Heritage, power and identity, p. 29-53

• We begin our investigation of the political and social uses of heritage and their role in the construction, elaboration and reproduction of identities
• The key and universal question that underpins the debate is: whose heritage? There are two facets to this issue: what is identified as heritage, and how is it interpreted? In either case, selection is involved and, consequently, dissonance will occur
• As that selection and its accompanying discord will reflect wider power relationships in society, the chapter begins with a discussion of two analogies to heritage, landscape and museology, both of which help underline the ways in which social phenomena are mediated through a mesh of conflicting and contested identities
• Although heritage is largely symbolic in its representation of identity and landscape, that in itself does not deny the politics of representation that underlies any formation of heritage, no matter how apparently benign this may be 
• To geographers, 'landscape' has meant different things at different times in different places
• Contemporary cultural geographers, however, regard landscapes less as places shaped by lived experience than as largely symbolic entities 
• It has already been observed that other commentators see landscape somewhat differently as a polyvocal text, rewritten as it is read, albeit more commonplace as something to be viewed
• As the 'places [in] which the processes of modernization...symbolized the idea of 'modernity', modernist museums reproduced ideas of order and progress, 'with their roots firmly placed in industrialization and urbanization'
• McLean argues, however, that many museums were founded for precisely the opposite purpose of conveying a sense of national pride to a country's citizens, a function which they still retain, for the advent of the postmodern does not in itself deny the continuing importance of a national dimension to identity

Implications for heritage

• both are characterized by a complexity of images and a polyvocality of interpretation reflective of a wide array of social differences
• none the less, the images portrayed are selected by someone, thereby raising issues of privileging or suppressing particular viewpoints; 
• however, a single landscape or museum display can be viewed simultaneously in a variety of ways, which means that ostensibly hegemonic interpretations are open to subversion

Heritage, power and collective memory

• The notion of a privileged interpretation of heritage suggests its appropriation as the recognized inheritance of a particular social group
• This act of empowerment inevitably carries the corollary that all heritage necessitates disinheritance of some sort for some people in some circumstances
• An interesting variant of these processes is deliberate self-inheritance, whereby, to varying degrees, a population challenges or denies its own heritage as changing circumstances destroy its relevance or utility 
• These linked ideas of appropriation and disinheritance emphasize that the nature and shaping of heritage is intimately related to the exercise of power, heritage being part of the process of defining criteria of social inclusion --and by extension --social exclusion 
• The embodiment of public memory in landscape provides an apparently robust example of the ways in which representations of place are intimately related to the creation and reinforcement of official constructions of identity
• Following Pierre Nora, Johnson suggests that real environments of memory have been replaced by sites or places of memory in these discourses of inheritance
• We can illustrate this point through the varying attitudes in Ireland to landscapes of remembrance of the dead of the World Wars
• Heffernan argues that the war memorials and cemetaries of World War I's Western Front in north-east France --muted, serene, peaceful and intensely moving -convey no real sense of sacrifice to the nation state
• The carnage of the Somme and the other battlegrounds of the Western Front can also be read, however, as a memory of shared loss, the sacrifice of the 'sons of Ulster' matched, for example, by that of the mainly Catholic 16th (Irish) Division around Messines in the several Battles of Ypres
• Both the Irish monuments at Messines and Thiepval are essentially unofficial heritage in that although the state recognized, they are administered by private organizations -respectively the Journey of Reconciliation Trust and the Somme Association
• We explore this fragmentation of meaning of memory and heritage further in Chapter 4, but return here to the import of Johnson's conclusions that heritage privileges and empowers an elitist narrative of place
• Dominant ideologies create specific place identities, which reinforce support for particular state structures and related political ideologies
• It is, however, the fragmented and inconsistent nature of the interrelationship between memory and heritage, and the dichotomy between official and unofficial representations and even forms, which substantially undermines the notion that heritage does provide the state with legitimacy, even though, somewhat paradoxically, this clearly remains one of its continuing sociopolitical functions
• This desire to capture the fragmented in the antithesis of the ordered world of historical continuity vested in the nexus of modernity and the nation-state 
• Alongside this complex role is the validation of power structures, heritage is also deeply implicated in the construction and legitimation of collective constructs of identity, such as class, gender, ethnicity, and nationalism
• While Lowenthal sees the past and its reconstruction as heritage providing familiarity, guidance, enrichment and escape, the traits which he identifies also fulfill the function of validating and legitimating a people's present sense of sameness
• The benefits of the past and heritage are, moreover, counter-balanced by its costs, largely derived from the privileging of one social group's viewpoint at the expense of those of other groups and peoples
• Despite these qualifications, the notion of Otherness is fundamental to representations of identity, which are constructed in counter-distinction to them
• Human society has always tended to internal division, even where superficially homogenous in cultural characteristics 
• Heritage is largely consumed by the middle classes
• The initial widening of the range of heritage representations beyond the artefacts of past and present elites was largely driven by commercialization
• Nevertheless, the growth of the heritage industry did provide economic opportunities to many depressed industrial areas
• The recognition of industrial heritage has diffused globally 
• By comparison with the ubiquity of class in the heritage debate, other axes of social differentiation, most notably gender, still appear as more marginal and tentative dimensions
• Modernity was dependent on the construction of the inferiority and difference of women, other races and the working classes, all defined as pre-modern, primitive and still located in the immanent world of nature
• Whichever, the key point is that both viewpoints are gendered constructions, which privilege masculine authority  
• None the less, there is some evidence that Lowenthal's claim that heritage 'is traditionally a man's world', 'men having... monopolized the transmission of history; is now less appropriate as women challenge the patriarchal and unrepresentative nature of so many representations of culture 
• Homosexuality and disability have also acquired distinct profiles in recent heritage recognition 
• Ethnicity is arguably the most fundamental basis of perceived distinction between human groups
• The power of attachment to ethnic identity underlies the importance of ethnic heritage, as the vehicle of transmission and legitimization of that identity through time
• Thus, despite its questionable and sometimes unsavoury resonances, indeed in part because of them, ethnicity is of cardinal importance as a basis for social conflict
• The linguic demarcation of ethnic and indeed national identity is particularly characteristic of Europe, language being the principal delineating factor in the creation of nation states
• None the less, twentieth-century Europe has seen far more strident appeals to linguistic identity 
• Language-based identity, and its fragmentation both between and within states, is by no means confined to Europe
• Heritage is, of course, central too the transmission of these identities, language becoming ingrained in the very built environment
• Although such linguistic population/heritage mislocations around the world can sponsor irrendentist claims to lost territory, they can also be resolved by gradual, undramatic unravellings and reweavings from past to present
• Globally, religion, either alone or in association with language, frequently forms the basis of ethnic identity and influences the way in which this spills into nationalism
• Religion can constitute the most powerful foundation to the social and political uses of heritage
• Paralleling the relationship between heritage and language, religious heritage can also be mislocated
• Although they are often difficult to separate, ethnicity and 'race' are distinct social phenomena and should not be conflated
• Hobsbawm and Ranger argue that most European national identities are the products of the nineteenth century
• Although the traditional genetic definition of 'race', defined above all by skin color and physiogamy, remains among the most important contributions to 'visible minority' status, 'race' has received little attention in the heritage debate
• It is readily apparent that the fragmented, inchoate nature of identity militates against any straightforward interpretation of the construction of heritage 

