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July/Aug/Sept 2006 |
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Join the Movement: Become a Member of the Coalition
Support this unique network by becoming a member of the Coalition. As a member, you will help sustain a global effort to activate historic sites as new centers for civic dialogue. Visit www.sitesofconscience.org/eng/about.htm to sign up today!
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CONTENTS:
Bangladeshi Museum Remembering Independence Leader Threatened
Koizumi Visit to Japanese Memorial Shrine Deepens Rift with China and South Korea
War Exhibit Further Strains German-Polish Relations
Support for Site of Welsh Independence Fails
National Civil Rights Museum Addresses Gun Violence - Memphis, TN, US
Sites of State Repression Mobilize at Gulag Museum at Perm-36 and Mednoe Memorial Complex - Russia
Sites of Conscience Regional Workshops Spark Innovative Projects - Dhaka, Bangladesh; Cape Town, South Africa; Perm, Russia; and Buenos Aires, Argentina
Albanian American Foundation, Ossining, NY, US
Palace of the Governors/New Mexico Museum of History, Santa Fe, NM, US
Modjeska Monteith Simkins Center for Justice, Ethics and Human Rights, Columbia, SC, US
Kolyma Gulag Museum, Yagodnoe, Russia
Krasnoyarsk Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Museum of the History of Political Repression Tomsk NKVD Prison, Tomsk, Russia
State Museum of the Political History of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia
Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Israel
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Bangladeshi Museum Remembering Independence Leader Threatened
On August 14, staff and security forces foiled an attempt by suspected Islamic militants to blow up a museum in central Dhaka dedicated to the memory of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founding prime minister and symbol for the nation's secular, pro-democracy movement. Intelligence officials said a former student of a madrassa, or Islamic religious school, and three others were arrested while they were allegedly planting electronic devices at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum. The devices were to be timed to detonate the next day, during a ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of Mujibur's assassination. The failed bomb attack could also have been targeted at Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the late Mujibur and leader of the secular Awami League, the main opposition party in Bangladesh, who planned to attend the ceremony. The accused are currently in police custody for further investigation.
To read more, visit:
http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_29945.shtml
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/southasia/article_1190591.php/Bangladesh_foils_bid_to_bomb_museum_by_Islamic_militants
Koizumi Visit to Japanese Memorial Shrine Deepens Rift with China and South Korea
Despite warnings from neighboring Asian countries, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine war memorial on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender. Many of Japan's neighbors believe the controversial shrine, which honors 2.5 million war dead and includes 14 people convicted as criminals by a 1948 war tribunal, glorifies Japan's militaristic past, and that Koizumi's visits show that Japan has yet to fully address past atrocities. Koizumi has insisted that he was not only honoring the war dead but praying for peace, and dismissed criticism that his visits had harmed relations with China and South Korea, which have suspended summit meetings with Japan over the visits to the shrine.
To read more, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html?ex=1156478400&en=dfcb899eaa8f8cf3&ei=5070
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4789905.stm?ls
War Exhibit Further Strains German-Polish Relations
A new exhibit in Berlin, devoted to the suffering of more than 12 million Germans expelled from Poland and other countries at the end of World War II, has drawn criticism from Polish officials. "Forced Paths - Flight and Expulsion in Europe During the 20th Century", depicts the plight of millions of European refugees, among them many Germans, who either fled or were expelled from their homes at the end of the war. Stories range from the Armenian massacres in 1915 to the German persecution of the Jews between 1933-45, and the ethnic cleansing terror in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s.
Critics in Poland contend that this equal-opportunity approach suggests a moral equivalence between the methodical persecution undertaken by the Nazis and the woes of Germans in a war they started. In Germany, many people defend the exhibit as part of an overdue effort to honor the wartime suffering of their grandparents. Conflicts over the exhibit, which involved public statements by Poland's Prime Minister and a cancelled trip to Germany by the Mayor of Warsaw, are part of ongoing tensions between the two nations.
