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Leaving UNESCO and it's Effect on Archaeology - Episode 36
168 Plays7 years ago
On this episode of the Women in Archaeology Podcast we discuss the US's decision to leave UNESCO. We cover what this means for archaeology in the US and abroad, why the US made this decision, and potential political ramifications.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
US Decision to Exit UNESCO
00:00:05
Speaker
Hi, and welcome to the Women in Archaeology Podcast, a podcast about, for, and by women in the field of archaeology. On this episode, we will be talking about the US's recent decision to leave UNESCO.
00:00:24
Speaker
Joining me for this discussion are Jessica Irwin and Emily Long. Ladies, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Happy to be here. Perfect.
UNESCO's Role and Mission
00:00:36
Speaker
So to start off with, do either one of you want to talk a little bit about what UNESCO is?
00:00:45
Speaker
what they do. So UNESCO, the United Nations, it was founded after World War II and the many years of awfulness of World War II, to put lightly in a nutshell, and is primarily established to try to combat
00:01:02
Speaker
future extremism and try to promote peace. And a big part of UNESCO in general is to coordinate international efforts in education, science, and heritage remembrance. Certain programs that are being worked on right now include stuff like
00:01:23
Speaker
gender equality, clean water, sex education, trying to decrease the amount of extremism in the world in general, those types of programs in general. And it also created the World Heritage List Program and it administers the World Heritage List and all the sites that are on it.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, so there's actually a quote from UNESCO's founding constitution that I really like that speaks to the fact that the founders of UNESCO, of which the United States was one of the... Since the beginning. Right? Literally day one.
00:02:07
Speaker
But the founders of UNESCO saw fostering education, science, and culture as a way to encourage peace, not as a means of an end in itself. And the quote from the UNESCO founding constitution that was adopted on November 16, 1945,
00:02:28
Speaker
says that since wars began in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defense of peace must be constructed. I like that. Right? It's so great. That's a great quote. And talking about education and cultural heritage can help to create the defense of peace in the minds of men. If only that really worked.
00:02:57
Speaker
Right. Or at least better is probably the better way to put it. Yeah, works better. Let's say that. Yeah, because it's it's been working at different points at different times. Definitely.
Impact on World Heritage Sites
00:03:12
Speaker
But one of the things that UNESCO is most well known for are they are world heritage sites. And I think in
00:03:23
Speaker
The U.S., we have 23 current World Heritage Sites that include the Statue of Liberty and Mesa Verde National Park and Yellowstone National Park. And Philadelphia. The entire city of Philadelphia.
00:03:45
Speaker
Right. It's one of those, if you like it and it's old, it may be a World Heritage Site. Well, but also like with Philadelphia, the reason it's a World Heritage Site is because the idea of democracy for all was born there and that's something that the world can get behind or like the Grand Canyon is something that only exists in one place. So, but it's, you know, like the Grand Canyon
00:04:10
Speaker
should mean something for everyone. It's not just like we happen to have it in our country, so it's for America only. Exactly. Like the Statue of Liberty is a great example too, where it's such a symbol not only for the United States, but about immigration and being a melting pot and freedom and so on. Yeah. Exactly.
00:04:32
Speaker
So I know one of the things that people have kind of immediately thought about, or at least in conversations that I had, was, oh, UNESCO does World Heritage Sites. It's one of the things that they're the most well known for. What happens to our World Heritage Sites if we're no longer part of UNESCO?
00:04:53
Speaker
So, I mean, there's some good news here, right? And that the US ratified UNESCO's, in other words, their constitution or one of their early laws regarding the creation of World Heritage Sites. So if we're not part of UNESCO, like those sites are still World Heritage Sites because we in the US ratified the
00:05:23
Speaker
I think it's the original document that was created in 1945. Yeah. There's also the 1970 convention, and let me pull up the title.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property is ratified by 134 nations. And so even if you are no longer a member of UNESCO, you still have to follow those conventions, whether or not you have sites.
00:06:05
Speaker
world heritage sites in your country, you still have to follow it because the United States signed it. It was ratified, so hooray. No matter what, our world heritage sites are still hypothetically protected and have the same status whether or not the United States is part of UNESCO.
00:06:28
Speaker
Well, I'm more lucky as well because most of the World Heritage sites in the United States are managed by other agencies. So if it's Park Service or Bureau of Land Management or, you know, like they're managed by something like another agency. So they kind of have like double protection where other countries don't necessarily have those things. So the World Heritage listing is a lot more significant.
00:06:53
Speaker
like in, you know, Syria, for example. So, you know, we don't have to worry about it quite as much, but there are other really important sites in the United States that could be World Heritage Sites that I think now would have a lot harder of a time getting that designation.
00:07:13
Speaker
as well as the kind of like tourism that that brings and those other kind of supplementary things that having that prestigious title of being a World Heritage Site like brings with it. Definitely. You mentioned Philly earlier and that's actually an interesting site to talk about. And I don't know that there's a good answer that's come out yet that I've seen. But Philadelphia being
00:07:42
Speaker
both a city that has World Heritage Sites in it, but being a World Heritage City, I think there is some question as to whether or not the World's Heritage City designation might be impacted by leaving UNESCO, because it is different than being a World Heritage Site. And I've seen some kind of questioning opinion pieces, particularly from Philly newspapers and things.
