
00:48:25
Speaker
That's another paper actually by Yates. I'll link that all below as well. So those are kind of examples of things that are much more soft in their par, but the damage is still done. You know, if these items are taken from the countries where they were originated, you know, you can't just replace them. They're not that easy to kind of just create again.
00:48:50
Speaker
I think you need to wait a few thousand years, yeah. Yeah, there's a bit, you know, it's easy to look at what ISIS is doing and say, right, we need to stop that, you know, when they were doing all their kind of like overly produced videos of smashing up things with hammers. I mean, that's- Hobby Lobby isn't like adding like weird music overlaid while they like take
00:49:15
Speaker
artifacts from poor nations, you know? No, they almost do it like in an acceptable way, you know what I mean? And that's almost worse in my head, you know? Not that it's worse, I still feel that there's a certain level of destruction there that's not being properly talked about and that's what really bothers me. It's the same kind of thing of
00:49:37
Speaker
like I feel like there's a lot more attention paid to oh these items are being destroyed in the Middle East, they're being trafficked from the Middle East and that's completely true but you know there's not a lot of attention paid to some of the heritage we have back here you know back home like in the UK you know like I see how they're changing the planning laws and how much you know that will affect
Heritage Protection and Ownership Debates
00:50:02
Speaker
the archaeology of the UK, because if you don't need an archaeological excavation before you build stuff and you start digging up the earth, then you're going to destroy a lot of heritage that's buried in the earth. So obviously I'm not trying to equate the two, but I think there's a bit of misdirection when we only focus on areas of conflict, and that's why I think
00:50:25
Speaker
It'd be, you know, this is why I think heritage and foreign policy interlink, because if you are able to de-escalate conflict, if you're able to kind of bring places out of war zones, out of conflict, you actually are at the same time saving people's lives and you're also saving valuable material culture. And I think that's really, really important. So what I would ask you is,
00:50:54
Speaker
How did you get this interest? And this specifically, is it because of your line of work, the archaeologists? And also is it because, well, you live in the UK, therefore, that you got if there's anyone who's good at doing like stealing artifacts, it was the Nazis are very famous for like stealing artifacts from France. And then like you guys are famous for doing it from
00:51:16
Speaker
everywhere. Yeah, no, we're really bad at it. Like, I think, one of the really bad examples, well, bad examples, is when there was, when we stole the Benin Bronzes from the Benin Empire. So that's in like what was now kind of like modern-day Nigeria.
00:51:38
Speaker
basically the culture that lived there. We kind of traded with the UK, kind of traded with them. But they had their own civilization and they basically said, look, we've got our own stuff. We're doing our own thing. We don't need the UK. We don't need the British Empire, basically. The British Empire weren't really happy about that. And so they did a retaliatory expedition and raised entire cities to the ground.
00:52:08
Speaker
and stole lots of items. And those items, those Benin Bronzes, as they're called, are still in the British Museum in London, they're in the National Museum in Scotland, and the largest collection is in the Museum of Berlin.
00:52:25
Speaker
Because a lot of people don't realise, but Germany had a very strong colonial kind of like reach. And I think sometimes people think, oh, British Empire, that's it. No, like every France, Germany, Spain, they were all at it.
00:52:42
Speaker
There's there are very few countries that are got clean hands, I'll say it. But I think I think generally I when I was doing archaeology, like I started off by studying chemistry at university and we had like a lot of elective courses that you can kind of choose alongside your main course. And so I kind of was like, oh, I have to choose an elective, right? I'll choose archaeology. I mean, I kind of like the past, but it wasn't like my main interest.
00:53:12
Speaker
And I said I'll do that. I think I was kind of do it. I really liked nuclear chemistry and like nuclear physics. I thought I was kind of going to go into like God, man, I already hate biology. I don't I don't I don't even know. Oh, I suck at biology, man, like so bad. Biology is not my thing, but chemistry. Oh, I can do that.
00:53:34
Speaker
So anyway, I kind of like I did that my first year and I was getting like, you know, I was getting A's in like really high marks in my archaeology work and like my archaeology course and I was getting not so high marks in my chemistry. And then at some point I decided to switch my degrees and I just kind of elevated from that point. Like for me.
