COME TO AMERICA! (forfeit your heritage)

What is "Heritage" anyway? We all know the word, and probably think that we know what it means, but when you get right down to it the exact meaning is a slippery little rascal. The Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC based conservative think tank, believes in "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom...." (our American heritage?) Not a word about ethnicity, ancestry nor culture. My Heritage, an Israel based firm specializing in genealogy, seeks "to make it easier for people around the world to use the power of the Internet to discover their heritage and strengthen their bonds with family and friends." The implication of this introspective view being that family is a key ingredient in heritage. In fact, they do not mention any of the core elements of the Heritage Foundation. UNESCO's World Heritage Centre sees a different picture. To them, "What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located." Wikipedia lists no less than nine different senses of the word ranging from plant life to birthright. So, when we speak of heritage, we have to be quite specific about our intention lest we be legitimately misunderstood. But two things that all of the various senses of heritage seem to have in common are belonging and inheritance. There can be no heritage without a donor and a receptor.

The sense of the word that applies to culture, has come to be divided into two parts, tangible and intangible. The former is mainly associated with objects while the latter deals with behavior, values, traditions, customs, etc. In a confusing dichotomy, UNESCO sees their World Heritage Sites from a globalist perspective and essentially all other objects from a nationalist perspective. The UNESCO resolution of 1970 takes quite a narrow view of sharing the "ownership" of culture and heritage. The conclusions and proposals of a later UNESCO convention dealing with intangible cultural heritage, and its ownership, are nothing short of bizarre. Ancient coin collectors are perhaps among the most passionate advocates of globalism. They derive genuine and considerable satisfaction from learning about the past in a tactile way. Many of them see a direct and inseparable connection between the "cultural heritage" of a particular place and their own "cultural heritage" in the ancestral sense. In more than 40 years of involvement as a professional numismatist, I have met a great many people who collect coins based on ethnic or patronymic associations. Others simply crave the intellectual thrill of arm chair travel to distant cultural enclaves.

Many of these people now live within the United States where, except for a small Native American population, virtually everyone has a cultural heritage from some other place or places. In the nationalist view of the cultural universe, these Americans have essentially forfeited their heritage. Of course, those who view the world in this myopic way are reticent to admit that they are often immigrants themselves within the land that they claim as their cultural heritage. That they have the power to create and enforce laws within their own political sphere of influence is an undeniable fact. Indeed, they have been known to intentionally erase the memory of former inhabitants (if not the inhabitants themselves). Should their narrow and often unjustifiable view obviate the interests and rights of all others who do not currently live within the geo-political boundaries that they administer? Are Italians who now live in Manhattan or Cypriots who now live in Los Angeles any less entitled to their heritage than those who live in Rome or Nicosia?

The propensity of the U.S. State Department to negotiate bilateral agreements that in essence forfeit the rights of those Italian and Greek Americans (and not them exclusively) to partake in the same cultural appreciation that their fellows and often relatives in Italy and Greece enjoy is in my view un-American. Maybe the Heritage Foundation is not too far off the point in this case. Should the U.S. Government be involved in a matter like this? It's easy to see how some view it as overreach on the part of Washington bureaucracy. My own personal view is that State Department bureaucracy has run amuck and has become nothing more than a self-serving special interest. But, my view is obviously not shared by a good number of people who are quite happy to see all cultural property sequestered and controlled by what they prefer to term as "stewards." In other words, someone other than the inheritor of a particular heritage will guard and preserve it for all of us. In fact, one such organization literally calls itself "Saving Antiquity For Everyone". I've always had trouble figuring out who "Everyone" is, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't include me. Excuse me, but I don't need someone to save my heritage for me and to dole it out to me as they choose.

Just who are these "stewards" anyway? You guessed it. They are the cultural property nationalists and those who rely on the largesse of cultural property nationalists for their livelihood. How much do we get from these stewards in return for the rights that the U.S. government forfeits on our behalf? To be kind, it is not a good trade. The words of Emma Lazarus on the base of America's Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" may be inspiring, but what they don't say is that when you come to America you may forfeit your own personal heritage, compliments of the U.S. State Department. I don't think that's what our founding fathers had in mind.