00:08:11
Speaker
but I haven't really heard an answer as to what that's gonna mean. But the difference between being a World Heritage Site and a World Heritage City may end up playing into this a little bit. Do you know if UNESCO is also in charge of World Heritage Cities? I believe they are.
00:08:36
Speaker
I think what it is is that the designations are that apply to making it a World Heritage City have to be upheld by the city. Same like a World Heritage Site. You have to have certain standards of stewardship. You have to have certain standards of interpretation.
00:08:51
Speaker
or interpretation, there has to be access, so those kinds of things. So even if Philly were to say lose its designation, which I think for the World Heritage City, that is from, is that from 2001 that the United States did not ratify, then it's a little bit different because it's not part of our legal framework to keep it as such. But Philly, no one's gonna let Liberty Hall
00:09:20
Speaker
fall to the ground. Well, and I know with the world heritage cities, Edinburgh and Scotland has like UNESCO World Heritage status, the entire city does. And I know in terms of building codes, you know, if you're replacing windows, you have to go through the city council and make sure that the windows that you're replacing are the same size and that they look appropriate because it's like a certain amount of
00:09:50
Speaker
the city has to fall with under the heritage umbrella. And I know this mostly because I have friends who live in Edinburgh and complain about how long it takes to get work on buildings done as a result of the designation. Most people who live in historic downtowns and have to go through similar city planning. Oh, yeah. And Jessica, like you were saying earlier, too, is that we also have a number of other organizations in place, whether it's
00:10:20
Speaker
by the Park Service, or heck, I'm sure a lot of Philadelphia is on the National Register as well. They may have to uphold parts of the National Historic Preservation Act or the Secretary of Interior's guidelines for preservation. Even if it's a similar window situation and we're
00:10:41
Speaker
no longer part of UNESCO. And for some reason they're like, well, we guess we don't have to do any of the UNESCO rules. At least there's national historic preservation stuff they'll have to comply with as well or get an ARPA fine. So, so there. I mean, and that's like, that's great for what we have in the United States, but if it's not internationally.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, or an opinion or the ability to help any other
US Contribution and Withdrawal Effects
00:11:11
Speaker
places anywhere else protect their heritage. But that's for later in the show. Right. Oh yeah, that's a definite major issues that apparently we don't care about anybody else's. Right. But there's also issues for our own historical and culturally important sites in the US because
00:11:34
Speaker
This decision really sends a strong message that Trump is not invested in cultural heritage, that it's not important to him. And I think that there are probably going to be people down the line who realize that. And we've already seen with the
00:12:00
Speaker
you know, analysis of the national park designations that, and like, don't get me wrong, I'm super happy that people got as angry as they did about that. And that it blew up on social media. But I think that you really run a risk when you know that the people up top don't necessarily care about cultural heritage, that people might try and got some of those laws that do exist.
00:12:29
Speaker
We already see that happening. There's some new provisions are trying to do with the Antiquities Act, especially with what you're saying with the national monuments. And there have been a number of weird legislative attempts to weaken the National Historic Preservation Act so that you wouldn't have to do any kinds of compliance for particular projects. And the idea is that, oh, we're making things
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh, I can't think of the right word for it. They're making it easier. Well, they're saying it's streamlined. And that's a nice way of saying no compliance. And it's terrifying because the idea behind it is that they don't have to do any kind of compliance. And therefore, stuff will get destroyed. But they'll have said, oh, no, it's all part of the law. We're just streamlining it now.
00:13:26
Speaker
Chelsea, you're exactly right that it can set a really dangerous precedent. A lot of the articles just looking at this whole situation in general, they're saying, oh, it's just a symbolic move. But in the long run, it really may weaken what is the right thing to do in general.
00:13:45
Speaker
Well, I've been thinking a lot about this and the motivation for why these things are happening. And I think what it is is that right now, how our nation's politicians are looking at everything is by a monetary value. And if you don't understand the inherent value that cultural heritage has, not just in the United States, but also globally,
00:14:12
Speaker
then yeah, you see, you know, we're pouring money into the parks, we're pouring money into our national heritage sites, we're pouring money into our world heritage sites, but because the money and the value doesn't come back on a balance sheet, it, you know, it looks like, oh, okay, well, this is just, you know, like, here we go, here's more money. And so this pull, I feel like this pulling out of UNESCO, when we haven't paid our UNESCO bill,
00:14:40
Speaker
in a few years and they don't want to pay it is just saying that not only do we not value our cultural heritage, but we don't give it any value either. Yes, it doesn't bring us money, but it's not valuable to us because it doesn't bring us money. And that is what's sickening to me. The value of the heritage is that it equalizes us.
00:15:05
Speaker
It shows us what the past is. It shows us what we can do, what we can't do, where we should go, all of those lessons that are in history. And especially for UNESCO, right now their big focus is on their education front, is education for girls in Africa.
00:15:22
Speaker
You're going to tell me that Louise Leakey is not a good person to look up to and not something that we should be showing other young girls. You can be a scientist, you can be an archaeologist, you can be a historian because it's not putting black in your balance book.