05/11/207 Garrick Theater

• demolished in 1961
• made into a parking lot
• Chicago Stock Exchange Building 
• a lot of buildings were demolished in Chicago 1950-1970

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

850,000

• dense city
• trading post for much of Europe

Bali

• in middle of Indonesia
• priests lead temple
• water conflict

Ruta Puuc -Hilly Route

• fishing town
• $6 round trip tour of the 5 sites starting in the state capital
• UNESCO, International entrepreneurs
• The way to survive in Mexico is to be a part of the tourism economy 
• Uxmal, Luz y Sonido, light and sound show, watch a recreation of Mayans projected on the ruins

Kathmandu Valley

• cultural center of Nepal
• massive earthquake, damage 133 monuments
• lobbying government bodies
• pledge to transfer reconstruction
• would the lowest bidder care for the authenticity?
• UNESCO involvement, criticized the lowest bidder system
• campaign to rebuild Kasthamandap
• who will reconstruct?
• will lowest bidder be discarded?
• How will the local collect fund?

05/09/17 Presentations

• India/Pakistan border
• thumbs are used to terrify 
• once a day at sunset
• humanizing 
• sharing in the spectacle
• 2007, bombing on the Pakistan side
• put tensions on display

Aktopraklik Hoyuk

• archeopark, preservation and presentation of an archaeological site in the area where it originally 
• dates to Neolithic period

Reasons impact would be good

• nearby a large city
• already active local public outreach
• new museum
• may help increase public interest

Turkish government

Do 

• emphasize uniqueness, appeal to nationalistic pride and ownership
• show economic benefit
• focus more on the recent Turkish heritage aspect
• Link the site to Europe
• Promote multiple things to see
• Universal heritage (potential link between continents, beginning move towards modern life)
• Potential for education
• Interactive experience
• Ease of access

Don't

• promote the Neolithic era only
• involve foreign students, workers, scholars as the leads
• critique the government in any way 
• Display only the square holes in the ground 
• move forward without consulting the local population
• assume anything
• speak on their behalf

Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan

Need for improvement/caution

• lack of parking
• poor local transportation
• human traffic effects active excavation
• additional protection needed

Other Potential Stakeholders to Consider

• The surrounding factories/business
• scholars involved in the research of the site

Likely opposition from locals and forced control from government 

many countries have legislation-any artifact that is found becomes the property of the federal government

preservation or reconstruction?

Destruction of Buddhas

• 33,000,000 population in Afghanistan
• lowest living standards in the world
• problems with medical care, housing, electricity, housing
• weak government

History of the Buddhas

• caravan route
• monks lived as hermits
• digged and carved religious statues
• extremist groups have destroyed idols and sacred sites
• groups eliminate the history of a culture 

Taliban

• rid the country of all pre-Islamic "icons"
• felt worship and presence of other religions to be inferior
• forced worshipping citizens to carry out deeds

Locals and Government Officials

• statues had become a part of Bamiyan and their way of life
• Bamiyan felt like their time has been wasted
• torn on decision to rebuild or keep left alone
• does not care about building material used
• fears rebuilding will make them a target to extremist groups 

UNESCO

• Germany, France, Japan and China have gotten involved
• Efforts have been made difficult by UNESCO policies
• UNESCO feels efforts should be placed to preserve other sacred sites in Bamiyan
• Claims restoration will be impossible

Will it be Restored?

• government feels UNESCO is making the process difficult 
• clear call to future generations 

Cultural Heritage of Auschwitz: Traumatic 

• 194 miles to the Southwest of Warsaw
• 1940, Germany conquers France
• 1941, United States is no longer a neutral nation. Send goods to France and United Kingdom

case to destroy

• starvation
• deprivation
• control

Preserve

• memorial to victims
• educational attraction
• tourism

People are not playing homage/respect

There is no connection

How to deal with getting people to connect with the site

Many people are not going to respect the intense trauma associated with the site 

Buffalo Grain Elevators

• unused space that could be used 
• Joseph Ellicott, plans for village of Amsterdam>village of Buffalo
• incorporated as a village
• western terminus of Erie Canal
• Buffalo incorporates as a city
• First free school system in New York State
• Joseph Dart invented the steam powered Grain Elevator
• Wells-Fargo railroad between Buffalo and Albany
• Population increased over 80,000 people
• Frederick Law Olmstead commissioned to design parks
• 1880: 155,134
• 1990: 255,5663 
• 1896: electricity is transmitted to Buffalo from Niagara Falls
• 1990: 352,387, 8th largest city in the U.S. 
• 1901, Pan American Exposition
• 1920, 606,575 11th largest
• 1940, 575,901 14th largest
• 1960, 20th largest 
• 2010, 261,310 73rd largest
• Grain Elevator invented in 1842
• mechanical unloading and handling of grain
• turned Buffalo into one of the largest cities in the United States
• made the City Beautiful movement possible
• local corporations, upper-classmen and industrialists were able to convince Olmstead "the Father of Landscape Architecture" to come to Buffalo
• Joseph Dart, lawyer, businessman, and entrepreneur
• Dart went into the hat and fur business
• Dart learned how to speak Iroquois
• Dart became a trusted businessman with the Native American
• Dart, financed the building 
• Robert Dunbar, born 1812 in Scotland, learned mechanical engineering, took control of a shipyard in 1830s
• Dunbar moved to Black Rock, New York, constructed flourmills
• Dunbar designed and built nearly every grain elevator in Buffalo
• Buffalo had free public schooling before New York City had free public schooling 

Rivaling Perspectives: Discussion on Modernism, Dresden, and the Waldschlobchenbrucke

• Cory Holzerland, Presenter
• Dresden, was delisted as a World Heritage Site
• Elbe River begins in the Czech Republic
• Travels 680 miles emptying into the North Sea
• Formed the Border between East and West Germany
• Dresden listed as a WH site in 2004
• 2009 delisted
• 1990, new transportation plan
• 1996, open competition for designers of bridge
• 2000, ground was broken for bridge
• 2004, delay in construction
• 2006, construction scheduled to begin
• 2009, court decides tunnel would be more harmful
• 2012, Bat Guidance systems added
• Global Perspectives, UNESCO, ICOMOS
• National Perpectives, Party Leadership, German Federal Court
• NGO's
• Free State of Saxony, Saxon Higher Administrative Court, Saxon Constitutional COurt
• Political Parties
• Local Perspectives, Dresden
• modern: adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world and that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know. 
• modernity is a dichotomy between destruction and progress
• Rework UNESCO's definition for "Outstanding Universal Value"
• Planning for Preservation
• History is a continuum, and all that is solid will eventually melt into air
• Regional plans to build the bridge 
• There was a coalition that would favor environmental protection: Green Party, Green League 