Exhibition organizer Wilfried Rogasch stated he was "disappointed," since "I saw myself as a bridge-builder between Germany and Poland, not as a trouble-maker."
To read more, visit:
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/world/europe/31berlin.html
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=32452&name=German+WW2+expellees+exhibition+angers+Poles
Support for Site of Welsh Independence Fails
In June 1402, a battlefield on the Welsh-English border was the site of a landmark victory in the bloody fight for Welsh independence from England. The 10-acre battle site is now up for auction and could potentially fall into the hands of developers, to the dismay of local historical associations. Although members of Save Bryn Glas were hoping to raise enough money to discourage the sale and construct a visitor's center to educate the public on these struggles for freedom, the group was unable to find a benefactor and the battlefield will most likely be split in two and sold to commercial developers.
To read more, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/5118158.stm
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/yourwales/history/tm_objectid=17034177%26method=full%26siteid=50082%26headline=battle%2dto%2dsave%2dsite%2dof%2dglyndwr%2ds%2dbloody%2dvictory-name_page.html
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National Civil Rights Museum Addresses Gun Violence - Memphis, TN, US
(4 August - 24 October, 2006)
Gun violence is not solely a problem of the past in the city where American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Currently, the city of Memphis is experiencing a record number of homicides, especially amongst its youth - more than 114 people have fallen victim to gun violence so far this year. With the memory of the tragic circumstances of 1968 ever present, the National Civil Rights Museum is hosting "Wounded in America" (WIA), a traveling exhibit dedicated to documenting the life-altering experiences of individuals who have survived firearms violence, to provide a pathway for addressing this pressing issue in Memphis today.
As part of WIA, the Museum will join elected officials, criminal justice administrators, educators, grassroots organizations and the general public to present programs aimed at reinforcing the goals of the Civil Rights Movement and their relevance and importance to present-day issues of violence, freedom of speech and equality. With the input of an education advisory committee, the Museum will host multiple WIA programs later this summer, including a forum on gun violence; a signing of pledge cards to help eliminate violence; and the "Peace in the House" theater workshop, which utilizes scenarios and discussions to teach non-violence. The Museum is also holding formative discussions on the merits of hosting a "Stop Gun Violence" rally.
This recent exhibit is just one of many innovative and widely-recognized programs the National Civil Rights Museum offers its visitors. Named by USA Today as one of America's top ten attractions, Bank of America recently donated $200,000 to support the Museum's ongoing operations and programming, including the popular Living History Theatre and King Holiday programs. For more information on "Wounded in America" and to learn about the Museum's other creative programs, visit the online exhibit www.woundedinamerica.org and the National Civil Rights Museum.
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Sites of State Repression Mobilize at Gulag Museum at Perm-36 and Mednoe Memorial Complex - Russia
(25 June - 3 July, 2006)
 From June 25 - July 3, 2006, Sites of Conscience leaders from across Russia and around the world gathered in Perm, home of the Gulag Museum at Perm-36, to explore new ways to foster civic engagement in the most pressing human rights issues facing their diverse societies. The Sites of Conscience Summit took place in the midst of a national struggle for a more open society in a climate increasingly hostile to protests against government policies. Prior to the 32nd G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, civil society advocates gathered in Moscow for a pro-democracy conference, including human rights advocate and Coalition Trustee Sergei A. Kovalyov. During the conference, over 40 participants were arrested for publicly addressing Russia's police abuses, corruption, arbitrariness of law, news media restrictions, crackdown on private organizations, centralization of wealth and power around the Kremlin, and the brutality of the wars in Chechnya.