00:15:41
Speaker
The thing is, a lot of these sites actually are putting black in somebody's balance book. They're helping our economy. People come from all over the world to see the Grand Canyon or to go look at the Statue of Liberty. There are sites that are world heritage sites that are important culturally relevant.
00:16:02
Speaker
important cultural sites in this country that bring in money, they bring in industry. And you're right, it's not quantified on an accountant's spreadsheet the same way that a business is. But
00:16:18
Speaker
I think it's important to put it out there that there is an economic aspect to these sites and that it's positive for the US. Oh, yeah. They provide jobs. They provide. If we're just looking at just the economic values, the business side of it, for the amount of t-shirts and goods that are sold at these kinds of sites to the jobs they provide, even if it's on a seasonal basis, to outside of, let's say, the Park Service for tourist industries.
00:16:48
Speaker
There's a ridiculous amount of money that is being made, but it's being overshadowed by the amount that people have to pay for, or that people, but the government is saying has to be paid in taxes and that we need to slash the budget because too much has been given to the parks. It's like, no, if you slash the budget, then all of these other jobs go away. It's like not a realization that to protect these places, you have to spend some money.
00:17:17
Speaker
Well, but also, if you look at a city like Philadelphia, when you go there, any home that you walk into, any hotel, any restaurant, any building, any bar, has somewhere, I promise you, a sign that says, like, when that building was built and what historically or culturally significant thing happened there. Even, like, modern buildings where you're like, oh, this restaurant was built in 1975, but, you know, drawn travel to eight here or something, like, there is, like,
00:17:46
Speaker
That is, you know, like people enjoy that. It gives them a sense of pride. It gives them a sense of connection because, you know, a famous person that you've heard of happened to be in this building or something important happened to happen on this street. And disregarding that is, you know, disturbing, but also
00:18:10
Speaker
the World Heritage Sites give that kind of connection to everyone towards who come internationally. And just by pulling out of UNESCO, we're just saying that none of that matters. We don't care about any of it. And to jump off of that too, supposedly the US can still nominate one site every year for ratification as a World Heritage Site. And so the US is still reaping some kind of benefit, even though they're
00:18:40
Speaker
technically pulling out of UNESCO. And it's just, you're right, it's wrong because we're showing that nothing else matters except our own stuff. And we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we're not contributing to the agency and helping protect these other places. It's a bad signal.
00:18:57
Speaker
Well, we're also a country of immigrants. Like my heritage is not in the United States. My heritage is in Ireland and it is in Germany and it is in Mexico. You know, like those places are important to me as well. Definitely. And it is really unfair for us to basically say we're still trying to reap the benefits of World Heritage sites and things, but we don't want to pay
00:19:27
Speaker
for the people who have to do the work to figure out what sites get to be World Heritage sites.
00:19:38
Speaker
Again, we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we're expecting people from countries that have less to cover our share of development. And to help and still protect our stuff too or provide the funds to continue our sites as well. Right. I've definitely seen some speculation of people being like, I don't know that we will get another one at least for several years because
00:20:07
Speaker
You know, there's going to be resentment. And, you know, it could actually really harm the ability for the US to get future World Heritage sites. Yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
Well, and in the grand scheme of things, the amount that we owe UNESCO, which is like, what, 35% of their budget, $800 million, is not- It's 22% of their budget. Okay. I was like, it's not that much though, really. When we think about our budget. Yeah, when you think about our budget, it's not that much. And the amount of good that it does in the world, I think empathy is something that might be missing from this decision as well.
00:20:52
Speaker
Definitely. So I think that's a good stopping point for our first 20 minutes. When we come back, we can talk a little bit about the reasons why the United States has said they're pulling out of UNESCO, as well as maybe some of our own opinions about why we think they're doing it. Us opinions? Who would have thought?
00:21:21
Speaker
Hey podcast fans, check out the Ark 365 podcast at www.arkpodnet.com forward slash ark365. That's A-R-C-H 365 for your daily dose of archeology. Each episode is less than 15 minutes long and we have some great guests recording about awesome archeology. We also try to throw in some definitions and basic archeological information. So check out the 365 days of archeology podcast only in 2017 at www.arkpodnet.com forward slash ark365 today.
00:21:49
Speaker
Find us also on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and Google Music by typing art 365 into the search. Now back to the show.
00:22:02
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Women in Archaeology podcast. On today's episode we have been discussing the potential ramifications of the US leaving UNESCO. We spent the last 20 minutes talking about some of the archaeological ramifications. We're going to segue into
00:22:22
Speaker
why the US says they're leaving UNESCO, slash why we think they're actually leaving UNESCO in this section, and some politics about that. So does someone want to kick us off with kind of the official statement? All right, so the official statement from the US department slash Rex Tillerson slash Trump is that UNESCO is having too much of an anti-Israel bias.
00:22:51
Speaker
And that was pretty much it. And they didn't really want to pay the debts. The amount of money that the US owes, it's unfair because there's really no reason. Because we owe that money. Because we decided to stop paying them.