Old cities, new pasts: Heritage planning in selected cities of Central Europe

G.J. Ashworth, J.E. Tunbridge

• Heritage is the contemporary usage of a past that is consciously shaped from history, its survivals and memories, in response to current needs for it
• If these needs and consequent roles of heritage, whether for the political legitimacy of governments, for social and ethnic cohesion, for individual identification with places and groups, or for the provision of economic resources in heritage industries change rapidly, then clearly we expect the content and management of that heritage to do likewise
• The cities of Central Europe have long been the heritage showcases that reflected the complex historical and geographical patterns of the region's changing governments and ideologies
• The abrupt economic and political transition and reorientation of the countries of Central Europe has, thus, unsurprisingly, led to many equally abrupt changes in the content and management of urban heritage throughout the region
• The uses made of heritage are clearly drastically changing but so also is the way that heritage is currently managed
• What is happening, as well as how, is however uncertain and investigated here
• The revolutionary eradication of a rejected past, a return to some previous pasts or the beginnings of a new past in the service of a new present are all possibilities
• Answers are sought to these questions through the examination of a selection of cases of types of heritage city and their management in the region
• These include an archetypical European gem city (Eger, Hungary), a tourist-historic honey-pot (Cesky Krumlov, Czechia), a medium-sized multifunctional city (Gdansk, Poland), a major metropolis (Budapest, Hungary), the relict anomaly (Kaliningrad/Konigsberg, Russia) and the national cultural center of Weimar
• It may seem perverse to include an article concerned with the pasts of the cities of Central Europe in a special issue that focuses upon their drastically changing present and uncertain futures
• However, a central part of the transition now underway is a rejection of many aspects of an immediate past, a resuscitation of other, previously suppressed, pasts and  a reconstruction of a new past in the service of the newly envisaged futures
• The argument here is based upon the definition of heritage as the contemporary uses of the past
• The interpretation of the past in history, the surviving relict buildings and artefacts and collective and individual memories are all harnessed in response to current needs, which include the identification of individuals with social, ethnic and territorial entities and the provision of economic resources for commodification within heritage industries, of which tourism is the most apparent
• The focus here will be upon the built environment as the most visible of such heritage resources and the point where the link between a conserved past and more general planning and management aspects of cities is most obvious
• Despite its historical and geographical differences, the region shares, however, a number of common characteristics relevant to the management of heritage
• Its geopolitical position between German-Hapsburg and Russian-Slavonic realms and subsequent history had created a social and ethnic spatial complexity 
• Clearly changes in the management of heritage cannot be divorced from the many other changes that have impacted on, or are just reflected and amplified by, the cities of the region in their functions as national or regional symbols, showcases or experimental archetypes
• One of the most noticeable consequences of the change in economic philosophy and almost symbolic of it, is the shift in emphasis from public to private responsibility: from the nationalization in the collective interest to privatization and commercialization
• Although a large part of the preservation and presentation of heritage has always been a public sector responsibility, the direct impact of this change has been less in other spheres of public responsibility such as housing, industry, or transport
• The change in political ideology led inevitably and rapidly to a dismantling of much of the apparatus of the directive state and has left a legacy of a distrust of planning systems
• The abolition of some existing planning structures and their replacement by others, as the need for some forms of regulation became obvious, has created uncertainty
• There is an additional simple point that much of the preservation of heritage resources whether monuments or museums has been, and remains, a public sector responsibility 
• Attempts to correct currently perceived injustices of previous regimes have focused upon the return of dispossessed properties to former individual or collective owners
• The largest institutional disposed owner in some parts of Central Europe was the Catholic Church
• The return of properties, many of which in this case are major historic buildings, not only is a form of privatization of a collective past, but in practical terms presents an enormous financial cost of maintenance, as well as management of potential major tourist resources, to an organization, lacking, at least within these jurisdictions, both the appropriate financial and managerial resources
• In terms of heritage there is also a positive side of the balance sheet in that communist stewardship of the past was guilty of much neglect,  especially in the latter period of economic stringency, and especially when the heritage was a reminder of previous dynastic or religious allegiances
• There are thus various general changes in economic and governmental philosophy whose effects are being felt upon the management of the conserved build environment but whose actual impact remains unpredictable
• Not only has the way that heritage is managed changed, so also have the uses made of it and thus the context of this heritage
• The change in uses of the past most obvious to both residents and casual visitors has been in its ideological component 
• All new governing ideologies recast heritage: and communism has left an enormous legacy of monuments, street names and public iconography 
• Answers to the first question necessitate separating currently undesirable from other messages
• For example liberation war memorials commemorate not only the triumph of communism but also the sacrifice of ordinary Soviet soldiers in the welcome defeat of a fascist tyranny
• More generally, the question is raised as to whether a past should and could be publicly ignored
• There are many arguments in favour of an official policy of collective amnesia
• Changes in political uses of heritage involve more than just the negative removal of past communications
• They also involve new interpretations in support of the new state structures
• There are a number of arguments in favour of promoting an explicitly nationalist heritage
• However, merely to turn the clock back, replacing one iconography with its predecessor, is rarely possible, or given the political character of most of the pre-1940 regimes, considered desirable
• The two states least encumbered with embarrassing and distracting internal minorities and external claims are post-Trainanon Hungary and the Czech Republic, which expelled its German minority, and more recently shed its minorities in Slovakia
• Post-1945 Poland is similarly much more culturally homogenous than the post-1919 state, having largely lost its Ukranian, Lithuanian, German, and Jewish minorities
• All national heritage interpretations face the problem of managing the heritage of non-conforming socio-cultural groups
• These may threaten the integrity of the national narrative by presenting an alternative competing nationalism or just by their presence raise distracting and possibly discordant heritage messages
• Thus, it is overseas voices, largely from Israel and the US who question the ownership of heritage property or the appropriateness of adaptive reuse 
• The discovery of the potential functions of heritage in local economic development has been encouraged by the example of western role-models in which heritage, and more broadly culture, has been an integral part of development strategies
• If cities such as Edinburgh or Florence can be seen to successfully base their development upon cultural resoruces, and even cities with few previous cultural pretensions such as Frankfurt am Main, Lille or Glasgow are investing in aspects of culture for its perceived economic benefits, then the temptation for the Central European cities to follow such examples is almost irresistible
• However, there are three already apparent, but as yet immeasurable difficulties
• The first is that although policies for high quality environmental and cultural amenity have become important in the competition between established western cities for economic enterprises, it is not self-evident that such strategies alone can initiate development
• Secondly, new economic impulses, however generated, are as likely to require new building much of it in the central historic districts, as to provide new uses for old structures
• Such changes in the context and method of heritage management and in the demands made upon heritage needs exemplifying in specific cities
• The choice of cities for consideration is inevitably somewhat arbitrary and each is necessarily unique in both its endowment and the demands made upon it
• Eger, national symbol or European resource?
• This small town in Hungary can stand as the archetypical sacralised historic city whose symbolic importance far outweighs any other function
• Its history is easy to sketch
• Its heritage role however can be dated to the last decades of the nineteenth century corresponding to the burst of self conscious Hungarian nation-building that was released by the Imperial 'compromise' of 1867 which culminated in the celebration of the Magyar state in 1896
• The post-Second World War period witnessed the implementation of systematic preservational measures, but also some major threats to the resource
• On the one hand the new communist government had a programme of planned industrialization and extensive social housing provision for a rapidly growing population, which rose from 38,000 in 1960 to 60,000 in 1980: both led to unsightly high-rise intrusions in both the Medieval and Baroque towns
• On the other hand, while having little official interest in monuments to either bourgeois nationalism or baroque Catholocism, both local and national governments had a considerable interest in legitimating their rule and associating themselves with Hungarian self-identity as purveyed through the state-building mythologies
• The post-1990 period opened up so many towns as this throughout Central Europe to Western tourists eager to expand new horizons and attracted to the remarkable ensemble of Baroque buildings of international importance
• Cesky Kumlov: a future in tourism?
• The small Czech town of Cesky Krumlov, 160 km south of Prague is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site on the basis of the quality and intact integrity of its built environmental heritage
• It is typical of many such small towns, which in Western Europe have fostered a considerable and profitable tourism industry and which in Central Europe are awaiting imminent mass discovery by heritage tourists tourists with a mixture of over-optimistic expectations and over-pessimistic foreboding
• The simple economic equation is to use the profits from heritage tourism to provide the support for the maintenance and restoration of the heritage resource
