Posted on June 13, 2010
The Heritage Transformation Charter was the subject of my Masters Research Report. Starting in 2008 I traced the drafting of this Charter from its beginning in 2005 to a First Draft in December 2007 and its Second Draft in August 2008, after which I lost sight of it. By then any representation and display of the draft HTC and its now final version, had long been absent from the website of the National Heritage Council. Surprisingly, the Charter development process, which was initially laid out in eleven steps, covering the Indaba in 2005, various stakeholder and public consultations, three Drafts of the Charter, a final Draft and Second Indaba, and the final presentation and launch of the HTC, came to an abrupt end with the emergence of the above mentioned request for endorsement. Following up with the National Heritage Council, I was told that the HTC had been submitted to the Department of Arts and Culture for final approval - that was in June 2009. One year later the HTC still seems absent from the policy and public domain, leading to suspicions that it has failed to obtain endorsement from the Department of Arts and Culture. In fact, has the HTC indeed obtained an overall endorsement from the heritage sector?
Let us remember, the need for a HTC evolved from the mandate of the National Heritage Council to monitor and co-ordinate the transformation of the heritage sector, and it was informed by both national as well as international obligations. Nationally, the purpose of the Charter was, to address the fragmentation in the heritage sector, redress the disparities amongst the various heritage institutions and to address the need for the development of an efficient management of heritage resources. Additionally, overlapping responsibilities between the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), the South African Heritage Resource Agency (SAHRA) and the National Heritage Council (NHC), had hampered the efficient running of the heritage sector. But the Charter was also set to address popular sentiments relating to matters of heritage and thus identity and belonging, set in a climate of persisting and growing economic disempowerment and disparities between rich and poor, affecting the majority of mainly black South Africans.
Internationally, heritage and cultural practitioners and activists spurred by national and regional concerns had moved to respond to the challenges of culture and tradition in a globalised world. Led by the UNESCO, initiatives and conventions were established, in acknowledgement of new paradigms, like the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, but also new needs, like the Charter on the preservation of digital heritage adopted in the same year. Placed in this context, the HTC can therefore be seen as a crucial document for the heritage sector of South Africa, expected to be informing and guiding heritage policy, institutions and role players.
Having analyzed the draft Charter text, it became apparent to me that the HTC could not position itself purposefully and has not managed to translate its mandate into meaningful suggestions. Instead, The Charter texts and the Charter writing process have demonstrated that the South African post-colonial discourse around issues of culture, identity and heritage, which plays itself out within society, very much filters through to policy and Government level, where it is met with acknowledgement and followed by rhetoric, but not necessarily resolution.
What can be observed in present day South Africa, are clashes between African communities, wanting to identify with their elected post-Apartheid African government on the one hand, and growing dissatisfaction with government's inability to resolve socio-economic issues on the other. The recent protests about lack of service delivery throughout South Africa have for some time now increasingly been coupled with issues of ownership of land and the nationalization of natural assets. These are not merely understood to be economic matters, but frequently become matters which also find their expression through a strong discourse linking socio-economic issues to matters of African culture and identity. Parallel to the latter there has been a growing tendency of an African cultural dominance over South Africa's multi-cultural composition particularly in the political arena, a position which has been given strong representation in the HTC.
What has crystallized from the discussion of the Charter texts is how policy writing and policy informing processes present themselves as a reflection of the post-colonial state bureaucracy, an issue which is increasingly being raised over the past years by scholars and professionals in the field. There are real and far reaching concerns, as these issues touch on matters of inclusion and exclusion, but even more so on matters of governance and accountability. Given the flaws of the final HTC document, it would be advisable in my view, for the National Heritage Council to initiate a process to openly interrogate the Charter. Failure to do so will most certainly violate principles of transparency and accountability, thereby confirming the above mentioned concerns. It will leave issues unresolved which are so crucial for the heritage sector, not only for its transformation. That is why we need to ask 'Do we have a Heritage Transformation Charter or not?'.
Gabriel Mohale has recently completed at MA in Heritage Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, and her blog draws on the findings of her research report. Garriel is employed as a researcher at Historical Papers, William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, and writes in her personal capacity