00:53:58
Speaker
archaeology has to be, I see it as a very restorative subject, if done in the correct way. I think archaeology has a very dark past, it's got a passive, it's a very racialized subject in the sense that a lot of people were, you know, it was used by a lot of countries to kind of like,
00:54:18
Speaker
deem why they were better, you know, this kind of like in America yet the manifest destiny, you had basically just white supremacism as a night, as a just a general idea, you know, as a like, oh, well, we are better, we've got like, our ancestors been building monumental structures, you know, far older than, you know, what these people have done, they're still in the Stone Age, you know, these ideas that like, for example, even modern hunter gatherer groups are somehow stuck in the past.
00:54:45
Speaker
These are all concepts that archaeologists came up with and in effect they basically dehumanise people. So archaeology has tried over the last 20 years to really decolonise and try and break down those kind of assumptions that are very much baked into its own structure and that really made me
00:55:08
Speaker
that really interested me totally because for me to see a subject really try and be reflective with its own kind of existence was just really fascinating to me and it kind of helped that I could go on often big long tangents like this and you know you get high marks for that kind of stuff.
00:55:30
Speaker
you know they're like yeah so let me ask you a question yeah so what what is usually the defense from a either a museum or whatever institution who currently is housing which is very obviously
00:55:46
Speaker
either coerced or stolen historical artifacts? Well, I'll give you some good examples. So one of the more contentious items is the Elgin marbles that are held in London. Say that again? The Elgin marbles. The Elgin marbles are a set of like marble reliefs.
00:56:05
Speaker
um they were basically they're from Greece so anyway um oh that's really pretty yeah and uh so Greece has been asking for them back for the last like 50 years you know it's a long time and the British Museum
00:56:23
Speaker
basically what happens, Greece was in the middle of a war. Lord Elgin. I can't remember the date. I'm not going to say anything wrong. Anyway, Lord Elgin, basically this guy who is a bit of collector, he went there and he basically said, okay, I want these.
00:56:45
Speaker
uh the local the greek said no you can't have them so he kind of got a document that said uh for the preservation of these items we'll take them away to the british museum so anyway he comes back with his letter and
00:57:01
Speaker
And a lot of people are a bit upset about this because even in Britain at that time, and we're talking it's like the 19th century, 18th century, they felt it was like taking heritage from another country while it's at war and just like, yeah, just kind of ripping it out.
00:57:19
Speaker
So this was never really an acceptable practice from just about everybody they kind of saw from day one. This is not an acceptable thing we're doing. There was definitely a lot of people at the time who were like, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that. Anyway, he basically sold it to the British Museum.
00:57:37
Speaker
And the British Museum have maintained to this day that the letter that he got saying that it was okay to remove them was correct, you know? Okay, but the letter, like you said, was about preservation. So at this point, I don't think Greece is at war, right? No, no, no, no, you have to understand, like, the British Museum have basically, the weird thing is the letter is a translation of the original letter, which doesn't exist.
00:58:05
Speaker
So it was a translation from a letter which never existed? Well, hmm. That's the contention, really. I think Greece has always wanted them back. And the British Museum, I think, kind of now would say it's too risky to try and send them back.
00:58:32
Speaker
Why would it be too risky? Basically because the British Museum are arguing that the state that the marbles are in and their age, if you try to transport them across the sea, which is what you would have to do, it would be too dangerous for them. So, nope. That's really that's literally it. Like they've got it and they're keeping a hold of it.
00:58:59
Speaker
I mean, this is one of the, this is one of the, like, this is more and more like the bigger kind of like stories, but there are others. And so Ethiopia has been asking for its heritage back for 18 years. Like Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian nations. And it has. Let me ask you a question. How old are these?
00:59:25
Speaker
The elegant marbles, that's like ancient Greece kind of, you know, philosophers kind of stuff. These were taken from what I saw around the 1800s? Yeah. 1700s around that age? That's correct, yeah. And it was transported across the ocean with much less technology, probably, much less care than it could be today. And it's only been like a speck of time in comparison to how long they've existed. So how could that argument be made?