• The first two are more widely applicable, namely; the equitable distribution of tourism's economic costs and benefits and the potential dissonance in the heritage product itself
• The third difficulty stems from the consequences of the problem of the 'right of return'. 
• A high proportion of the building stock especially in the central areas, was previously owned by either Germans, expelled by the Benes decrees of 1945, or Jewish victims of the Holocaust
• All three difficulties can be related in that German investment may be dependent upon some solution in the dispossession issue perhaps within wider discussions of accession to the European Union
• Heritage in Budapest reflects the oscillation between national and supra-national roles: between the exclusive heritage of a distinct ethnic group, being used to define and separate Hungarians from neighbouring peoples, and the more all inclusive heritage of a multi-ethnic imperium which places Hungary within much wider ideological and cultural European contexts
• The idea of Hungary as the eastern bastion of western Christendom against the Turk created a single consistent race enemy which could be used in two different ways
• The post-Mohacs Turkish conquest, occupation, and subsequent liberation, provides an interpretative theme uncomplicated by any surviving Turkish or convert Islamic cultural group (as in Bulgaria or Bosnia) or by any notable surviving physical structures
• Although all the Eastern European and Balkan states make some use of the 'eastern barbarian hordes', it has been of particular value in Hungarian state building
• To these contradictions from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be added those deriving from the subsequent Hapsburg liberators/conquerors
• As an imperial capital Budapest participated in the nineteenth century urban-industrial development of the empire
• The heritage of Hungarian ethnic nationalism stands in stark contradiction to the imperial heritage
• The numerically small, culturally distinct, Magyar identity is seen as threatened from both strangers within and enemies without
• Thus, Budapest illustrates both the potential contradictions between national and European heritage and flexibility in heritage policy that can resolve these
• A distinctive national Hungarian heritage (with the crown of St Stephen, returned from exile in the US, in the national museum as its central icon) can be supplemented with a "Roman Budapest' (notably the 'Aquincum' excavations) that predates the first Magyar settler by a thousand years and German, Jewish, Slavonic and perhaps even Turkish legacies, appropriate for a 'European' capital
• Gdansk: compositing a multi-cultural heritage
• The ambiguity of the heritage of Gdansk reflects its position between Germany and Poland
• Historically a Polish foundation, it was gemanised by a combination of military and economic conquest in the fourteenth century
• The obvious heritage question therefore is what and whose heritage have the Poles reconstructed and reinterpreted in Gdansk since 1945 and how have the reorientations since 1990 affected this heritage
• Despite these political changes and military disasters, centuries of mercantile wealth have contributed a streetscape of outstanding buildings in the historic core which have associations with both the Hansa period for Germans and with the Polish nobility for Poles
• Each of these themes could be interpreted as either the national heritage of resistance and eventual overthrow of alien political and cultural domination or, conversely, as the composite heritage of German/Polish historical interaction or as a more general European heritage commemorating major European, even world, themes and events
• The reconstruction of Gdansk accordingly raises particularly delicate issues of heritage identity
• However, sufficient continuity of architectural and mercantile tradition persisted throughout the city's political vicissitudes that the Poles had no difficulty identifying with the results of their reconstruction
• Medieval and Renaissance architectural styles in Gdansk have wide currency in Europe and also have a local accent which, although associated with the Hansa traditions emanating from Northern Germany and Flanders, has Baltic regional rather than nationalistic overtones
• Furthermore Polish iconographic elements persisted into the twentieth century, although subject to some Nazi removal
• Naturally all specifically German streetscape iconography has now disappeared
• The pressures against developing an exclusively Polish national heritage relate to both the demand for and supply of heritage products
• On the demand side Germany is the most obvious tourism market for formerly German cities in Poland 
• In practice, however, some market segmentation is occurring both in the heritage sold and the medium of its sale
• In the historic core, the Germans are the dominant market and official Polish tourism perspectives are available to them in German brochures 
• Gdansk is peculiarly well equipped to project a recast European heritage identity rather than a Polish nationalist one
• It is a product of two main cultures, with minority contributions from Jews and others (notably Flemish/Dutch architectural styles)
• Its distinctive Hanseatic identity, while of Germanic origin, is nonetheless a multinational Northern European regional idiom that does not in itself carry overtones of nationalistic oppression and is generally recognized in the tourism industry 
• Kaliningrad/Konigsberg is the only major German city to have fallen to direct Soviet annexation in 1945; as such it presents a unique heritage problem, only superficially comparable to that of Gdansk
• Konigsberg was a thirteenth century Teutonic Knights foundation and thus of unambiguous Germanic origin
• Unlike Danzig/Gdansk, however, it remained in essentially continuous German occupance until 1945, when this 700-year identity was terminated and its population, function and even name was abruptly changed and the city became a monofunctional military base, closed to foreigners for 45 years
• The questions arise as to not only whose heritage, but what heritage, recognizable in tourist terms, may be sold
• The German built environment has largely vanished; however the Russian inhabitants imported in 1945 have created an environment which could in theory constitute a saleable heritage
• However, in this respect a fundamental problem has arisen: the collective heritage identity useful to tourism and essential to sociopolitical stability is disintegrating, as a result of the failure of the Soviet state, the discrediting of the city's Stalinist name, and the physical severance from a post-Soviet Russia which in any case has other priorities than the reconstruction of Kaliningrad
• This has created a very unusual heritage dissonance problem
• Local interests are becoming consonant with the formerly very dissonant heritage of the Germans and to this extent aligned with the principal tourism market, but by seeking to assume themselves the identity they are selling back to visitors, generating a dissonance with their own past and the Soviet iconography still around them, and potentially so with their future identity within the Russian state
• The material base for the reconstruction of the German heritage of Konigsberg is thin
• The central focus of such reclaimed heritage identity is the internationally renowned philosopher Immanuel Kant who has a human significance devoid of hostility and transcending purely Germanic heritage and is also intrinsic to the regional sense of place
• While his reclamation does not therefore depend upon German identity (least of all that in local living memory) it has been conducive, along with the hope for German investment, to a more general 'Teutomania'
• Kant's material heritage is primarily his tomb, adjacent to the ruined cathedral
• From this his presence has diffused to other marking, notably a German-funded replacement of a statue lost in 1945; also an international Kant society is based in Kaliningrad and a Kant Museum in the cathedral is proposed
• However the historic core of Konigsberg, on and around the island in the Pregel (Pregolya), was destroyed in 1945; leaving only a shell of the cathedral, which now shares the central island with formally designed parkland containing Soviet/Russian statuary
• The castle had carried particularly hostile symbolism to non-Germans, as the anchor of German eastward colonization and coronation site of the kings of Prussia
• Its ruins were removed during 1960s redevelopment, no doubt wit contemporary satisfaction
• The alternative, namely the Stalinist architecture created largely on a tabula rasa on the principles of socialist planning, is an improbably basis of heritage identity
• It is mostly in poor repair, repetitive of socialist modernist design across the former Soviet Union, with uniform factory-produced apartments, and has specifically failed to replace the image-forming city centre
• The process of resurrecting the heritage of Konigsberg is multifaceted involving voluntary organisations; entrepreneurs renovating old buildings for Western consular offices and companies and the Kaliningrad Museum, the Museum of Capitulation, and the Amber Museum
• The German government has contributed to the reconstruction of the cathedral and help has been received from private German interests with Konigsberg roots 
• Thus a tentative Konigsberg heritage is re-emerging
• The ultimate demise of the Soviet iconography, as elsewhere in Russia, will remove an obvious dissonance; although perhaps qualified by the survival of such patriotic symbolism as the naval war memorial, close to the cathedral
• The apparent similarity with Gdansk is therefore quite misleading, most fundamentally in the relationship between the two cultural heritages involved
• Kaliningrad was a case of attempted total displacement of an entirely German heritage, now paradoxically showing aspirations towards a total reversion
• In practice, however, a complete denial of the heritage of Kaliningrad, inseparable as it is from victory in a brutal war, seems neither plausible nor attainable; the city's identity may become inexorably hybrid and to this extent akin to Gdansk
• The final example is Weimar, a special case in that it is only one of this largely German-impacted set of cities remaining in contemporary Germany, having been reabsorbed in 1990
• Its interest as a heritage city lies in its preeminence in german national culture
• Weimar has been associated with many famous artists and musicians but reached its apogee in the classical 'Goethezeit' two centuries ago
• Like the other tourist-historic gems it then experienced eclipse, material survival, and eventually iconic re-emergence for successive Germanies
• Under the DDR, Weimar suffered environmental blight (lignite and car emissions) and some material neglect, ultimately seeking UNESCO assistance
• Weimar's nemesis and enigma is Buchenwald, and the inescapable heritage of atrocity with which it is associated
• Heritage management and content has changed circumspectly rather than abruptly as elsewhere
• In addition to the ownership problems, discussed earlier, Weimar has been committed to a pluralist interpretation which recognizes various pasts (despite some early street renaming), which may be kept the more open and liberal by the warning of Bucenwald
• `It should not be concluded from the above brief account of difficulties, paradoxes and uncertainties of heritage planning in the cities of Central Europe, that this is a completely unique circumstance in time and place
• Many similar problems exist, or have existed quite recently, in the cities of Western Europe which have experienced similar
• 
  

