16 - Preserving Global Heritage from Space in Times of War

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Conflict and the rise of ancient states have always gone hand in hand, along with the subjugation of peoples and their cultures. Countless examples of this activity exist in the historical and archaeological records. Each past victor has dealt with the suppression of peoples in differing manners: some have slaughtered entire towns, some have captured large numbers of individuals for use as slaves, while others allowed groups and cultures to survive, putting a governor or puppet ruler in place. In each case, the manner in which ‘culture’ survived was more a result of circumstance than anything else. For example, with the great Diaspora of Jewish peoples following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, the Torah became standardised, making polytheistic practices far less common and thus solidifying Jewish culture. In other cases, widescale destruction of cultural memory took place as a result of slavery, imprisonment or total annihilation of past peoples. Children surviving such incidents would be absorbed into other groups. In ancient Egypt, for instance, children of controlled groups in Syro-Palestine would be raised at the state court in Luxor, learning ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, religion and cultural practices (Bresciani 1990). Archaeologists have uncovered such past cultures only via carefully controlled archaeological survey and excavation.

Modern groups have faced and continue to face similar challenges. While photographs, video, digital audio and the internet (including such social media as Facebook and Twitter) record modern moments in time instantaneously for the world to see, collective memory is much more difficult to capture and transmit. This is especially difficult as village or town elders (more often than not local or regional cultural repositories) do not have access to such media to record their memories owing to low incomes or a lack of education and social norms that encourage its usage. In times of war these elders are under great threat, as they may lack general mobility or might be too frail to survive in a refugee camp. Musicians, artists and scientists might be specifically targeted by invading groups, as such creative people represent the essence of a targeted group's identity, but in many cases these people can be the first to escape a country in a time of war, as they may have better access to international connections to aid their escape.