00:59:51
Speaker
Um, because the British Museum is an institution that nobody can really, it has no, there's no kind of, there's no democratic control. There's no, there's no, nobody can take the British Museum to task unless they actually break a law.
01:00:06
Speaker
So what does that as a question? Are we talking about the government refused to give us stuff or? No, the British Museum. So is the British Museum not associated with the British state or is its own private thing? It's it's it's it's kind of its own thing, right? It's headed by a board of trustees who make the decisions for the museum. Okay.
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. So like it's not the British government really doesn't have anything. It doesn't have any control unless the British Museum like breaks the law, you know. So that's the thing for a lot of museums. They're all institutions that are very much kind of like
01:00:55
Speaker
They're very insular, they're kind of isolated, and there's no way to compel them to give these items back. So another good example of the kind of reasoning that museums make is Ethiopia has asked for artifacts to be returned. And this is from the Victorian Albert Museum in London.
01:01:25
Speaker
the UK has offered to loan these items from Ethiopia back to Ethiopia, which I don't know if that sounds a bit cheeky to you, but it's fairly cheeky.
01:01:41
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty bad. And I mean, again, it's these- To be quite frank, it sounds like a bunch of, you know, uppity rich people who don't really want to give back their expensive, like, arty things that the other rich people don't have access to. And then I got them, trust me, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna suck them. I don't, I'm not, I'm not gonna just attack the rich for attacking the richest sake, but it kind of sounds like they just
01:02:10
Speaker
What is the reason of, I mean, is there like a big financial reason? Is it a prestige reason or?
01:02:18
Speaker
I mean, what kind of money do these things like turn out? So these things don't turn out money in themselves. They turn out a prestige for a museum and the museum almost like has them to kind of bring people in. There's a lot of kind of people who kind of like, you know, museums. Somebody just said this is from 447 to 438 BCE. Jesus Christ.
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean like ancient Greece, like Socrates and that kind of stuff. Yo, yo, yo. I don't know. Yeah, this is of significant historical importance, extreme significance. But I think there's this thing. What is the Ethiopian thing called? Just look for Ethiopia asks for items back from the UK. I'll go and find what they're called. Ethiopia asks.
01:03:10
Speaker
For items, man, I can't spell this pack. Oh my god. ADM. A Bruno sacred treasures. Yeah. It's willing to- Wait, wait. London Museum says it's willing to return artifacts on long-term loan. Yeah. Crown, a gold- Oh my god, like that's a crown. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, this is Ethiopia. Like, this is-
01:03:36
Speaker
The thing is, there are a lot of people out there who kind of don't really, they don't really believe that Africa has a lot of cultural heritage. And that's even people who aren't really like, you know, into the whole Richard Spencer stuff. You know, generally people do not understand the rich tapestry of African heritage and
01:04:01
Speaker
One of the thing is all the really great examples of metallurgy and really amazing crafts have all been taken and there are museums in the UK, you know? So this crown was taken during the Battle of Magdala, I think. And they just took the crown and was like, this is ours now and they won't give it back. Yeah.
01:04:25
Speaker
Now, some of the reasons I hear is that, you know, more people will see it in the UK museums than they would in their country of origin. So people don't travel to Ethiopia in a lot, so they wouldn't get to see this wonderful heritage that belongs to the world, but should reside in the UK. And I legitimately get that. Oh, well then, okay, if that's the case, then let's send everything to China.
01:04:49
Speaker
yeah yeah no exactly it's ridiculous no no no but people come to from all over the world to see this well maybe they would go to Ethiopia then to see it no no no they wouldn't I mean these are the ridiculous things or you know oh it's going to like oh what's it called um
01:05:09
Speaker
Oh, it won't be looked after. Ethiopia has built a museum for these items. Greece has literally built… What is this crown called? I can't find a name for it. I don't think there's really a name for it. If there is, I don't know it.