Kingdoms of Africa- Great Zimbabwe

• grass was brought to feed the cattle
• Great Zimbabwe means walls of stone
• exchange gold and beads
• Manyikeni, gold was traded as a commodity
• gold was buried with the dead
• believe ancestors are hearing and dancing
• most famous piece, golden rhino
• form gold foil over wooden core
• 12th century kingdom, great skill at goldsmithing
• gold had MORE than commercial value
• wealth in cattle
• complex societies, rigid division between king, his ministers, and his subjects
• best kingdom, connected with cultures across the continent?
• hierarchical society
• wealth and power from controlling gold mines
• narrow passageways and forbidden chambers
• precision walls, not glued together
• over one million bricks in wall
• 25,000 people in medieval city
• rich, religious, and powerful were kept separate
• social protocols. Control the traffic of people
• 
  

Let the ancestors rest in peace? New challenges for cultural heritage management in Zimbabwe, Gilbert Pwiti

• Cultural heritage management and archaeological research in Zimbabwe have been the byproducts of colonialism
• This dates back to the beginning of the present century and, for the greater part of the time, management of the cultural heritage and archaeological research were done without the involvement of the indigenous populations
• When the country became independent from British rule in 1980, however, the new political environment placed new responsibilities on heritage managers
• Communities living in areas where the sites to be managed are located want to be involved
• In some cases, the nature of their involvement conflicts with current professional heritage management
• Yet, at the same time, the guiding philosophy of heritage management is that the local people should not be alienated from their past
• The new environment has therefore brought new challenges for heritage managers
• Discussion centres on the conflict between official heritage management policy and practice on one hand, and the views of the local communities on the other
• Particular focus is on the management of sites of the Great Zimbabwe tradition
• Other areas of conflict are subsequently considered, including political interests and tourism
• In the final analysis, the different ways in which heritage managers have tried to reconcile the issues are discussed
• There is nothing new about existing conflicts between archaeology, cultural heritage management and local communities
• The 1986 World Archaeological Congress devoted a whole session to this question and the first 'Inter-Congress' was organized to discuss a particular aspect of this conflict: the excavation of human remains
• This does not, however, mean that all issues have been agreed on and the problems solved
• In Zimbabwe, open conflict between archaeological research, heritage management and local communities would appear to be a recent development, largely centered on sites of the Great Zimbabwe tradition
• Sites of the Great Zimbabwe tradition constitute the most spectacular and perhaps most important of Zimbabwe's cultural heritage
• The majority of them are dry-stone walled enclosures occurring in a variety of styles and sizes, dating from between the twelfth and eighteen centuries A.D.
• The tradition is associated with the development of cultural complexity in southern Africa, and some of the larger sites, dating from different periods, are now known to have been the centres of successive sociopolitical formations commonly referred to as states
• From the time that Great Zimbabwe and similar sites became known to outsiders, right up to the present, research and conservation, at least of the stone walls, have been seen as important
• What was notable throughout the greater part of the colonial period was that restoration of the stone structures did not follow planned scientific procedures, but tended to be characterized by haphazard programmes using a variety of methods and techniques
• More important, in the context of the main concern of this paper, was the total absence of any direct inputs or involvement of the local populations in the formulation of the programmes, except as common labourers
• It has to be remembered that this was a colonial situation in which there existed tension between the interpretation of the cultural heritage as represented by Great Zimbabwe and the politics of the day
• When Great Zimbabwe became known to Europeans coming into the country in the early part of the century, it almost immediately formed the centre of an an archaeological and political controversy regarding the identity of its builders, its date and its function
• Despite the results of scientific archaeological research as early as 1906 and further work in the 1930s and 1950s which established the indigenous identity of Great Zimbabwe and its dating to the early part of the second millennium AD, official colonial government policy was to continue to press for an exotic origin
• In the context outlined above, the colonial heritage manager's task, be it site restoration, preservation or conservation, did not have to contend with the views or feelings of the local communities
• The heritage of the past, as represented by the stone buildings of the Great Zimbabwe tradition, was not theirs
• The only major challenge for the heritage managers, who were in any case part of the colonial system, was perhaps what methods best to employ in conservation
• In a foreword to a 1982 booklet on Great Zimbabwe, the then Minister of Home Affairs, Herbert Ushewokunze, under whose responsibility National Museums and Monuments and therefore cultural heritage management fell, quoted Robert Mugabe, then Prime Minister of the new nation of Zimbabwe: "Independence will bestow on us... a new future and perspective and, indeed, a new history and a new past."
• The last point is especially true of our national symbol, Great Zimbabwe
• In a very real way this precious cornerstone of our culture was taken away from us with our country by the colonialists... to rob us of our past and our pride.. now the time has come to set the record straight, to seek out and renew our past
• Archaeology is no more than a tool
• For the first time in Zimbabwe it must now be wielded for the peope
• The first step is to take Great Zimbabwe back
• The above quotation makes reference to a number of important points that are central to the management of the archeological heritage
• In the first place, it emphasizes that Great Zimbabwe is not just an archaeological site, but a national symbol, which implies that whatever work is undertaken there is potentially subject to political manipulation
• Secondly, it highlights the fact that the local people should be placed at the centre of archaeological research and, by inference, the conservation and presentation of Great Zimbabwe
• Thirdly, it highlights the fact that research and interpretation of the archaeological record are subject to and part of a given political process
• It has been shown above that, during the colonial period, local communities were not part of the management of the heritage and, indeed, their heritage has been taken away from them 
• Since independence, however, while there may have been some initial problems, as noted by Ucko, Zimbabwe has been going through a process of cultural revival, with active encouragement from government
• Garlakec cites a very relevant case which presents an early postindependence example of the problems under discussion
• He reports that Sophia Muchini, a respected spirit medium held to be that of Mbuya Hehanda, heroine of the first major attempt to rid Zimbabwe of the colonial presence in 1897, had, prior to independence in the 1970s, attempted to set up her home at Great Zimbabwe, a site which for her was a major religious centre