In response to this reality, Russian museums are also banding together to promote public awareness of Russia's history of political repression, its human consequences, and the responsibility of every citizen to participate in building an open society. From St. Petersburg to the Russian Far East, leaders from Russian historic sites gathered in Perm to share best practices with each other and with international Summit participants. During a day-long visit to the Gulag Museum at Perm-36, participants observed a range of strategies for activating a former labor camp to teach the history of the gulag system, highlight the consequences of repressive government, and promote human rights values. The Museum's Education Department staff led activities designed to encourage young visitors to explore and express their perceptions of human rights in Russia today, asking participants to consider difficult questions such as "What does freedom/lack of freedom mean to me?" and "Is freedom in modern Russia an opportunity or a danger?"
 Summit participants also observed an arts festival, where visual and performance artists brought the powerful human experience of the gulag camp at Perm-36 to life through a variety of thought-provoking installations. The pieces used irony and humor, the same tactics ex-prisoners used to survive, to convey the complex history of the camp. The arts event provided participants with new and unconventional strategies for animating historic sites and communicating their human experience.
Finally, Coalition Members visited one of the newest Accredited Member Sites, Mednoe Memorial Complex. In Tver, participants explored the grounds of mass graves of thousands of Russian and Polish prisoners who were executed and buried by Soviet Communist Secret Police (NKVD), observing how the Complex uses outdoor memorials, art installations, and museum exhibits to tell the individual story of a broad range of people - from Polish soldiers to ordinary local citizens to NKVD officers themselves - became victims of political repression. Participants learned how various techniques, such as documentary displays and wordless sculptures featuring the photos and artifacts of victims' help visitors not only explore the difficult experience of life under totalitarian regimes, but identify their own roles in preventing future abuse.
Sites of Conscience Regional Workshops Spark Innovative Projects - Dhaka, Bangladesh; Cape Town, South Africa; Perm, Russia; and Buenos Aires, Argentina
(April - June 2006)
This spring and summer, the District Six Museum, South Africa; Gulag Museum at Perm-36, Russia; Liberation War Museum, Bangladesh; Maison des Esclaves, Senegal; and Memoria Abierta, Argentina hosted highly successful Sites of Conscience Workshops mobilizing memory initiatives to address common histories and human rights issues in their regions. The workshops, that involved over 45 historic sites and supporting government and non-governmental (NGO) institutions, resulted in a shared commitment to engage in programs that inspire broader citizen engagement on pressing local issues, new infrastructure to support the long-term success of such programs, and the identification of new potential Sites of Conscience regional partners.Participants developed designs for the following new joint initiatives:
- African Sites of Conscience Youth Dialogue Programs: Staff from District Six Museum designed a plan with network member sites to develop programs for youth at four sites in Ghana, Senegal, South African and Rwanda that engage young people in the histories of slavery, colonialism, and struggles for independence, and foster dialogue and engagement on contemporary human rights issues;
- History of Gulag Traveling Exhibit: The Gulag Museum at Perm-36 and regional partners created a plan to develop a traveling exhibit on the history of the gulag in Russia in collaboration with other historic sites of state repression. The exhibit will include material from Russian Sites of Conscience as well as from the Gulag Museum at Perm-36. The exhibit will also travel to remote regions of the nation;
- South Asia Youth Peace Camp: The Liberation War Museum designed a plan with partner Asian Sites of Conscience to bring 25 students and youth involved in the communities around historic sites in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines to the Sabarmati Ashram in India for a seven-day youth camp, where participants will use the Ashram's collection of artifacts and documents from Gandhi's life to make presentation and engage in discussion on contemporary ethnic and religious conflict within and between their nations, and design programs for continuing these conversations in their home communities.
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Institutional Members of the Coalition are part of a growing network of organizations and individuals dedicated to teaching and learning how historic sites and museums can encourage active civic engagement in their communities and around the world. Institutional Members receive of a range of benefits, including eligibility to participate in international conferences and learning exchanges, a feature in the Matters of Conscience e-newsletter, and discounted admission at Accredited Sites of Conscience. For full details on the list of Institutional Member benefits or to sign up today, visit http://www.sitesofconscience.org/eng/about.htm
Albanian American Foundation, Ossining, NY, US
The Albanian American Foundation is a charitable and educational nonprofit organization that informs and educates the public, the press, and policy makers about the plight of the Albanian people in the Balkans, who still suffer from racism, political marginalization, and the threat of genocide close to seventeen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Europe. Established in 1989, the Foundation is affiliated with the Albanian American Civic League, a bipartisan, volunteer advocacy group representing the concerns of more than 700,000 Albanian Americans about the human rights of Albanians in Southeast Europe.