01:05:26
Speaker
I just know it as the Ethiopian crown. But like, Greece is- I'm gonna be honest, I'm more likely to go to Ethiopia than him to go- Okay. But yeah, these are really, really, these are the examples of like, just this hubris and this kind of institutional like, idea that like, there's nothing, there's no reason why these items should go back or-
01:05:55
Speaker
Worse, I've heard it argued that it's actually more racist to give these items back because I was accused of saying the Elgin Marbles should go back to Greece and I was using a blood and soil argument.
01:06:11
Speaker
in doing so because I was linking the ancient Greeks to the modern Greeks through their genetic heritage and geography, which is a quote unquote blood and soil argument.
01:06:33
Speaker
oh yeah sorry yeah yeah I'll go. What I thought was just really absolutely awful was that like you know this it's almost like I don't know it's so performative and so kind of superficial it's it's almost facetious this idea that like
01:06:52
Speaker
because you say these items belong to this kind of like country that you're being a racist because you don't think these items belong to the world, you know? And I think this is the biggest thing is like I believe in a kind of a restorative justice, you know, that's
01:07:11
Speaker
That's my perspective on this, you know, I want, you know, maybe, maybe it's not the best way of doing it. But right now we have a situation where there are a lot of countries around the world that are losing light on sharing their own heritage with their own people because it's in museums in countries where they'll ever get to go to, you know. And this is this is the really sad part is that, like,
01:07:37
Speaker
I would make a passionate plea for all these ideas to go back, but until museums are more accountable and have something to answer to, it's never going to happen.
01:07:56
Speaker
And nobody cares about that law. You know, like I could. This is not something that people are clamoring for because this isn't an imminent thing, right? No, no. And even if I went into like, say I became an MP, I kind of went and started introducing a members bill and I tried to get it through parliament here in the UK. I mean, who would care? You know, I probably have people voting more against it because they're like, no, these things should be here. And I just I think
01:08:26
Speaker
I think I despair in the sense that, like, I know… Okay, imagine the Statue of Liberty was stolen during a conflict.
01:08:44
Speaker
And... Are the marbles of that much importance? That much historical importance of the Greeks? Probably more. I don't know how much you like the Statue of Liberty. Statue of Liberty is literally the icon for America. If you get rid of it, that is what America is. You know what? The Elgin marbles are emblematic of ancient Greece.
01:09:05
Speaker
in as much as they are a representation of that. So yeah, I would say it's on the level of the Statue of Liberty. I think even if it doesn't represent ancient Greece, I would say the amount of history that is placed in it at kind of at least brings it to the level. Okay.
01:09:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this is another one of these awful arguments, like, but if you give those back, you erase the history of colonialism. I mean, it's almost as if colonialism hasn't happened. If you give them back, then we won't know what's been stolen. I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, I cannot believe you imagine. Could you imagine like somebody mugging somebody else taking their cash is like, well, if we give them the cash back,
01:09:49
Speaker
Uh, we're we're erasing the history of the mugging. Yes, exactly that that is such a good that is such a good analogy Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you. Dylan. I appreciate that. No, but this is the first time you've heard that That's a really good analogy i've been angry with the principle but that's like oh And this is the thing it's like, you know, I feel like for me to say openly as an archaeologist um, you should um like
01:10:16
Speaker
you know, should give these items back or you should make moves to like, I don't know, ask for them to be loaned back to you. Like, forget UK. We haven't we've done this before. Like we've made people like it didn't the Nazi were the Nazis very famous for like taking art. Yeah, but then we're like, Dylan, those were the bad guys. Remember, we're the good guys, because in our world, if only the good guys win. And if you win, you're the good guys.
01:10:46
Speaker
That's how it works. And this is maybe the problem with heritage and repatriation, because if you give the items back, you are admitting very physically that you were in the wrong. And there are a lot of people in the UK who do not believe that the United Kingdom, that the British Empire was a bad thing.
01:11:08
Speaker
I spoke to somebody called Dr. Priyamata Gopal on one of my previous episodes of my podcast, that's Modern Myth, if you want to go and check it out. And I talked to her about her book, Insurgent Empire, and she talked about the histories of resistances within the British Empire.
Colonial Resistance and Archaeology's Legacy
01:11:27
Speaker
And actually, you know, it was really interesting that like in certain parts of the British Empire, there was actually a lot of resistance fighting in it.
