Monday, October 02, 2006
What is our strategy for activism? What will we be asking? Who will we be appoaching?
one year on........
Setting the challenge for a Grassroots Manifesto and Activism Campaign
Introduction.
So far in the campaign, we have raised issues such as challenging existing notions on the discourse of Cultural Properties, and questioned the practices on existing international mechanisms and conventions that ultimately aim to protect cultural heritage. We have learnt that international conventions may not suffice as palpable instruments or safety nets for providing the protection of cultural heritages within Nation States. Ultimately Nation States can reside to selecting history and cultural heritages in favour of main-stream ideological agendas. Notwithstanding, that this can influence negative consequences such as the neglection of cultural heritages amongst the marginalised and segregated communities. Nonetheless, in our quest to further understand and challenge discourse on cultural heritage, we have also encountered a greater tenacity amongst the professional planning community in generating new agendas to unfold reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.
FAST's aim is to offer substantial projects guided by conceivable agendas with alternative planning solutions. We are in the process of advocating a grassroots strategy within Lifta's regional context using the wider Israeli, Arab Israeli and Palestinian network. To sustain an achievable goal the campaign will adopt a strategy that will contest existing cultural notions; such as the traditional cultural assumptions in the selection of heritage against the more purposeful opportunities arising from heritage diversity. Nonetheless, any agenda for alternative discourse will be in context to preventing the neglection of heritage created in the Redevelopment Plan. To substantiate an agenda will require a reappraisal of this situation concerning the current conflict of interest between the different needs and values regarding Lifta. Any strategy will therefore be dependant upon attitudes, either existing or supported as intervention, that will be vital towards supporting a solution.
For example, this campaign may be perceived as controversial, not coinciding with the current outlook and interests of the authority overseeing Lifta's land and the Nation State. By acknowledging that the character premise of the Israeli Nation State is undoubtly embodied by its own set of exclusive values and cultural traditions, any reality construction may have to reflect upon this on the premise that it is a rule of engagement. It will be necessary in our objective to engage and challenge existing cultural notions with ideas that have the capacity of penetrating traditional attitudes with alternative breadth of view. Lifta represents an identity; and an identity in context to a reality can be perceived and defined as a series and a set of power relationships. With the agenda to protect the identity Lifta, any underlining cause should seek to reappraise this identity amongst its traditional perceptions, constructions of rival symbolism and outlooks of place.
FAST's reappraisal is to contend with the cultural workings of identity with a strategy approaching place with the intent to recultivate through gaining regional and national recognition. The real challenge will be to create an informed strategy that can stipulate within the real context of obstacles that are present not only in mind but also on facts created on the ground. For instance, the ethnocentric prejudices and segregation in civil society and the constant barrage of scepticism and antagonism of the 'other'. The grass-roots strategy will aim to counteract such obstacles by reconstructing Lifta's heritage. For instance, FAST will emphasize the value of the relationship between memory and the tangible cultural heritage so that the landscape can convey historical truths capable of empowering Lifta's identity. The workings of the specific use of heritage can have the effect to demystify, reconcile or suggest alternatively to dominant truths present in the conflict.
So the most invaluable resource for an informed strategy will involve relationships to truthful values of Lifta's cultural heritage. Inevitably, the pursuit to justify Lifta's right to exist will also form to define her as a proponent for capacity building in the region. The methods proposed will use a clearly defined set of values to create the tools for regional activism. FAST believes that their undertaking will sustain the most integral and credible opportunity of generating a reappraisal to Lifta's situation.
The emphasis of the strategy for regional activism will be based upon the following sets of principles and values:
(i.) Recognize that this place, Lifta, has an existing cultivated bond, and that this bond (warrants legitmate recognition) evokes an identity and a relationship to identities.
(ii.) Recognize that this place is inextricably tied and linked to the creation of the Modern State of Israel, and therefore is testimony to the phenomenom/event of the creation of the Modern State as well as placing historical perspective and context to her present identity.
(iii.) Recognize that this place contains a unique example of a tangible cultural heritage that evokes a legacy of a place which had a healthy civil equality and no ethnocentric division and segregation.
(iv.)Recognize that Lifta, a place which has an inextricable relationship to the identity of a people and also of a Nation, should have her cultural heritage reappraised so that she can sustain an 'attainable value' for the evaluation of healthy civil progress for the future of this region.
Appraisals of these principles and values will be made clear in individual episodes coming shortly.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
one year previously........
