. I know all of these sites, having holidayed in both Delhi and Amsterdam and having visited ad-Dir’iyah, the capital of the first Saudi state, many times during the time I was based in Riyadh working alongside the Supreme Commission for Tourism (now the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities – SCTA). The architecture of Jantar Mantar (opposite) is certainly stunning – almost abstract in places and looking like a contemporary skatepark. The site was a lunar and celestial observatory and is testament to the scientific knowledge and spirit of inquiry of the time. Amsterdam’s canals are an iconic aspect of the city’s urban form and reflect the ingenuity of the town’s inhabitants in terms of managing flood control as well as facilitating trade.
At Turaif I am a little more bothered about. The site itself is architecturally interesting although none of the original fabric remains – the authorities have invested considerably in restoration and rebuilding works in recent years. But the authenticity argument is only part of my concern. For a cultural heritage site to be inscribed on the WH list it must meet a number of criteria that have been taken to reflect its global significance.
The UNESCO press release issued on august 1st and celebrating its inscription explains the sig
nificance of At Turaif thus: “This property was the first capital of the Saudi Dynasty, in the heart of the Arabian Penisula, north-west of Riyadh. Founded in the 15th century, it bears witness to the Najdi architectural style, which is specific to the centre of the Arabian peninsula. In the 18th and early 19th century, its political and religious role increased, and the citadel at at-Turaif became the centre of the temporal power of the House of Saud and the spread of the Wahhabi reform inside the Muslim religion. The property includes the remains of many palaces and an urban ensemble built on the edge of the ad-Dir’iyah oasis”.
Note the link to Wahhabism – the very conservative form of Sunni Islam based on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an 18th century scholar whose legacy, if one is to agree with the work of some scholars, includes the Taliban and Al-Qaeda (see for examples Charles Allen’s 2006 book God’s Terrorists). Whether or not one agrees with the beliefs of these organisations, it does appear that by according international status to a site directly linked with their progenitor, UNESCO could be seen to be legitimising this fundamentalist ethos.
The reason that this particular issue struck such a chord with me is that in the same week that the World Heritage Committee was meeting in Brasilia, I was asked to review a fascinating new collection of essays edited by Sophia Labadi and Colin Long entitled ‘Heritage and Globalisation’ and published in the UK by Routledge. One of the first chapters of the book, written by the Australian ethnographer Marc Askew, takes a very strong position on the way in which UNESCO, through the World Heritage List, is using what he terms a veneer of academic and specialist validation to support the work of nation-states in what he calls ‘projects of cultural reification and domination’. In other words, UNESCO is complicit in allowing member states to pursue their own ideological agendas by according globally-endowed status to sites that are supposed to be of outstanding universal value, but which in reality can be highly political and indeed contentious. However, the involvement of the state party with the support of UNESCO allows a homogeonised view of the past to be celebrated – what Laurajane Smith refers to as AHD – the Authorised Heritage Discourse that reflects that state’s view, and not that of other stakeholders (existing and potential, domestic and international).
I retain a strong affection for my many Saudi Arabian friends and colleagues, and am delighted that in recent years they have engaged with the World Heritage Convention and that so much investment is being made in protecting, conserving and managing the wealth of heritage assets – pre and post-Islamic – across the Kingdom. I just wonder, however, whether in the current global political climate, the nomination of At Turaif was a sensitive act?