01:11:36
Speaker
And in so much as it actually influenced opposition to British imperialism in Britain at the time as well. And I think it's really fascinating there's parts of history that we really do not hear a lot of.
01:11:54
Speaker
but there was a lot of solidarity. I don't think it was called solidarity at the time, but there's a lot of solidarity between how the Irish were treated during the time British Empire and how people in the rest of the world, like they saw each other as like, you know, suffering under the same empire. I know that this is a little different, but I know that the
01:12:15
Speaker
did the IRA in the anti, and I'm not putting any moral like justification with any of this. I'm just saying this, but I know the IRA and a lot of Palestinian liberation organizations actually had relations of ties and actually were very much like we are in the same struggle. I mean, the thing is the IRA is a very complicated history, not one that I really want to get too into because I have no, I have no interest in doing as well. That's why I said I don't have any interest in going anywhere. But as someone who...
01:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, but as someone who grew up in Northern Ireland, it is something that is very close to me, you know? I mean, I've been, like, I remember my parents driving home one time and we had to change, we were driving down one street and a burnt out car was there in front of us and there was
01:13:06
Speaker
a bit of a right going on, we had to drive down a different street to go around it. When I used to go to school, I used to get the train to Belfast and my train was routinely stopped on the tracks for bomb warnings and stuff.
01:13:25
Speaker
It was just a natural part of life, and there were streets that you would go through. Northern islands with curbstones were painted, you know, and you knew where you were just there. It's a very, very, very, very weird place to live and grow up, actually.
01:13:43
Speaker
uh... yeah something here i'm really surprised by the fact that this this doesn't have a name like this crown is very elegant very it probably has an ethiopian name i just i i don't know it and i really should know it i would like to know it actually uh... yeah i i mean the thing is like the other thing is like places like ethiopia don't get a lot of airtime you know they don't
01:14:09
Speaker
There's not a lot of Ethiopian archaeologists with a lot of, like, media, you know? A lot of the time when people think of heritage, I mean, think of, if I say, what does an archaeologist look like, what would you say to me? Like, describe an archaeologist if I... What does an archaeologist look like? An overweight, bearded white man who probably owns Jurassic Park,
01:14:36
Speaker
Right, you weren't meant to- No, basically the owner of Jurassic Park is basically my life. Can you stop describing me? Well, why then stop looking like the owner of Jurassic Park? That's your problem. Stop killing families of four who want to go see dinosaurs. Come on. But it's so fun. They're dinosaurs. No, I mean- Dinosaurs are pretty fun. Yeah, I mean, I think...
01:15:05
Speaker
I think the thing is that archaeologists seem like they're predominantly white men, and the thing is in archaeology, especially at entry level,
01:15:21
Speaker
of the actual industry. It's actually mostly women, you know, like in courses, in archaeology courses, there's a large percentage of women who study archaeology and it's been growing for year and year. There are fewer men going into archaeology like studies. However, would you be surprised to learn that when you look at like kind of like up the ranks in the industry in archaeology, it's mostly men at the top.
01:15:50
Speaker
Really? Yeah, surprising that, isn't it? It's weird. Wow. Why has that happened? Well, he just loved to play with the rocks, man. Archaeology really has a lot of issues, a lot of problems, but people are trying to do stuff, you know, and I think one of my next kind of
01:16:11
Speaker
things that I want to do is reach out and actually talk to archaeologists in places like Ethiopia, in places like India, really try and make it a much more international kind of thing. I think an internationalist archaeology is what we should be aiming for, one that's not really centered around, you know, art museums in the UK or in America. I think we need to really... To be fair, there always will be people who are more interested in their own history and culture than other history and culture. Of course.
01:16:41
Speaker
that.
01:17:02
Speaker
It'll be hard, trust me, people love when people get angry, come on. You know what? Your chat's just brought up Indiana Jones. I'll be very frank about Indiana Jones. The number of archaeologists who've said to me that they did archaeology because of Indiana Jones
01:17:24
Speaker
Well, I'm sorry, but it's a stupid amount of people. It's like 80% the archaeologists I know cite Indiana Jones' influence. It's ridiculous.