We believe that Lifta and it's particular situation should be addressed to the International community. We want to generate enough attention so that it may pave a path towards a mutual concession to disenable the redevelopment plan.
For instance, we will approach UNESCO's World Heritage Centre. In respect to the legitmacy of cultural development, Lifta's cultural heritage should be critically re-appraised and established so that the governing State power system do not authorize cultural appropriation in pursuit of their own particular agendas. Although World Heritage protection is conventionally sort through the instrument of a State nominating a property, as a form of activism FAST (a non-governmental organization) will nominate the place of Lifta for World Heritage Protection. We believe that the significance of the place is enough for it to be granted protection. We believe that we represent the interests of universal human rights and cultural heritage protection.
FAST will also use this opportunity to bring a whole discussion of 'memory' forward with UNESCO and joint heritage organizations such as ICOMOS. This application is not only important to Lifta but can also be taken as a case-study on the discussion of the relativity of memory.
We want to put across the 3 following questions to the planning community :
-What are the criteria for an "ordinary environment" to become a monument?
-If "history is written by the victors"; how can the heritage of "the losers" be preserved?
-How can the planning community address the political and ideological abuses of heritage?
We believe that in the case of Lifta, what may usually be termed as the 'ordinary' in building type, should also be recognized as a 'monument' of universal value. We will ask the heritage organizations if their planners and planning conventions would take into consideration 'memory', from Lifta's particular situation, as an invaluable component of conservation practice? We are also asking UNESCO what they would consider as a way forward?
We will approach various institutions and bodies that we call upon either to offer opportunities to substantiate our cause, or to call them into question. Ultimately, it is the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) who have jurisdicial control and authority over the Land. If we were to raise enough awareness in the International community, it may enhance the prospect of a reexamination and a closer look by the State authorities to the situation of Lifta.
(Please follow articles between september 2006 to may 2007 for information regarding confronting UNESCO and the international heritage organizations on saving Lifta.)
one year on........
Setting the challenge for a Grassroots Manifesto and Activism Campaign
Introduction.
So far in the campaign, we have raised issues such as challenging existing notions on the discourse of Cultural Properties, and questioned the practices on existing international mechanisms and conventions that ultimately aim to protect cultural heritage. We have learnt that international conventions may not suffice as palpable instruments or safety nets for providing the protection of cultural heritages within Nation States. Ultimately Nation States can reside to selecting history and cultural heritages in favour of main-stream ideological agendas. Notwithstanding, that this can influence negative consequences such as the neglection of cultural heritages amongst the marginalised and segregated communities. Nonetheless, in our quest to further understand and challenge discourse on cultural heritage, we have also encountered a greater tenacity amongst the professional planning community in generating new agendas to unfold reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.
FAST's aim is to offer substantial projects guided by conceivable agendas with alternative planning solutions. We are in the process of advocating a grassroots strategy within Lifta's regional context using the wider Israeli, Arab Israeli and Palestinian network. To sustain an achievable goal the campaign will adopt a strategy that will contest existing cultural notions; such as the traditional cultural assumptions in the selection of heritage against the more purposeful opportunities arising from heritage diversity. Nonetheless, any agenda for alternative discourse will be in context to preventing the neglection of heritage created in the Redevelopment Plan. To substantiate an agenda will require a reappraisal of this situation concerning the current conflict of interest between the different needs and values regarding Lifta. Any strategy will therefore be dependant upon attitudes, either existing or supported as intervention, that will be vital towards supporting a solution.
For example, this campaign may be perceived as controversial, not coinciding with the current outlook and interests of the authority overseeing Lifta's land and the Nation State. By acknowledging that the character premise of the Israeli Nation State is undoubtly embodied by its own set of exclusive values and cultural traditions, any reality construction may have to reflect upon this on the premise that it is a rule of engagement. It will be necessary in our objective to engage and challenge existing cultural notions with ideas that have the capacity of penetrating traditional attitudes with alternative breadth of view. Lifta represents an identity; and an identity in context to a reality can be perceived and defined as a series and a set of power relationships. With the agenda to protect the identity Lifta, any underlining cause should seek to reappraise this identity amongst its traditional perceptions, constructions of rival symbolism and outlooks of place.
