14 C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 PETER DE FIGUEIREDO Multiple perspectives on heritage Historic buildings, monuments, sites and museums with darker histories can tell us how architecture, places and objects can play a role in suppressing cultural identity. In November 2020 a group of 59 Conservative MPs and seven peers wrote a letter to The Telegraph claiming to represent ‘the silent majority of voters tired of being patronised by elitist bourgeois liberals’. A part of their mission, they said, was to ‘ensure that institutional custodians of history and heritage, tasked with safeguarding and celebrating British values, are not coloured by cultural Marxist dogma’. In the ensuing debate the National Trust was criticised for documenting links with slavery and colonialism in 90 of its properties, and the National Maritime Museum was challenged for presenting ‘multiple perspectives on history’ in response to Black Lives Matter protests. When Oliver Dowden, then secretary of state for culture media and sport, issued a letter regarding contested heritage and its interpretation to national museums and bodies such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Museums Association replied urging the UK government to respect the arm’s-length principles enjoyed by all museums, allowing them to make decisions on care, presentation and interpretation of their cultural heritage in discussion with their communities. These events, and the growing ‘war against woke’ which had spread from the USA as a mix of theories on race, post-colonialism and gender identity, assumed a particular focus on history and heritage in the UK.They have subsequently been pursued with particular vigour in parts of the press and social media. What then might multiple perspectives on heritage provide, and how can they help to foster social cohesion? The Queen’s platinum jubilee this year celebrated a reign of extraordinary continuity and goodwill. But set against this beacon of civility is the legacy of the British Empire, the disappearance of which the Queen herself witnessed.While the British Commonwealth has survived under her guardianship as a symbol of the nations’ heritage – based on friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace – universities throughout the UK have recently sought to decolonise their curriculums; factions have contested the removal of Cecil Rhodes’s statue from its place on the listed Oriel College Oxford; and historic figures associated with slavery have been identified.The British Empire, it is now widely argued, was not so much a liberalising enterprise intended to modernise and bring rule of law to the non-western world, as an act of domination brought about by coercion, often achieved by violence and cruelty. The authors of the National Trust report on slavery and colonialism that caused the group of MPs and peers to complain argued that it is incumbent on historians and guardians of heritage never to become complacent, but to push at Powys Castle houses the Clive Collection of over 1,000 Indian artefacts.
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