01:17:45
Speaker
Um, I don't know. No, no, I get it. I get it. And yeah, I'm just trying to say, I'm just trying to say no, that would not happen, but I don't want to lie on stream.
01:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like if there's any industry that has a bunch of corny jokes I feel like or archaeology is pretty out there. I feel like there's a bunch of like jokes about like Like all history jokes to write or like jokes about like the tools you use something like that Something about your industry. I don't know. Well, I think Some of your chats asking about reparations
01:18:20
Speaker
I've only been talking about repatriation, which is just the return of the artifacts and stuff like that. I think there is definitely a conversation for reparations as well alongside repatriation, but I'm not really smart enough to have that discussion with- I mean, if we've already actively have the thing, then the least we can do is give them the thing back before we even think about talking about that.
01:18:45
Speaker
yeah no definitely um yeah no um yeah i'm gonna yeah i think i think that's any any anybody in chat got any questions for me oh yeah yeah we'll open up for q&a if anybody has any questions throw them in chat we'll ask them quick i think we've been looking at the still image of a crown for long enough thank you everybody's got it memorized some guy was decoding the symbolism of there being three tiers in relation to the pope and
01:19:15
Speaker
I must say, but that is archaeology. It's about trying to figure out and make sense of the items that we are digging up. It's really interesting. And I don't think that archaeologists necessarily have privileged information that other people don't have. I think when you look at something, you look at an item, there's a lot of interpretations you can make about it. And deciding which one's the right one is part of archaeology.
01:19:43
Speaker
okay uh someone just said that can you discuss the library of alexandria it was a terrible loss
01:19:56
Speaker
I don't really know enough about the library of alexandra to really go into it too much, but I know it gets mentioned quite a lot as a meme, and I think that's the satisfying answer. I think the thing is that what I think is interesting is that there's a lot of
01:20:18
Speaker
ancient like script. Oh, yeah. I've heard about this before. Yeah. There's actually a lot of scripts in that are still not translated from their original language. And I think it would be really cool if we could start untangling that. And people just haven't done it because they just don't got the time. No time, no money, you know?
01:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the thing about... it's an interesting concept, but I think there's too much mysticism about it, you know? There's a lot of kind of...
01:20:53
Speaker
What does this have to do with a library? There's a lot of mysticism and ancient alien pseudo-archaeology about the library of Alexandria. There's a lot of ideas that texts from ancient civilisation were ruined in it.
01:21:23
Speaker
Let's see, who else is chatting away? Library of Alexandria was a big building with lots of books in it.
01:21:38
Speaker
I'm like I really don't care about it. Okay, so the library of Alexandria was basically a base a very large library in I believe it was ancient Egypt or Alexandria Yeah, yeah ancient Egypt that had tons of science and technology and history And it was just a ginormous effort to get all this thing in there and like ancient history It was it was ginormous and it burned to the ground for I forget the reason but it burned to the ground and it was a horrible horrible loss and
01:22:08
Speaker
It would have been a really cool thing if we still had it today. But then again, all these things we would have had to survive to now would have been the same. But it would have been cool if it didn't burn down. Yeah, basically. To respond to one of your chats saying, was ancient Egypt really continuously ruled by Greeks? I think there's a real difficulty in kind of
01:22:34
Speaker
characterizing ancient civilizations with the same concept of nationalities we have today. I think even in ancient Egypt, what defined a citizen of Egypt wasn't necessarily just like geography. Egypt had an army with people from all over the continent in it. They had citizens from all over the place. I think it's
01:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a kind of like in history, there, you know, there are, there is a kind of a period in Egypt that, according to history books, was ruled by the Greeks, you know, but I think there's a lot more nuance to what that actually means in a modern context, as we say it, rather than what was happening at the time and how people felt.