• More recently, one of the national TV stations featured a documentary on conservation and other aspects of Great Zimbabwe which presented the views of archaeologists, heritage managers and some of the traditional leaders who live around the site and directly identify with it as a religious centre
• Great Zimbabwe is not the only example
• In a University of Zimbabwe BA (Archaeology) final year research paper investigating local attitudes towards museums and monuments, similar issues emerged for other parts of the country
• Traditional leaders interviewed in the course of the field research presented a case against conservation of the stone enclosures in their areas
• They argued that these sites were the homes of the ancestors
• When they disintegrated and fell into ruins, there was nothing amiss
• The ancestors were simply abandoning their homes and relocating to some other place
• It was their wish that the sites should disintegrate
• The heritage manager should therefore not interfere with the process
• In 1991, this author started a long-term archaeological research project in the mid-Zambezi valley in northern Zimbabwe
• Permission to work on the sites, particularly to excavate, had to be sought from the local traditional religious leaders
• Female students participating needed special ritual cleansing and protection
• This was one side of the story which may not relate to heritage management as such, but is cited as an example of the conflict between cultural heritage management and the interests of the researcher, be it an archaeologist or a heritage manager, and local communities
• It also serves as an example of how local populations can control the past
• What is of more relevance to heritage management in the context of the Zambezi valley came out in subsequent general discussion with the local leaders with regards to site preservation and conservation 
•  The ancestors did not need the protection
• The cases cited above are not isolated, but reflect a situation common throughout Zimbabwe
• As noted above, this active interest and involvement in the work of National Museums and Monuments is a postcolonial development
• The past cannot be divorced from the present, and material remains from the past have often represented very powerful symbols for a variety of political agendas
• Cecil Rhodes tried to manipulate the past as a vehicle of colonial propaganda with regard to Great Zimbabwe and the site has remained a political symbol to the present day
• Its preservation and proper management has been a national priority 
• This direct political interest in the site has wide-ranging implications for heritage managers, and places a heavy burden on them to make sure that they are doing the correct thing
• A monument of the size and national importance of Great Zimbabwe, not to mention the many other similar sites, requires considerably more personnel than is currently the case
• The above are not the only problems
• There are also practical questions of conflict between what the heritage manager may feel are his or her professional obligations and political and public perception
• “Within the Great Enclosure, perhaps the most impressive part of Great Zimbabwe in terms of the wall styles, height, and thickness, are two large trees. The trees have become a part of the identity of the site, to the extent that, to most people, they were there at the time of construction and are therefore an integral part of the heritage. They appear on he Zimbabwe currency and elsewhere as part of the national identity. However, these very trees have been identified as a threat to the walls.
• Great Zimbabwe is a major tourist attraction, with thousands of both foreign and local people visiting the site each year and continuing to increase
• It accounts for a respectable contribution to the country's foreign currency earnings, and is the largest contributor to 'own resources' by way of revenue for National Museums and Monuments
• The heritage manager is charged with the responsibility of preserving and conserving the site, as well as its presentation to the public
• While it is the aim of government to encourage as many local and foreign tourists as possible to visit Great Zimbabwe and other monuments, this presents a number of challenges for the heritage manager
• In addition to the above problems, which are themselves new, arising from increased domestic and foreign tourism, are the views of the tourists on preservation
• Like the traditional leaders cited above, there is division of opinion here. Tourists to archaeological sites in Zimbabwe are invited at the end of their visit to make comments on their experience and suggestions for improvement of any aspect of the site
• They therefore argue that Great Zimbabwe should be let be, because the ruinous appearance resulting from wall collapses conveys the ancient history of the site
• Added to all this is the perhaps internationally common program of site preservation 
• The cultural heritage is an educational resource for young people, and there is often the feeling that these should be the primary target in the design of site presentation
• Finally, we should take a look at the international dimension of managing a World Heritage Site such as Great Zimbabwe and its successor Khami
• Conservation at such sites is always in the international eye, and it must be seen to be conforming to internationally accepted standards 
• Zimbabwean heritage manager is not only to be able to observe the ethics of conservation, but also to keep abreast of the latest methods and techniques
• The problems facing the new heritage manager in Zimbabwe can be summarized as: conflict with local traditional communities, politics and the past, the problems of tourist management and striving to meet international standards
• Archaeology and related concerns are a very recent introduction to most of Africa, Zimbabwe included
• If heritage management is to succeed in such a situation, then it must start from the point of building up awareness and demonstrating, in a tangible way, its benefits
• In Zimbabwe, it has been realized that this is the only way forward
• As such, top of the agenda has been the need for public education in terms of appreciation of the benefits of the country's cultural resources, and the need for preservation 
• This has been approached at two levels, among local communities and, more importantly in the schools
• One approach has been to link the cultural heritage to tangible economic benefits as part of what Ndoro has called a corporate strategy for the conservation of monuments
• This is a strategy that seeks to involve local people by emphasizing to them that the cultural heritage is a marketable commodity 
• This has so far been experimental with at stone-walled sites near Great Zimbabwe with some encouraging sites 
• The heritage is theirs, and it is their responsibility to preserve it for their children's children
• Part of this approach has been the change from restricting access to sites interpreted as traditional religious centres
• The approaches outlined above have achieved a measure of success not only at Great Zimbabwe but at other centres in different parts of the country
• Problems arising from the politics of the past are perhaps a little more difficult to address
• Tourist management and presentation of the heritage are problems not unique to Zimbabwe
• In this regard, Zimbabwean heritage managers have learned lessons from other countries with their own experience
• Problems of wall climbing, for example, are now being partly overcome by appealing to the visitors' sense of responsibility rather than prohibitive directives
• Policing the monument, however, continues to be practiced 
• Although the Master Plan has been criticized for commericalizing the heritage, and for simplifying the difficulties of raising national heritage consciousness, it can be hailed as a major attempt to address some of the challenges
   