FAST's reappraisal is to contend with the cultural workings of identity with a strategy approaching place with the intent to recultivate through gaining regional and national recognition. The real challenge will be to create an informed strategy that can stipulate within the real context of obstacles that are present not only in mind but also on facts created on the ground. For instance, the ethnocentric prejudices and segregation in civil society and the constant barrage of scepticism and antagonism of the 'other'. The grass-roots strategy will aim to counteract such obstacles by reconstructing Lifta's heritage. For instance, FAST will emphasize the value of the relationship between memory and the tangible cultural heritage so that the landscape can convey historical truths capable of empowering Lifta's identity. The workings of the specific use of heritage can have the effect to demystify, reconcile or suggest alternatively to dominant truths present in the conflict.
So the most invaluable resource for an informed strategy will involve relationships to truthful values of Lifta's cultural heritage. Inevitably, the pursuit to justify Lifta's right to exist will also form to define her as a proponent for capacity building in the region. The methods proposed will use a clearly defined set of values to create the tools for regional activism. FAST believes that their undertaking will sustain the most integral and credible opportunity of generating a reappraisal to Lifta's situation.
The emphasis of the strategy for regional activism will be based upon the following sets of principles and values:
(i.) Recognize that this place, Lifta, has an existing cultivated bond, and that this bond (warrants legitmate recognition) evokes an identity and a relationship to identities.
(ii.) Recognize that this place is inextricably tied and linked to the creation of the Modern State of Israel, and therefore is testimony to the phenomenom/event of the creation of the Modern State as well as placing historical perspective and context to her present identity.
(iii.) Recognize that this place contains a unique example of a tangible cultural heritage that evokes a legacy of a place which had a healthy civil equality and no ethnocentric division and segregation.
(iv.)Recognize that Lifta, a place which has an inextricable relationship to the identity of a people and also of a Nation, should have her cultural heritage reappraised so that she can sustain an 'attainable value' for the evaluation of healthy civil progress for the future of this region.
Appraisals of these principles and values will be made clear in individual episodes coming shortly.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
one year previously........
We believe that Lifta and it's particular situation should be addressed to the International community. We want to generate enough attention so that it may pave a path towards a mutual concession to disenable the redevelopment plan.
For instance, we will approach UNESCO's World Heritage Centre. In respect to the legitmacy of cultural development, Lifta's cultural heritage should be critically re-appraised and established so that the governing State power system do not authorize cultural appropriation in pursuit of their own particular agendas. Although World Heritage protection is conventionally sort through the instrument of a State nominating a property, as a form of activism FAST (a non-governmental organization) will nominate the place of Lifta for World Heritage Protection. We believe that the significance of the place is enough for it to be granted protection. We believe that we represent the interests of universal human rights and cultural heritage protection.
FAST will also use this opportunity to bring a whole discussion of 'memory' forward with UNESCO and joint heritage organizations such as ICOMOS. This application is not only important to Lifta but can also be taken as a case-study on the discussion of the relativity of memory.
We want to put across the 3 following questions to the planning community :
-What are the criteria for an "ordinary environment" to become a monument?
-If "history is written by the victors"; how can the heritage of "the losers" be preserved?
-How can the planning community address the political and ideological abuses of heritage?
We believe that in the case of Lifta, what may usually be termed as the 'ordinary' in building type, should also be recognized as a 'monument' of universal value. We will ask the heritage organizations if their planners and planning conventions would take into consideration 'memory', from Lifta's particular situation, as an invaluable component of conservation practice? We are also asking UNESCO what they would consider as a way forward?
We will approach various institutions and bodies that we call upon either to offer opportunities to substantiate our cause, or to call them into question. Ultimately, it is the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) who have jurisdicial control and authority over the Land. If we were to raise enough awareness in the International community, it may enhance the prospect of a reexamination and a closer look by the State authorities to the situation of Lifta.
(Please follow articles between september 2006 to may 2007 for information regarding confronting UNESCO and the international heritage organizations on saving Lifta.)
What is the significance of saving Lifta?
Lifta's buildings and structures are every bit as much important to the future of this region. Lifta bares all the scars of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and buried memories reflected by ruins of the catastrophe, the Nakba. It is a memory in which a victimization has formed part of the palestinian construction of the 'self'; a memory which defines national shared values amongst the palestinian people. Lifta also bears the hall-mark of the unresolved political issue of the 'right of return'. It is a place worth protecting because it is a place which can seek consolation through justice, and provide healing through the opportunity of reconciliation.