00:23:15
Speaker
We have lost a lot of our voting rights in the UNESCO in the last four or five years because we stopped paying our dues and it was actually during Obama's administration that we stopped paying our dues and it was when UNESCO allowed Palestine to join and there is apparently an old archaic law from a while ago on our book somewhere that says
00:23:43
Speaker
The US will not pay money to any organization that has Palestine as a member, which was a law that was written by people who are pro-Israel. And when UNESCO allowed Palestine to be part of UNESCO,
00:24:04
Speaker
There was an understanding that the US was going to try and strike this law from the books, which Obama was very pro-doing, as were the ambassadors to UNESCO. But it was a Republican controlled Congress at the time, and they put a stalemate into it and basically refused to allow anything to happen.
00:24:24
Speaker
So yeah, we owe them a lot of money, but we also basically haven't paid our bill in several years. That's a problem. Oh yeah. And just one of the things trying to dig a little bit deeper into specifically what is the U.S. State Department saying is the anti-Israel bias.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's centered a bit around when this old city in Hebron, Hebron, H-E-B-R-O-N, was declared a World Heritage Site, but was declared for Palestine instead of Israel.
00:25:05
Speaker
And that really ticked off Israel and really ticked off the United States. And we're not Israel bashing here by any stretch, but it does become a bit dangerous whenever you're starting to politicize heritage.
00:25:24
Speaker
And that seems to be kind of what's going on here is like, you know, more than one country can have a World Heritage Site and it doesn't have to be just one country in particular. And it doesn't have to only represent one thing to one country, but
00:25:41
Speaker
It ticked off enough people that the US was like, we're out. And when that happened, then Benjamin and Yahoo of Israel, and I have a quote here, said, this is a brave and moral decision because UNESCO has become a theater of the absurd and because instead of preserving history, it distorts it.
00:26:01
Speaker
Whereas it seems to be actually the other way around, is that it's forcing the politicization, that's a word, the politicizing of heritage.
Politics and World Heritage Sites
00:26:14
Speaker
It's supposed to be like, this is a world heritage site, ta-da. Right. And particularly places that have been occupied for as long as that part of the world has been continuously occupied for,
00:26:33
Speaker
sites are going to have meanings to multiple different groups. No. Well, and I mean, logically speaking, like, I have friends who work in Haifa who do underwater archaeology there. And I am not exaggerating when I say that it's like, here is a 20th century shipwreck on top of an 18th century shipwreck on top of a 17th century shipwreck on top of a 16th century shipwreck.
00:27:02
Speaker
all just stacked on top of each other. There's been wars there for hundreds of years. There's been occupation there for hundreds of years. There's been agriculture there for hundreds of years. I think that being a country saying this World Heritage Site is ours is an oxymoron because how can a World Heritage Site only represent one perspective?
00:27:28
Speaker
It just doesn't work like that. And I guess, I mean, if for some reason the World Heritage Site descriptor, if you go onto their website, there's some wonderful explanations of the different kinds of World Heritage Sites there are. If it says, no, this was only for this thing and it purposely discounts other viewpoints that are legitimate, then yeah, that's when it becomes an issue. But it doesn't sound like that's been a problem.
00:27:55
Speaker
Really, it's trying to be like, look at all of these perspectives, look at how this is a heritage for all and represents many different important things. So yeah, you're totally right, Jessica, that it doesn't belong necessarily to one person or one group or one country. And when you try to do that, it's incredibly dangerous. Yeah, it definitely is. Well, that's the stated reason. Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
Who wants to talk about why they think? I think it's personal opinions. Who wants to start? There's a couple reasons why I think.
00:28:40
Speaker
One, I think that this administration has no regard for cultural heritage and wants an easy way out of a commitment that we're financially behind in because any time that we are not, you know, less money going out looks better for Trump.
00:28:57
Speaker
Two, I think that even though we're talking about the archaeology and the heritage part, UNESCO does do a lot of science. They also specifically do some pretty good climate science. So pulling any money away from that is also, you know, always like a bonus in certain people's books. But then I think that our
00:29:22
Speaker
our presence in the UN is even in question by certain people in administration. So why not pull back step by step and slowly erode the foundation for being global citizens? Like this is just the first piece of Changa at the base of the stack. But that's just my not bitter, not angry opinion.
00:29:51
Speaker
The thing I think is crazy is how this has happened before during, I believe, the Reagan administration. Would 1984 be the Reagan administration? And it's stated over like, oh, no, it's because of, again,
00:30:07
Speaker
anti-Israel bias, supposedly, and free market capitalism or not supporting enough of free market capitalism. Well, what do we think that it probably really was? It was probably about capitalism. And so this has shown it's been an issue before, and this is not a new thing. And it's interesting that it's under Reagan, whom
00:30:33
Speaker
is, you know, to be the best Republican ever, supposedly. But it's just, it's very strange that this has happened before. And again, kind of over a
00:30:50
Speaker
kind of jingoistic era, being like, let's go back to the good old days. And now we're going, again, let's get back to the good old days. Whereas- Oh, go ahead. I'd say that Make America Great slogan, that's very Reagan-esque. Yes. Because there are a lot of similarities.