01:23:32
Speaker
I got I gotta say that from Ivan study a little bit of in studying history African history and the amount Egypt is downplayed as like actually like an African civilization And the amount of like mental gymnastics people go through to make it look like a white civilization
01:23:51
Speaker
Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, no, totally. I mean, that's completely like this is what I'm saying. Archaeology was definitely a white supremacist subject when it was first initiated. And a lot of its original kind of concepts have just stuck. I mean, the thing is that like there was. There was like, OK, so, for example, you know Zimbabwe in Africa.
01:24:20
Speaker
Zimbabwe the country is named after the great Zimbabwe which is a large kind of like ancient city and it's a city complex with all these buildings and stuff in it so before before Zimbabwe was Zimbabwe it was Rhodesia
01:24:41
Speaker
And when these ancient ruins in Rhodesia were discovered, one of the archaeologists and historians working on it at the time said, oh, it could have been Africans who made this, you know, like really ancient ones.
01:25:03
Speaker
and the government apparently at the time suppressed this and said no it was a group of an ancient white tribe from the north that came down built this and were killed you know and this is what they left behind
01:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's totally. And then obviously, when Zimbabwe became Zimbabwe, the idea for the name came from that ancient monument, which now we know is very, very old, and was built by the first people who lived in what we call Zimbabwe.
01:25:42
Speaker
So, it was definitely not a white tribe from the north as was tried to be inferred by the Rhodesian government. It wasn't a white tribe from the north? Oh, shoot.
01:25:57
Speaker
But this kind of, like, this idea of these, like, for example, you probably heard the Lost Tribes of Israel. It's a very common pseudo-archaeology term. Or in America, there's the Mind Builders, which is another, you know, theory about white people coming in, building monuments and then leaving. And there's some places in America where you have, like,
01:26:27
Speaker
monuments in the sense of their mounds that are built into certain shapes by ancient Native American peoples. And yeah, a lot of times when Europeans first came over, they did not believe that the Native Americans had built those. And they thought an ancient race of white people came through and did it and were killed off. This is what constantly happens. It's always white people came and were killed off. That's literally it.
01:26:59
Speaker
It's kind of weird that all these white people come over and they build the most extravagant stuff and then they just get wiped out so easily. I mean, it's a trope, you know? It's very cliche at the worst, and it's racist at even worst, you know? The fundamental thing is to deny the idea that anybody but white people could create some sort of form of civilisation, you know?
01:27:23
Speaker
A really interesting thing is to look at ceramics. Ceramics, like pots and stuff, we originally thought of as coinciding with agriculture, because it's where you store your food. But we know that in Japan, agriculture didn't arrive until much later than the rest of the world. But yet they've had ceramics and pots from about 14,000 years ago.
01:27:48
Speaker
around the same time that people were working pots and ceramics in what's now Syria. So this idea that there's certain places that things evolved at once and then spread elsewhere, there's a lot more going on in the world. Somebody asked a question in chat about why were ancient civilizations like Babylon and the Indus Valley suddenly abandoned?
01:28:19
Speaker
Oh, they ran out of popsicles. Ah, damn, they should have went to that arts and crafts store. We love so much. I think the thing is that there are a lot of really good researchers and Google Scholar is your friend. You have to also be careful when people talk about like sudden like abandonment of like civilizations and areas.
01:28:46
Speaker
It's usually wrapped up in a lot of pseudo-archaeology, so if you keep yourself aware of that and you have a look through what's available research-wise from reputable places, there's probably a lot on it. I don't focus myself on specific parts of history, I care a lot about how history is portrayed, and so I don't always know the answer to every question, so I'm sorry if that's not a good answer, but
01:29:15
Speaker
There's always more than just an idea of, well, you know. Okay. I have a fun question. If you were going to abandon the civilization and you were to leave like some clues, right? What clues would you leave? What clues would you leave and what would you want them to think happened?
01:29:32
Speaker
I would leave a toaster. I would leave lots of toasters everywhere. You know? Wait, would this be like ancient, like an ancient civilization? Yeah, ancient toaster. Wait, we just invented toasters. Wait, what? No, no, no. I'm going to make an ancient toaster out of like mud, you know? And it's got like a little, like, you know, like a tea light underneath and just like you have a candle underneath and it toasts your bread from below. That's why I would do it.