  
  

Ayodha

• untouchables put crop in houses of temple priests
• British left
• why shouldn't brothers worship side by side
• tanners "Chamar"
• thousands of unemployed youth, half of the population below the poverty line
• much illness and illiteracy 
• BJP, lotus symbol
• Ayodha is the birthplace of Ram
• the whole landscape is sacred
• don't have to demolish the mosque to build a Hindu temple
• saints and enlightened ones have raised their voices against the caste system

Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention

• Since 1855, the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya has been the source of sporadic clashes between Hindus and Muslims
• After a thorough scrutiny of the available historic literature on the mosque, this article argues that to regard it as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama is untenable and the notion was actually put into circulation by British colonial officials to serve British interests in the Indian subcontinent
• Successive colonial administrations tried to strengthen their grip on South Asia by playing off one group against another in the name of caste, race, and, most importantly, religion
• The ongoing Hindu-Muslim conflict in India is largely the outcome of British policies
• With their agenda of 'divide and rule' that aimed at consolidating their hold over the subcontinent the British tried to create a huge chasm between Hindus and Muslims
• They labelled Muslims as the oppressors and Hindus as the oppressed, working to gain the support of the Hindu masses by provoking their hatred of the Muslims; and they strongly backed their religious and other claims in a vast amount of biased literature
• It was with this colonial agenda that they endorsed the Hindu claim to the site of the Babri Mosque
• Successive colonial administrations tried to strengthen their grip on South Asia by playing one group against another on issues of caste, color, race, and most importantly, religionh
• The town of Ayodhya was founded by Nawab Safdar Jang (1739-54) and his son Shuja-ud-Daula (1754-75) of Awadh, who made it their capital
• With regard to the foundation of Ayodhya, the Awadh gazetteer states that orthodox Hindu tradition maintains that this town was established to provide extra precautions not for life on this transitory earth, but on the chariot wheel of the Great Creator himself
• It is, however, far-fetched to claim as Valmiki does in Ramayana that the present-day Ayodhya is the birthplace of Rama
• The particulars of Ayodhya as found in Valmiki are not corroborated by archaeological findings from the present site
• In August 2003, an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report claimed uninterrupted human habitation in Ayodhya from the mid-13th century BCE until the 16th century CE
• The specific contentious structure can be wholly seen in the context of the mosque and its location as a kind of embankment to hold the excess water that surged from the southeast
• As K. N. Pannikkar maintains, Ayodhya does not appear to have had human habitation even after the 7th century BCE
• Early literary sources sharply disagree over the exact location of Ayodhya
• It seems that Chandragupta II (380-415), who assumed the title of Vikramaditya, moved his capital in the beginning of the 5th century CE, to the town of Saketa, which he renamed Ayodhya
• Present-day local belief exists regarding the "rediscovery" of Ayodhya by Vikramaditya, presumably lost after Tretayuga, which had existed into the mythical period
• Fa Hein, a Chinese Buddhist traveler of the 5th century CE, visited the region and recorded finding a place called Sha-ki, which was later identified as Saketa
• Thus, the available archaeological evidence and historical sources only support the view that present-day Ayodhya situated on the right bank of the river Sarayu was identified as Saketa before the 5th century CE and was not the Ayodhya of Valmiki's Ramayana
• Ayudhya had been a spiritual center for many Indian beliefs, which grew concurrently in various forms
• Ayodhya had also been home to a significant Jaina community, though Jaina tradition correlates it with the birthplace of the first and the fourth Jaina Tirthankaras
• It appears that there was no trace of the worship of Rama in the present town of Ayodhya until the 2nd millennium of the Common Era
• After a thorough study of the available literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidence, we may safely and unreservedly record that the cult of Rama was not known in Ayodhya before the 11th century CE 
• Presumably, the Rama cult became known only from the 13th century CE and gradually gained a foothold with the slow progress of the Ramanandi sect
• The British East India Company focused its attention right from the beginning of its presence in India on controlling the Muslim-ruled provinces of the Subcontinent
• On behalf of the East India Company, Francis Hamilton Buchanan (1762-1829) completed a preliminary statistical survey of Gorakhpur in 1813-1814 that also included the Arabic and Persian inscriptions of the Babri Mosque of the town of Ayodha
• However, the British made no effort to categorize Ayodha according to the religious belief of its people
• In 1870 Patrick Carnegy published a regional history of the area that claimed that the Mughals had destroyed three temples in Ayodhya and replaced them with mosques because in his words, of "the well-known Mahomedan principle of enforcing their religion on all those whom they conquered"
• Carnegy maintained that since Nawab Safdarjang's transfer of his capital in 1740 from Ayodhya to Faizabad, the former had increasingly become a Hindu town
• Similarly, W.C. Benet categorized Ayodhya as a Hindu town in 1877 and highlighted "about a hundred and fifty years ago there was a revival
• British officials thus tried their utmost to ensure that Ayodhya was seen as a sacred place for the Hindus
• Sushil Srivastava points out that British visitors to Ayodhya in the 19th century had generally maintained that the Hindu revitalization of Ayodhya was a recent act 
• It is interesting to note that many landlords and Mahants (monks/abbots) of Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya had cooperated with the British colonial authorities to suppress the 1857 Indian revolt
• As Sushil Srivastava suggests, British civil servants and other officials viewed Indian affairs from the perspective of James Mill as articulated in The History of British India (1817), viz, to highlight the division of Indian society into Hindus and Muslims who never saw eye to eye on almost any matter, particular in the arena of religion
• Charles Wood, the Secretary of State, wrote a letter on March 3 1822 to Lord Elgin, te then Governor-General of India, in which he stated that they would keep and continue their rule in India if they divided the Indian people successfully and did not allow them to cooperate with each other
• According to Abdur Rahman Chisti's Mirat-i-Masdudi, the Muslim leader Saiyid Salar Masud Ghazi invaded Awadh or Ayodhya in 1030 CE, effectively subjugating the region and establishing his headquarters in Bahraich, a district north of Ayodhya
• Before the advent of Babur in India, Muslims had already settled in Ayodhya, which they believed housed the tombs of the Prophets Nuh, Shish and Ayyub as well as the graves of many saints, including followers of Saiyid Salar Masud Ghazi
• Emperor Babur defeated and killed Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (1517-1526) in the battle of Panipat in 1526 CE and became the master of the northern Indian territories
• During an outbreak of violence in Ayodhya on March 27 1934 rioters damaged or stole some of these inscriptions on both sides of the pulpit