00:31:13
Speaker
Exactly. And that kind of like, we need to focus on America, America first and all these things. It's like, United Nations has done a lot for everyone and we can't, you know, be isolationist. And even if we want to be more like, yeah, America, we have a lot of unique World Heritage sites that are Native American and wouldn't fit into Trump's little bubble of, you know,
00:31:40
Speaker
what he considers to be American heritage, if we look at the monument situation and his not taking umbrage with many situations that make us angry about neo-Nazis and whatnot. But it's just, it makes sense that he's trying to do this with how the United Nations has been treated in the past by other
00:32:10
Speaker
administration is probably the best way to put it. I think it is worth noting that it was Bush who had the U.S. rejoin UNESCO 2002 because, yeah, because he recognized the value of having a seat at that table. And yes, you can be like an observer member and not have the vote. And we currently don't have the vote because again, we're not paying our bills. But
00:32:40
Speaker
It's not the same as having a seat at that table, having a vote, being able to sit and say things. And that just because every vote doesn't go your way, doesn't mean you don't want to have a voice and you don't want to have a seat at the table. You don't have skin in that game. And also realizing that it's really, really important for
00:33:01
Speaker
broader international relationships and building the cross-country, cross-cultural communications. I mean, people between 1984 and 2002, you know, there was a less institutional collaboration between the US and other institutions abroad because they didn't have this forum to work off of. Now, my personal opinion is
00:33:31
Speaker
Right? I'm not opinionated at all. I don't know what you're talking about. I think there's kind of a two-fold thing going on here.
Global Impacts of US Withdrawal
00:33:40
Speaker
When UNESCO first started, I believe there were 37 member states in 1945. There are now 195, I believe. And it used to be very, very Western in nature. And over the years, it's shifted and you have
00:34:01
Speaker
more countries from different continents, from different cultural groups who are joining in. And I think that the weight of the US and their vote, I mean like if every vote is worth the same, but your vote used to be worth 137th and now it's worth one out of 200, like that vote is worth less percentage wise.
00:34:23
Speaker
And you do need to have more agreement with other countries to get what you want done. So I think there is a little bit of an idea among some people that we can't control it, so why are we part of it, which is wrong. One, and two, I think, and this ties in a little bit to what Jessica was saying earlier,
00:34:49
Speaker
Trump has not had a lot of wins, which I'm profoundly grateful for, right?
00:34:56
Speaker
He's done a bad job rolling back Obamacare. He's done his darndest to try and make it as difficult as possible to enroll. By the way, I think the current enrollment period is November 1st to December 15th, and they're not advertising that anywhere. So if you need health insurance and you're planning on getting it through the Affordable Care Act, you only have about six weeks to do that in. Sidebar.
00:35:23
Speaker
But this is a thing that he can say, well, we did this thing. And it's realistically a fairly easy thing because he doesn't necessarily need congressional approval, I don't think, to do this. Although it's a strange thing because a lot of people don't understand what UNESCO is. It is. But it's also he can sit there and he can say,
00:35:47
Speaker
You know, we owe them approximately $550 million, and that's $550 million that we're then not going to pay out, and it's going to help balance our budget. And don't get me wrong, the $550 million seems like a really big number. For the current year's federal fiscal budget that was put out by the government,
00:36:13
Speaker
The US military budget is $824.6 billion. Okay. The money that we owe to UNESCO, which would also be much, much, much smaller if we hadn't stopped paying our bill years ago. But that money that we owe them,
00:36:40
Speaker
is 0.0006 percentage of what the military budget is. I think I may put one extra zero in there. I was trying to count on my fingers at the same time. But it's, I mean, it's less than half a percent, right? It is a literal drop in the bucket.
00:37:05
Speaker
compared to just the military expenditure. That's not like the entire government expenditure, just the military expenditure. But again, it's something that if you don't know those numbers and you don't know those fractions, it seems like a big number and it seems like something is really being done. When in reality, all you're doing is not sending a very good international viewpoint.
00:37:34
Speaker
of the U.S., not that our international reputation is great at this point, but not. I get, too, that like UNESCO is not a perfect organization. Right. So UNESCO has its problems. You know, the United States in terms of employment and representatives is well, when we were in good standing, was listed as an underrepresented nation, which to me is like always kind of baffling because, you know, when you think of underrepresented nations, you think of, I don't know,
00:38:03
Speaker
like Tahiti or something, like some tiny country somewhere where they're like, yeah, that makes sense that, you know, there's only five employees from that country that work there. But, um, and, you know, we have, there are UNESCO conventions that we didn't ratify that deal directly with cultural resource protection. Um,
00:38:23
Speaker
I mean, obviously underwater stuff close to my heart is the 2001 convention, which specifically deals with underwater cultural heritage and the United States chose not to ratify it. So that's all fine. Like UNESCO is not a perfect organization, but like
00:38:39
Speaker
Needing a win is not a reason to just chop off a massive international collaborative arm of your potential government. Not at all. Not at all. Not saying that in any way, shape or form. The other side of that, let me just also add this little sidebar.
00:39:03
Speaker
Ms. Governor, former Governor Haley, now UN Representative Haley, when she, the first thing she did when she became governor of South Carolina was pretty much eliminate all of the cultural heritage laws in the state and as well as like eliminate, you know, some of the kind of section 106 compliance laws that were here in South Carolina. And so part of me is just not surprised that like she probably encouraged this and probably let this happen because that's just
00:39:32
Speaker
who she is and I want to be a feminist and say, you go girl, but I just can't, so.
