Dear America,

You guys are adorable, you know most countries don't need warning labels on their champagne bottles to tell them not to open them into their faces right?  I know its probably a way for the company to cover its asses in law suits but it does make you look a teensy bit special. I mean Special Olympics special not American Exceptionalism special.

Books I've Read in 2011 (so far)

Here is the list of books I've read in 2011.  I'm going to try to keep track of them all on my Listography and maybe on here.  If you want to check them out use the Amazon Associates link (if you buy the book through there I get monies which I can use for more books).

• The Shringley Abduction
• Lois Wilson Story - finished in 2011
• Engines of War
• Parasite Rex -finished in 2011
• Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes
• The Finger: A Handbook
• Women in the Middle Ages: The Lives of Real Women in a Vibrant Age of Transition
   

http://listography.com/5318588472/books/books_ive_read_in_2011

A history of the world in 100 Stolen objects

The Standard of Ur.

I'm nearly halfway through a podcast series from the BBC called "A History of the World in 100 Objects" it looks at the world through the stories of 100 items in the British Museum and its hosted by the Director of the Museum Neil MacGregor and it is amazing.  Seriously I am really enjoying it and I'd like you to keep that in mind while you read the rest of this post.  I don't want to turn you off it, I really think everyone on earth should listen to this. Go download it now, I'll wait.

Now to completely contradict what I just said.

As much as I'm enjoying the series it does make me uncomfortable.  See most of the objects were stolen from the cultures they were made by.  Some were bought from collectors who may have discovered them themselves, or stole them or bought them from people who had no concept of their value.  This is not a new issue, its an issue as old as the ancient objects we are discussing and it is an issue with a lot of grey areas.

The Rosetta Stone.

There really is no argument that in many cases the acquisition of these objects by British (and lets focus on the British Museum specifically since that's where the series is from although all museums are guilty of this) explorers and archaeologists in nearly all cases saved them from destruction.  The important objects, the objects that tell us the most about our history as a species aren't necessarily obvious.  And their possession by Britain, a remarkably stable society has allowed them to survive intact and preserved for hundreds of years.  The Elgin Marbles almost certainly would have been destroyed or stolen by people seeking to sell of bits and pieces to private collectors had they remained in Greece.  Having these objects kept safe and in an environment where they are protected and preserved is of vital importance.  Imagine what the damage would have been to our understanding of the past if something like the Rosetta Stone had been lost? We may never have been able to understand Egyptian hieroglyphs and one of the great cultures would have been a mystery to us.

Having the objects in one place also allows millions more people to view them than if they were scattered around the world.   They have been open to scholars and the general public for hundreds of years and many more people have seen them than if they were in their original locations, locations which were and remain in politically volatile areas (how many of us would go to Iran just to see the Standard of Ur?).  The collection, one of, if not the, largest in the world also allows people to experience the history of the entire world for at one time.  And for free since the British Museum charges no admission fee (just like all museums should in my opinion).

So the weight of the amazing work done by the Museum over the centuries, against the fact that they never should have had them in the first place.  Not only were the cultures that were taken from damaged merely by the removal of their priceless artifacts and the fact that the discovery of their history was placed in the hands of a foreign culture, but the spirit and attitude they were taken, the 18th and 19th Century British attitude of racial and cultural superiority sounded the death knell to cultures around the world. 

The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan.

However the argument of "We know how to take care of these things better than you", makes me exceptionally uncomfortable.  People should have the right to the control of their own histories it seems strange that the people of Greece should have to travel to London to see their history written through the eyes of others (or The Other if you are reading this with some knowledge of Post-Colonial theory).  On the other hand the argument that these items are safer in the British Museum is hard to argue with when we look at them in the context of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan,  the looting of the Baghdad Museum and riots in Egypt of the last week or so, although it seems the original reports of damage to relics may have been an exaggeration.  However the argument is weaker when it comes to the objects that come from places like Greece, China and Australia. 




Perhaps the discomfort is a good thing.  Maybe it is best for the World as a whole that these items remain where they are but I think they should make us feel uncomfortable.  I think the feeling that we get when we are faced with the bad aspects of something that we benefited from (and I assume most of you reading this were beneficiaries of the colonial system) is the correct response.  Yes we should be filled with awe at these remarkable objects, and learn all we can about them and what they say about us as a culture, but we should also come face to face with the fact that our education and wonderment comes at a cost, a cost to the cultures the items were taken from and the cost to their descendants of not being in control of their own History. 

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, kidnapper & father of South Australia

I just finished reading a book called The Shrigley Abduction I found out about on one of my Wikipedia spirals a few months ago, you know where you start out reading one article and end up a thousand miles away.  I bought the book because I thought the story was interesting and wanted to know more.

Here's the story in brief, in 1827 Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 30, tricks Ellen Turner, 15, into leaving her school with a story about her mother being ill.  Instead of taking her to her mother he takes her towards the Scottish border and tells her that her father's business will fail and he will go to jail if she doesn't marry Wakefield.  The girl agrees and they marry in Scotland where marriages under 21 are legal without parental consent.  The couple then travel to London, then to France.  The hope is that the girl's parents will accept the marriage to avoid a scandal (because of course Ellen has been in the presence of a man for a week and will be unmarriable, they haven't had sex, Wakefield even signs an affidavit to this effect but the hint that they may have would taint her reputation), and Wakefield would be heir to the Turner estate.  Instead of agreeing Ellen's father goes to the police and has Wakefield charged with abduction, the girl is returned to her parents, Wakefield goes to jail and the marriage is annulled.  Ellen goes on to make a good marriage at the age of 16 and dies in childbirth at 19.  Wakefield uses his time in prison to write "A View of the Art of Colonization" which is an amazingly influential book that pathed the way for the end of convict transportation and the founding of South Australia...

Wait, what?

Well South Australia, unlike the other colonies was founded by free settlers who bought land in England then sailed to South Australia to found the settlement.

Yeah I know that.

So it was this guy's idea, the idea that since the other colonies were struggling to find labor there needed to be another way of doing it, he didn't have a lot to do with the actual planning but it was essentially his plan.

So, Wakefield Street, Port Wakefield, the Electoral division Wakefield all named after this guy?

Well some of them may have been named after each other but yeah. He then went on to found the New Zealand Company and his brother organized the purchase of the area that is now Wellington from the Maoris.

His brother who helped him kidnap the girl and also went to prison.

The very same.  So William went on to be one of the main driving forces behind the settlement of Wellington and Edward eventually moved to New Zealand and became an MP there.


I have a degree in Australian Studies and History.

Yeah I know that, I am you weirdo.


So how the hell am I just learning about this now?

What do you mean?

You don't think that the fact that the guy who thought up South Australia, where I grew up, where I studied history and Australian Studies in high school and university, was a kidnapper and a rapist is an interesting tidbit of information?

Well he wasn't a rapist, they never had sex, he just tricked her into marriage then took her to a foreign country trying to steal her fortune.


Sorry, not a rapist. My point is that this story seems pretty interesting. And being that Australian history gets accused of being boring, especially by the 16yr olds forced to study it especially those in South Australia where the settlement story actually IS boring, you'd think that maybe this would be a story that is more widely known.


Hmm, yeah, like maybe it would be more famous than having to find out about it in an obscure and frankly kind of badly written book?


Exactly.