01:29:56
Speaker
because I think that would mess people up. It's like there's a bunch of archaeologists trying to make a joke at a pub once, and they all say, right, let's all be buried with toasters in our coffins. So if an archaeologist, you know, thought a hundred years, but digs us up, they'll all think we worship toasters, you know?
01:30:16
Speaker
And I just wonder how many times people were buried with silly things to the point where, hey, I just wanted this cool thing buried with me. It doesn't mean anything, you know? How many burials in the ancient world are shit burials, you know? Just like people messing with other people? I'm trying to think what I would be buried with. Hmm.
01:30:42
Speaker
I mean, people used to be buried with their favorite sword. People used to be buried with their favorite pet. And some people used to be buried with their favorite family member. You know, there was a lot of different options. A lot of options. A lot of options I wanted to be buried with. Oh, boy. Maybe like a plunger. I think a plunger is pretty good. Yeah, a plunge is good. It'll help you in the underworld. If I can get my whole town to get buried with plungers, I think it'll be good.
01:31:13
Speaker
Right. I got another question. Oh, oh, okay. Right. So I don't like there's, there's this theory. There's a lot of theories about people from Europe traveling to South America before anybody else did. Most of those are pretty
01:31:53
Speaker
There's a couple of interesting sites off the east coast of the US that have some interesting flint and interesting kind of remains, but there's a couple of researchers who've tried to link that to the type of stone tools that you found in Europe at the same time and they've tried to link them across the Atlantic.
01:31:56
Speaker
racist theories.
01:32:15
Speaker
The problem is that you don't really have the technology to get across the Atlantic at that time. That's why the Vikings to get to North America, they had to go through Greenland. But if you tried to go across open water from Europe to America, your boat would have sank. So yeah, there's not really the evidence for any European American kind of travel. So yeah, I.
01:32:43
Speaker
hmm think yeah well I found this I found this on Wattpad so I'm gonna believe this and said sorry about that
01:32:54
Speaker
uh okay oh i got another question have you heard people say mayan people don't exist anymore and they all disappeared yeah i've heard people say that but it's like it's racist nonsense once again the mayan people did not just disappear they live today in the descendants you know there's lots of native american people in south america who actually um at the moment um in some places are not treated very well and
01:33:24
Speaker
you know, we have to remember that like, there are indigenous people and native people all over the world, and they still live under the effects of colonialism, even hundreds of years or not so hundreds of years after colonialism was apparently ended. So no, mine still exist. Yeah, they're still there.
01:33:52
Speaker
Okay. Is there any more questions or is that everything?
Episode Reflection and Future Engagements
01:33:59
Speaker
i think we've been doing this for about yeah an hour an hour and a half now mhm mhm that's good yeah all right well uh... yeah i should really run this option i should tell others are from an interview of me to interview you i know i i like this this is good fun that was fun there was a lot of fun and i can't wait i i generally wanna watch an episode of ancient that'd be fun i think it'd be fun i'm gonna hate it every moment of it uh... that's what makes it fun
01:34:29
Speaker
of the
01:34:47
Speaker
the next episode will be an edited version of this conversation with Dylan but I've had lots and lots of back episodes that will you can listen to your heart's content oh yeah um yeah I've been that's that's that's me oh yeah follow me on twitter uh at an archaeologist um yeah that's that's really it
01:35:10
Speaker
Well, thank you very much. Oh, I really enjoyed this conversation. I have a million more conversations I want to have with you, if I'm completely honest. Yeah, that would be really cool. We should make this a thing if your listeners want it. Come on, guys, beg, beg. Jeez, okay, you're getting a little power hungry. I know I know. I mean, everybody, run away, you can. The British are going back at it.
01:35:46
Speaker
and I'll see you next time.
01:36:01
Speaker
on my ancestors was judge me and my clan.
01:36:22
Speaker
What we seek, broadening horizons say to thee It's a modern myth, oh yeah This age of darkness, little life for truth and might In this age of lies, we will rise Now it's clear, misconception's too healthy They told you what you ought to hear
01:36:51
Speaker
Why can't you say that the truth will set you free? Expose this modern man for me!
01:37:22
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.