00:39:40
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, how come the US did not ratify the 2001 underwater convention? Because they feel that it doesn't go far enough and that it's not enforceable in its current state. But the 2001 UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage is more like
00:40:06
Speaker
Like there's no reason not to ratify it. It's kind of like all of the other stuff that is, you know, we're pulling out of right now. Like, okay, it doesn't go far enough, but it does give some protection. So why not have minimal protections and then, you know, build upon it.
00:40:22
Speaker
But I think that the main political reason that it wasn't ratified is because they purposely did not address issues with the South China Sea and who that belongs to, because that's not UNESCO's job, you know, to decide whose water, whose territorial waters are what.
00:40:43
Speaker
So that's what the US wanted was like more leverage against those kinds of things. When in actuality, what they were saying was like, you know, you need to respect poor graves and you need to not impact cultural heritage sites and in international waters, you need to have collaboration before you build standing structures or drill or any of those kinds of things. So that's kind of why.
00:41:09
Speaker
Like if we had ratify it, it would have done, there was no penalty. There was like no bad downside to ratifying it. But there's also like, you know, a lot, it didn't go far enough was like the official reasoning. So. That's interesting. I'd be curious to see what other cultural resource heritage conventions they decided not to ratify on. Just to see kind of like, what are the real reasons behind this?
00:41:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that seems like a really great way to be like, here's the thing I don't want to do and I can give a reason and say face and look good saying it. And then also like not have to put my money where my mouth is. It's my own personal opinion. I'm just wondering like what hotel Trump wants to build on a world heritage site and that's why this is happening.
00:42:09
Speaker
Machu Picchu. Sorry, just kidding. Just kidding.
00:42:19
Speaker
Interested in archaeology? Want to hear from experts in the field about the latest discoveries and interpretations? Check out The Archaeology Show every other Saturday and let hosts Chris Webster and April Camp Whitaker take you deeper into the story. Check out The Archaeology Show at www.archpodnet.com forward slash archaeology and subscribe, rate, and comment on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and the Google Music Store. That's www.archpodnet.com forward slash archaeology. Now back to the show.
00:42:48
Speaker
Hi and welcome back to the Women in Archaeology podcast. On today's episode, we have been discussing the ramifications for the U.S. deciding to leave UNESCO. So far, we've talked a lot about the impacts to the U.S. In this section, we are going to shift our focus a little bit and talk to the broader international impacts that this decision could have on UNESCO and other countries and cultural sites around the world.
00:43:19
Speaker
Jessica, it seemed like you had a really good point over the break about the antiquities trade.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the things that UNESCO does is that it, well, the cultural arm of UNESCO is that it monitors the World Heritage sites that, you know, it designates. And particularly those sites that are in areas where there is conflict taking place, while they may not be able to put physical people on the ground to guard and watch those sites, they do monitor them using satellite imagery. They ask for reports from local people.
00:43:55
Speaker
You know and try to kind of educate and negate like illegal artifact trafficking and the most I mean the the most recent of these is Those places in Syria that have been seriously, you know destroyed and harmed by Isis so just in Syria there is a
00:44:21
Speaker
six World Heritage Sites. I know that I've seen the pictures of Palmyra that has been completely destroyed, but also the city of Aleppo, the city of Damascus, there's ancient villages in northern Syria, and all of these places, you know, ISIS has just gone in and destroyed, but because they were designated as World Heritage Sites, first they were really well documented
00:44:47
Speaker
even though Syria has never really had a huge archaeological component of its government. But they were well documented, they were well researched, they were open to international scholars because of this designation. And then as the atrocities have happened there, UNESCO has been monitoring them. And we've been able to see, day to day,
00:45:09
Speaker
the pitting the, you know, when the ISIS blew up the temple at Palmyra to just kind of know what's happening instead of going in after the fact, you know, who knows how long from now and just kind of discovering what's left.
00:45:27
Speaker
my worry with the United States pulling out is that we're not going to be able to contribute to that monitoring, that knowledge, and the whole space archaeology thing. It originates here with us. And we're lucky that those technologies have been able to be applied to these sites. And it's like, well, what's going to happen now? It's just a shame that we won't be able to be a part of that anymore.
00:45:58
Speaker
And to build off of that, now that cultural heritage damage, like the purposeful destruction of archaeological sites, like what you're talking about, Jessica can now be a war crime.
UNESCO's Cultural Protection Efforts
00:46:20
Speaker
now the United States can't really be able to contribute as much in terms of helping prosecute the destruction of cultural sites as a war crime with UNESCO, with the Hague, and so on. And yeah, I think you're right. It just sets a very, very bad precedent in terms of
00:46:43
Speaker
not being able to participate and then other countries may follow suit and just not care and not want to be part of the organization anymore and just say, we're out as well and follow along in the United States footsteps and who knows what will happen with UNESCO then financially, just how it's regarded as an organization, how these places would be protected and so on. Yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
A guy who's quoted in an article that we'll put in the show notes, his name is Peter Stone. He's the head of the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University, as well as a UNESCO chair. And he said, UNESCO is there and the whole of the UN is there to try to bring the worlds together. If a major player decides to leave, that weakens both the country and UNESCO.