• The above verses clearly indicate that Mir Baqui, not Babur, was the one who built the Babri Mosque
• Nonetheleess, the Hindus of Ayodhya later launched a strong campaign that maintained tat this Mosque was built by Babur after demolishing a Hindu temple, which was identified as Ramjanmbhumi (the birthplace of Rama)
• Nonetheless, had the Mosque been built after the destruction of a Rama temple, the above inscriptions would have recorded the fact
• It may be relevant at this juncture to explore Babur's attitude toward other religions
• Many references in his memoirs show that he visited Hindu temples, which indicates his fairness and tolerance towards other religions
• Neither medieval Persian sources nor Hindu books that include narratives on Ayodhya, however, refer to the demolition of any temple
• Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari written in 1598 provides some interesting information regarding the province of Awadh that evidently acknowledges Ayodhya as one of the holy places of ancient times and the abode of the king Ramachandra, a supreme and spiritual leader of the tretayuga
• It does not, however, mention the demolition of any temple on the site
• Similarly, Khulasatu-t Twarikh of Sujan Rai Bhandari (1695/96) has this to say about the town: "In the Hindu books it is called Ayodhya, the birthplace of Ramchand. His building over the ocean, his going to Lanka with a countless host of monkeys and bears, his slaying Ravana, and his recovery of his wife are well known. The history of Ramayana is an account of his strange and wonderful deeds
• Rai Chaturman Saksena's Chahar Gulshan or Akhbar-i-Nawadir (1759/60), which notes that Ayodhya was the birthplace (zadgah) of Rama, does not mention the destruction of any Rama temples to build the Babri Mosque either
• The series of violent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims over the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya started during the years 1853-1856
• Soon after the revolt of 1857, British officials encouraged Hindu religious claims to this Mosque
• However, Muhammad Ashghar, the khatib and muazzin of the Mosque, filed a petition on November 30 1858 with the magistrate complaining that Beg Singh, the leader of the Bairagis of Janmasthan, had conspired with Nabi Ghulam, the police officer of Awadh, to erect a platfrom 2-3 inches high close to the dome and pulpit overnight, dug a hole next to it, lighted a fire for the purpose of Hindu worship inside the Mosque and written the name Rama on its walls
• Though in 1860 it was regarded as a registered mosque, the khatib soon soon filed another petition on November 1 1860 in which he complained that about twenty days previously, Iqbal Singh had raised an illegal chabutra close to the Mosque and near the grave of Qazi Quduh and was expanding it every day
• A further inquiry bu the Assistant Commissioner on December 19, 1860 showed the existence of a small hut that belonged to Iqbal Singh, but no further extension of chabutra was allowed
• Between 1860 and 1884 as many as six petitions were filed by the Muslims of Ayodhya against encroachment and damage to the mosque precinct
• Another petition dated November 28 1883 was filed by Saiyid Muhammad Asghar against Raghubir Das, Mahant, regarding the painting of the walls of the Mosque
• Again on January 29 1885 Mahant Raghubir filed a civil suit at the Faizabad SubJudge's court against the Secretary of State asking for permission for the construction of  a temple over the chabutra
• The Mahant appealed in 1885 against the judgment of the sub-judge in the District Court of the Faizabad
• The Mahant made a second appeal on May 25 1886 to the highest court of the state
• No important event transpired during the period 1886-1933 on the issue of the Babri Mosque, but during 'Eid al-Adha on March 27, 1934, communal violence was sparked by the slaughter of a cow in the neighboring village of Shahjahanpur, Ayodhya
• In 1936 the Commissioner of Waqfs conducted an inquiry into the possession of the property
• Following the independence movement and the partition of the country in 1947, millions of Indian Muslims, including many from Ayodhya, felt unsafe and left for Pakistan
• On receiving the report, the district Magistrate K. K. Nayar sent on the same day an urgent radio message to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Home Secretary of U.P. as follows: "A few Hindus entered Babri Masjid at night when the Masjid was deserted and installed a deity there
• Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, was enraged and ordered Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Chief Minister of U.P., to have the idols removed immediately
• Seeing this injustice to Muslims and violation of their place of worship, Akshay Brachmachiari, a man of principle and Secretary of the Faizabad District Congress, had the moral courage to send a memorandum to Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Home Minister in the UP Government, and went on hunger strike twice in 1950
• Muslim shops were boycotted in the town of Ayodhya and Muslims were being coerced to admit that the site was actually that of a temple
• On January 16 1950 Gopal Singh Visharad filed a civil suit for the declaration that he should be allowed access for worship and visit without let or hindrance to the images of Rama and others in the Janmabhumi 
• The civil suits nos. 2 and 25 of 1950 filed by Shri Paramhans Ram Chandar Das against Zahoor Ahmad and another no. 26 of 1959 filed by Nirmohi Akhara against Baby Priya Datta Ram and others asked for the discharge of the Receiver appointed under section 145, and the delivery of custody of the Mosque to them 
• A dispute started after the death of Babu Priya Datta Ram, the Receiver, and on October 20, 1970 K.K. Ram Verma replaced him
• The court deliberately lingered over these cases and thus provided a suitable environment for extremists to hijack the Mosque-temple issue for their political agendas
• Umesh Chandra Pandey, a local lawyer, filed an appeal on January 25 1986 in the court of the munsif asking permission to open locks and allow Hindus to perform puja inside the Mosque
• On February 3 1986 Mohammad Hashim, a resident of Ayodhya, filed a writ petition to nullify the District Judge's order before the Lucknow Branch of the High Court
• During the same month, Muslim leaders established the Babri Masjid Action Committee to initiate a mass movement to free the Mosque from Hindu encroachment
• From the very beginning, Muslim leaders were willing to accept the court's verdict, while Hindu groups renounced any court ruling that went against their interest
• On October 19 1990 R.V. Venkataraman, the president of India, promulgated the 1990 Rama Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid (Acquisition of Area) Ordinance to acquire the disputed site
• Soon afterwards the Hindus started their construction activities; the government was completely apathetic and showed no intention of stopping them through the Supreme Court banned the unauthorized construction and many members of parliament and the legislative assembly asked for the arrest of those who violated the judicial order
• The Indian History Congress, a reputed organization, has cautioned against the ongoing threat to communal harmony of the nation 
• On January 11 1996 an additional charge-sheet was filed by CBI against a group of eight persons
• Advani and his colleagues Joshu and Uma Bharati faced two charges in different courts, namely making provocative speeches on December 6 1992 prior to the destruction of the mosque and hatching a plot to raze the mosque from 1990 onward
• In the waker of the communal unease created by the demolition of the Mosque, Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister of India, promised to rebuild it but it has not been done yet