We are also readdressing and reflecting upon the term of 'cultural heritage'. The State does not recognize Lifta and its heritage, therefore it is important that we are able to develop an understanding of the importance of Lifta ruins and most importantly 'establish' the connection between memory and the recognition of place. We will try to achieve getting recognition of the historical connection between the culture that transmitted/generated the architecture and the buildings and structures which are currently there. Through saving this place, a duality that exists between the intangible experience and memory of a people and the tangible cultural heritage can provide a platform to directly engage with reality-constructions of identity, place and national memory.
Lifta has the potential to provide unique and vital capacity building programs. We believe that this is site contains a cultural heritage which should be regarded as a common-ground to be used as a foundation to be built upon. It is a place of study and reflection and is important to major issues of our time. It can act as an instrument of dialogue between different cultural allegiances and offer a common vision aimed at cultural development.
Lifta's buildings and structures are every bit as much important to the future of this region. Lifta bares all the scars of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and buried memories reflected by ruins of the catastrophe, the Nakba. It is a memory in which a victimization has formed part of the palestinian construction of the 'self'; a memory which defines national shared values amongst the palestinian people. Lifta also bears the hall-mark of the unresolved political issue of the 'right of return'. It is a place worth protecting because it is a place which can seek consolation through justice, and provide healing through the opportunity of reconciliation.
We are also readdressing and reflecting upon the term of 'cultural heritage'. The State does not recognize Lifta and its heritage, therefore it is important that we are able to develop an understanding of the importance of Lifta ruins and most importantly 'establish' the connection between memory and the recognition of place. We will try to achieve getting recognition of the historical connection between the culture that transmitted/generated the architecture and the buildings and structures which are currently there. Through saving this place, a duality that exists between the intangible experience and memory of a people and the tangible cultural heritage can provide a platform to directly engage with reality-constructions of identity, place and national memory.
Lifta has the potential to provide unique and vital capacity building programs. We believe that this is site contains a cultural heritage which should be regarded as a common-ground to be used as a foundation to be built upon. It is a place of study and reflection and is important to major issues of our time. It can act as an instrument of dialogue between different cultural allegiances and offer a common vision aimed at cultural development.
So why are we developing a campaign to save Lifta?
We are trying to save a place from loosing all record of its cultural heritage as well as it's roots to a people whom of which it once belonged. By saving Lifta, we mean to imply that we are trying to protect a place that still exists in the form of a bond. It exists as a place within the memories of a people, identifiable by the ruins of the buildings and structures cultivated into the landscape. 'Memory' in respect to Lifta is the essence of the place, it is bare without people telling their stories and affirming their bonds to the place.
Sitting within a valley underneath and adjacent to the Tel-Aviv road entering the north-west corridor of Jerusalem, Lifta is a suburb and a gateway into this city. Lifta's inhabitants were forcibly abandoned from the place in 1948 during the catastrophic mass exile of Palestinian people known as the Nakba; a sequence of events synthesized with the establishment of the State of Israel. Whilst many palestinian places affected by the tragedy were either totally removed or annexed under the State of Israel, Lifta stood obscurely due to nearly 60 years of unhinderance from redevelopment. The uniqueness of Lifta is due to the phenomenom that no conquest has physically re-contextualized the place. Lifta lies frozen between two epochs, two histories, two cultures. At present the place has drawn attention to itself, by the hope and demand that a bond can be sustained without the total removal of the signs that the place was once home to a particular people for many hundreds of years.
We do not know what the solution is to this situation, but we do know that if the current authorized plan for redevelopment is built, it will eradicate the memory that is currently attributed to the identity of the place. With new signs and symbols, a new memory would be cultivated onto the landscape. The redevelopment plan will change the name of the Lifta to Mei Neftoach (Spring) in accordance to an ancient historical name to the place. The land processing structures will be placed on display and given biblical references rather than their authentic palestinian heritage. And architectural mimicry of the palestinian cultivated houses shall be mass produced around the lands of Lifta to supplement desirable and exclusive developments to cater for hotels and private accomodation for the non-resident Jewish elite. All reference to its cultivated palestinian heritage will be undermined through forgetfulness; terminaly erazed. (Please read Article 'Reinventing Lifta' for a full appraisal of Lifta and the Redevelopment Plan.)
Our purpose, first and foremost, is to safeguard the harmony that currently exists between the vivid memories and the architectural antiquities on the landscape. To safeguard a nature of recognition and a sense of belonging. Lifta may be a modern-day ruin, but more importantly it is a monument of the present. The place is tangibly connected to a generation of people who still reguard the place to be their ancestral home; if not their home. This same essence and feeling of ancestral origin and home has passed down the next generation and is still strongly felt amongst them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