00:47:35
Speaker
And yes, it's our inability to maybe have access to data or information about potential artifacts that are being trafficked from sites. But if we're not aware of that and trafficking is going on in the US, that's also incredibly damaging to the culture from whom those things have been stolen.
00:47:59
Speaker
It's not fair to them. And the amount of resources and time and energy that it takes to educate people,
00:48:09
Speaker
I understand that there is, you know, whole economies based on the looting of archeological sites. And it's not, you know, just in more torn places, but, you know, this is a whole economy. But UNESCO makes an effort to provide educational resources to smaller communities, to, you know, villages that are near important archeological sites to show them, like, you know, it's more sustainable to bring tourists to see your site than to dig holes in your site to sell a pot once.
00:48:39
Speaker
like sell a ticket to see it a hundred times rather than sell a pot once. And by not, you know, by not promoting that and not contributing to that education, like, first of all, we are a wealthy country.
00:48:55
Speaker
we are fortunate enough in our privilege that we do have professional archaeologists and historians, you know, like a plethora of them to provide, you know, to provide that kind of help and education if so asked. But also, you know, if we're just going to disregard it, then like, we're just saying that we don't, you know, we don't care about it. We shouldn't go as tourists then either. You know, if we're just going to disregard all of it, like, that's kind of well, that's how it feels to me. But I think I'd be a little dramatic.
00:49:26
Speaker
I don't know about that. I mean, I think it's really important that we engage in education and certainly our country is not free of faults for behaving inappropriately with archaeological materials in the past and unfortunately present sometimes as well.
00:49:58
Speaker
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem is almost the way that I look at it. UNESCO is great because it's this organization that in a lot of ways you can look to as an organization that sets the standards for what is the right thing to do, what is the moral thing to do. And if you are pulling away from that, you might weaken their authority in that area.
00:50:25
Speaker
And that's not good, because there are certainly countries that model what they do in their legislation on what UNESCO recommends. And I think that, again, UNESCO is not perfect.
00:50:44
Speaker
if you are from a small country and you don't have money to spend to do studies, to figure this out, having someone else that you can look at who's thought about it and maybe published and has recommendations can bring a lot of good to cultural management practices all over the world. Well, and fostering those partnerships are how we have professionals from here, from the United States, go to other countries to help
00:51:14
Speaker
like help advise on preservation and come up with, you know, okay, your, your collection can't be an air conditioned. It can't, you know, you're, you're in Africa. Like here's some things that we can do to help you, you know, preserve it or interpret it. And severing those ties just, it hurts everybody. Um, because, you know, there are places that don't have the resources to really invest in their cultural heritage, which is why we have UNESCO.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I know that everyone in the world has seen the movie Monuments Men or read the book. And that's where this idea comes from.
Future of US-UNESCO Relations
00:51:51
Speaker
The idea that cultural heritage and not just archaeology, but art and architecture is important.
00:51:59
Speaker
You know, we brought that idea out. We made it a priority in a war time. And the fact that like now we're just we can't be bothered is I think it's absurd. Like it it's just crazy. And the lack of care is really troubling and it really is following a trend in general in this administration, just a general lack of care for many different categories of things. But
00:52:28
Speaker
On the bright side, this doesn't take effect until December 31st of 2018. So there is time, hypothetically, to reverse the withdrawal. And there is always the possibility of rejoining. And one thing we can hope and strongly suggest, whether it's letters or just being very vocal,
00:52:57
Speaker
just showing that the United States, we want to be part of UNESCO, is that we can rejoin and perhaps in a future administration that could happen. So there is at least that it's not perfect and it's not a great solution, but at least there is always a possibility of rejoining as we have seen in the past with Bush rejoining UNESCO after Reagan.
00:53:24
Speaker
It could happen, and perhaps the withdrawal will not take place. We can just only hope that this doesn't set a precedent for other countries following suit. And I'm afraid I can't remember which
US Isolation and International Influence
00:53:39
Speaker
of you said it over the break, the hashtag, what was that? UNEX.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's like let's hope this does not become some like absurd trend that it's like yeah Let's let's leave without people understanding what it can really mean
00:53:58
Speaker
Well, I think too, though, that it's funny as a hashtag, but it also makes sense because we're doing the same thing. We want to lead, but we want all the perks. We don't want to contribute. We don't want to pay. We don't want to do anything. But we still want to see it at the table. And we still want all the perks of it. We want all the good parts of it, but we're not willing to put in the effort to contribute to the rest of it. So I think in that regards, it's kind of
00:54:25
Speaker
There's similar ties, but it can't just be a trending topic. This has long-term effects that are going to reverberate through the world, especially if we're the first domino. One of the really large contributing dominoes. Yeah, I mean, you can hope that
00:54:51
Speaker
the fact that the rest of the world is, and I think rightly does not have a wonderful opinion of our current leadership may convince some people to like, the following game is not a great idea. On the other hand, you know, we are a large world power, although the increasingly isolationist policy is that 45,
00:55:19
Speaker
keeps trying to engage in, I think are only going to weaken us internationally and makes our seat at the table less important and less serious to consider.