Since its inception, the Foundation has recovered files from Albania's last dictator, Ramiz Alia, about the unique role that Albanians played in saving every Jew from the Nazis who either lived in Albania or sought asylum there during World War II. These letters, photographs, and clippings from Western newspapers are now documented in the book Rescue in Albania. In 1995, the Foundation worked with the US Memorial Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, to add Albania to the "Righteous Among Nations" section of the museum. At present, the Foundation is working with partners to promote the "Besa Project," a photo exhibition of Albanians and their descendants who saved Jews during World War II. The project will be expanded to document individual and collective memories of Albanians not only in Albania, but also in Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Presheva, and Chameria, remembering 125 years of arrest, torture, expulsion and murder of Albanians in the Balkans. The Foundation also plans to recommend that the Albanian government use the section of the National Museum in Tirana that is dedicated to the oppression and repression of hundreds of thousands of Albanian citizens under the regime of Enver Hoxha as a comprehensive center for education, awareness and civic dialogue on the history of repression in Albania. For more information, contact cloyes@bestweb.net
Palace of the Governors/New Mexico Museum of History, Santa Fe, NM, US
Located in present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Palace of the Governors was originally constructed in the early 17th century as Spain's regional seat of government in the Americas. Its illustrious beginnings and subsequent uses make it the oldest continuously occupied government building in the United States. Today, it is home to the New Mexico History Museum, in an ethnically diverse area where inhabitants lay claim to European, Mexican, and Native American ancestry. The Museum uses exhibits drawn from the various cultures to educate visitors on the history of the city, as well as that of New Mexico and the rest of the American Southwest.
The Museum's collections span the history of New Mexico, including indigenous art from as far back as 1500 B.C. and artifacts from the early days of Spanish colonization. Since its founding, the Museum has worked to protect and promote traditional Southwest Native American arts and crafts through the Portal Program, where a covered walkway on the south side of the Palace contains handmade crafts every day of the week from more than 4,000 registered vendors from 41 local tribes, pueblos, chapters and villages. Learn more about the Palace of the Governors/New Mexico Museum of History at http://www.palaceofthegovernors.org
Modjeska Monteith Simkins Center for Justice, Ethics and Human Rights, Columbia, SC, US
South Carolina civil and human rights leader Modjeska Monteith Simkins devoted more than sixty years of her life to public service. Simkins played a pivotal role in drafting the legal petition for Briggs v. Elliot, the South Carolina case that led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate American public schools in 1954. In short, her work helped to change the country. Her home served as the strategic headquarters for such national leaders as Thurgood Marshall and Andrew Young, as they led social change campaigns in the American South. Modjeska was an important leader of African-American public health reform, social reform and the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina and the region. Because her activism was at times controversial, her life and home came under attack: when she was actively involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) her house was shot at, and she was also accused of subversive activities and investigated by federal authorities.
Today, Simkins' former house carries on her legacy of justice and human rights. Using photographs, archives, books, video footage and books from the civil rights era and current social efforts from around the world, the Center provides resources on a variety of social causes. The Center also functions as a public center for dialogue and action, and aims to engage the public on elements of the state's civil and human rights past, present and future. For more information on the Modjeska Monteith Simkins Center for Justice, Ethics and Human Rights, visit http://www.collab4community.org
Sites of Conscience Regional Workshop Partners: Russia
Over the next few issues, Matters of Conscience will feature new Institutional Members that participated in Sites of Conscience regional workshops in Russia, Asia, Africa and South America.