00:55:33
Speaker
Well, I also think if you're going to criticize an organization for not doing a good enough job or being corrupt, if it was your business that you owned and you felt that everyone who sat on your board was corrupt, you wouldn't resign. You wouldn't quit. You would get in there and do the work and find solutions from the inside to make it better. Screaming and crying outside the building is not
00:56:01
Speaker
going to do anything to change these issues that are supposedly the reason that we left. But I just worry that if we're not part of the monitoring system as well, and there are sites being looted,
00:56:20
Speaker
we're not always as responsible as we should be when we import artifacts or we buy artifacts into museums or, you know, like those kind of things. So, you know, I don't want 10 years from now when we haven't rejoined UNESCO, the music, the integrity of our museum and our museum collections and our interpretations here in the United States to be harmed because we're not doing due diligence because we don't have international collaborators in regards to global cultural heritage.
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's really important and worrisome, but an important thing to consider. I mean, we definitely saw in 1984 that collaboration between countries and between institutions from different countries and people of different cultures did decrease. So I think that's a very, very valid concern. Well, and I mean, if we're like, you know, we're all
00:57:20
Speaker
post-graduate school and graduate school kind of level, even just like a field school. I wasn't able to go to field school abroad, but that's what kids dream about when they dream about being an archaeologist, is going to Greece or going to Italy.
00:57:41
Speaker
going abroad to these like really ancient places and those are all international collaborations with international institutions with international universities and the reason that those kind of projects can happen are because of ties that are built through organizations like UNESCO. You know you can't just
00:58:02
Speaker
I was on one of those kinds of projects for my field school, and we were literally excavating right along a U.N. buffer zone, and we were visited by U.N. soldiers to make sure we were safe when we were excavating this place, and that wouldn't have not been possible without the U.N. and UNESCO. And I mean, it's just, sorry, it was just an example, just being like, yes, I know exactly what you mean. I mean, that project would have never been, never would have happened otherwise.
00:58:30
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, when you start out like as a, you know, bright eyed, bushy tailed undergrad, you know, you don't dream of digging shovel test pits like in Ohio, you know, 30.
00:58:46
Speaker
You want to have those amazing experiences. And those amazing experiences that you get to do every once in a while gets you through the kind of like mundane stuff. But the elimination of these kind of partnerships eliminates those possibilities as well. And history and anthropology and archaeology majors are finally making a comeback.
00:59:13
Speaker
Tell them before they get a good footing, I guess. Definitely. Now we are approaching kind of the end of our episode today. So if anyone has some more final thoughts that they want to
00:59:29
Speaker
get in before we have to say goodbye. Sure. More than anything, and I feel like I repeat myself on every episode is just be aware.
Public Awareness and Cultural Heritage
00:59:48
Speaker
Be aware of what's going on.
00:59:50
Speaker
Because I think it's really easy with the amount of news that is thrown at us every single day, it's easy to let something like this kind of slip on by. I wasn't even that aware of the situation, and I'm an archaeologist. And so I think it's incredibly important for us to be consistently aware of what type of things that are happening in terms of our cultural heritage, what's going on, see if there's anything we can do to
01:00:20
Speaker
halt the progression of things like this, or at least slow it down, or get our voice heard that we may not agree with it, that kind of thing. Because, I mean, withdrawing from UNESCO, it's a big deal. And I think it's really going to harm the role of the United States and its view, like everyone's view of the United States when it used to be like a leader of the world and so on.
01:00:49
Speaker
I know it was a bit rambly, but just in general, we just need to be aware of what's going on. Otherwise, who knows what's going to be the next thing that's going to come up. Yeah. I think be aware is great. Isolationist policies benefit no one. You know.
01:01:16
Speaker
I think along those lines, like my final thought is just as an individual, be a global citizen, care about more than what's just happening in your own backyard. And this should
01:01:32
Speaker
If you travel, if you want to travel, if you have ever gone to a museum on a vacation or think archaeology is cool in any way, ship or form, like this should outrage you. And if you are not
01:01:49
Speaker
I don't know. If you think that you're just an American, then fine, okay, go live in your box. But if you know that your family came from somewhere other than the United States, then this should outrage you and upset you because it's disregarding your personal heritage as well.
01:02:06
Speaker
Definitely. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining me tonight. It is always a pleasure and I always feel like I learned so much from you. And as always, if you have comments or questions about this episode, we can be found on Twitter at womenarchies, or you can always email us at womeninarchaeology at gmail.com.
01:02:32
Speaker
And again, ladies, thank you so much and I'll see you next time! Thank you! Bye!
01:02:45
Speaker
We hope you have enjoyed the show. Please be sure to subscribe and rate our show wherever you listen. We are available on iTunes, Stitcher, and probably whatever your favorite podcasting app is. Remember to like and share. If you have questions or comments, you can post them in the comment section for the show at the Women in Archaeology page on the Archaeology Podcasting Network site, or email them to us at womeninarchaeologypodcast.com. This show is part of the Archaeology Podcasting Network,
01:03:13
Speaker
and is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle. You can reach them at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Music for the show was Retro Future by Kevin MacLeod, available at Encomptep and Royalty Free Music. Thanks for listening.
01:03:33
Speaker
This show is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle and was edited by Chris Webster. 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 chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.