Kolyma Gulag Museum, Yagodnoe, Russia
The "Dalnostroy" Consortium, which once included the North-East territory of Russia, had been the main supplier of gold in Russia for many years. Today, as in the past, this entire territory is called Kolyma. It was here in the 1930s and '50s that hundreds of thousands of prisoners worked under inhuman conditions for the "welfare" of the Motherland. Starting in 1989, individuals dedicated to preserving the memory of this system began collecting artifacts - such as kettles, pickaxes, and other tools of hard labor - from the Knife prison camp near Orkutan village. This effort gave rise to the Kolyma Gulag Museum, which now houses thousands of photographs and artifacts of daily camp life, including original prisoner files, camp newspapers, drawings and letters from former prisoners that are used to tell the stories of those who lived, worked, loved, hoped and died in the Kolyma camps. Contact memo@ya.magadan.su to learn more.
Krasnoyarsk Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
A branch of the central Lenin Museum in Moscow, the Krasnoyarsk Museum Center works with cultural and educational institutions around the Krasnoyarsk region to interpret the region's history and promote the work of local artists. The Museum has hosted several powerful exhibits raising contemporary issues, such as techniques used by the Russian State to erase the memory of political prisoners from the history and social conscience of the nation. For more information, contact valentina@mira1.ru
Museum of the History of Political Repression Tomsk NKVD Prison, Tomsk, Russia
The Museum of the History of Political Repression Tomsk NKVD Prison is located in the former building of the Tomsk OGPU-NKVD, which operated as a secret prison from 1923 to 1944. Exhibits display restored and reconstructed cells for political prisoners, a detective's office/interrogation room, the prison hallway and other elements of this clandestine prison from the 1930s. These exhibits illustrate the history of political repression in the Tomsk region and the entire USSR throughout the long-standing totalitarian regime. In front of the Museum, monuments in Memory Square commemorate the Tomsk victims of political terror. The Museum's mission is to reveal the horrible history of terror and the nation's totalitarian past, to commemorate innocent victims, and to educate youth on the values of democracy and human rights. Contact borel@mail.tomsknet.ru to learn more.
State Museum of the Political History of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia
Founded in 1919, this former Bolshevik headquarters interprets the history of class struggle in Russia and Europe. The mission of the State Museum is to nurture in its citizens a sense of social responsibility for the future development of Russia as a democratic state. Over the past 15 years, the State Museum has studied and interpreted the history of totalitarianism under Stalin, as well as the history of the gulag system and dissident resistance to Communism. The State Museum oversees four branches: the Museum Center for Childhood Education and the Police History Museum in St. Petersburg, and the "Mednoe" and "Katyn" Memorial Complexes that commemorate victims of political repression.
For more information, visit http://www.museum.ru/Museum/polit_hist/default.htm
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Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Israel
From its location on the "seam" of Jerusalem - sitting on the line between religious and secular communities, the old city and the new, the East and West, affluent and poor, Arab and Jewish communities - the Museum on the Seam presents exhibits that examine the conflict in the Middle East. Rather than chronicling the region's volatile past, the Museum displays art that addresses various angles of contemporary social concerns in the region.
The Museum building was built in 1932 and served as a military outpost the end of the Israeli War of Independence (1948) until the Six Day War (1967), while Jerusalem was divided. It stands on the seam line between Israel and Jordan across from Mandelbaum Gate, the only crossing point between the two sides of the divided city. The Museum's mission is to respond to the stress and tension that are part of daily life in Israel, and present art to communicate to those on all sides of the conflict. Although exhibitions vary in topic, all are designed to stimulate conversation among varied social and ethnic groups. Its current exhibition, DEADEND, presents the ways in which violence has become the language of daily life. Viewing the world through the lense of Israeli and Palestinian conflict, the Museum on the Seam is committed to social dialogue based on what all people have in common, rather than divisive factors. For more information, visit http://www.coexistence.art.museum/eng/main.htm
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Matters of Conscience is supported in part by the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy and Open Society Institute. |
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