Tourism

Promoting culture through intangible heritage

By DOREEN NAWA

WHERE has the zeal of night story telling gone in grannies, parents and guardians?

Currently, it is very rare that families both in urban and rural areas would gather every evening to tell their children stories.

Not long ago, families would gather around a fire or a brazier to tell their children stories linked to their culture and their way of life.

But slowly this cultural heritage is fading away in most homes in Zambia.

This has impacted negatively on families and the nation on preserving and safeguarding of their intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

“My heart bleeds when I see our children going away from their way of life and their culture. Rapid globalization, population growth, triumph of ideology are contributing to the on-going and (if not checked) permanent destruction of languages, skills, local knowledge and other intangible cultural heritage like story telling in the country,” Kulamba Kubwalo committee member, Douglas Phiri has observed. 

According to Mr Phiri, cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects.  It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from the ancestors and passed on to the descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.

“Cultural heritage is the pride of nations, societies and groups. It builds mutual respect, understanding and peace between peoples and helps them achieve sustainable development. Every tribe has the right to be proud when its heritage is engraved at family level and transferred to each generation as it is a boost to the sense of identity among its people,” Mr Phiri says.

Intangible cultural heritage made up of all immaterial manifestations of culture, represents the variety of living heritage of humanity as well as the most important vehicle of cultural diversity.

Tourism and Arts deputy minister, Keith Mukata that intangible cultural heritage is an important factor in maintaining cultural diversity in the face of growing globalization.

Mr Mukata says an understanding of the intangible cultural heritage of different communities helps with intercultural dialogue, and encourages mutual respect for other ways of life.

“The importance of intangible cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next,’’ he said.

According to experts, the social and economic value of this transmission of knowledge is relevant for minority groups and for mainstream social groups within our country

According to Mr Mukata, Zambia is at crossroads following the failure by parents and the nation at large to keep track of the intangible cultural heritage through books.

“It’s very disappointing to see parents encouraging their children to watch western movies rather than encouraging them to watch movies like Banja, those done in our local languages and depicting our way of life as Zambians,” Mr Mukata said.

He was speaking during a stakeholders workshop organised by the Zambia Commission of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Lusaka recently.

According to Mr Mukata, traditional knowledge and practices lie at the heart of a community’s culture and identity but are under serious threat from globalisation and modernisation.

“Even though some aspects of traditional knowledge, such as medicinal uses of local plant species, may be of interest to scientists and corporations, many traditional practices are nevertheless disappearing and all because of globalisation and modernisation.

There is urgent need to record and make digital inventories of these memoirs before we lose them. Once the old generation is gone, we will lose these intangible cultures like it is the situation with storytelling,” Mr Mukata says.

However, the deputy minister was impressed that the Makishi Masquerade as well as the Gule Wa Mkulu were proclaimed as masterpieces of the oral and intangible culture by UNESCO.

It has been noted that rapid globalization has had a marked effect on a community’s disappearance of a sacred cultural heritage hence the need to ensure that the intangible cultures are safeguarded.

The intangible cultural heritage of a nation is the crystallization of the essence of the culture and wisdom of that nation.

For instance, Zambia is a nation comprised of more than 73 tribes that have created a great treasure of intangible cultural heritage over a long period of time and all this could be lost easily if not safeguarded.

Currently, intangible cultural heritage might involve traditional music and dance, prayers and songs, clothing and sacred items as well as ritual and ceremonial practices and an acute awareness and knowledge of the natural world.

Similarly, festivals are complex expressions of intangible cultural heritage that include singing, dancing, theatre, feasting, oral tradition and storytelling, displays of craftsmanship, sports and other entertainments.

To be kept alive, intangible cultural heritage must be relevant to its community, continuously recreated and transmitted from one generation to another.

There is a risk that certain elements of intangible cultural heritage could die out or disappear without help, but safeguarding does not mean fixing or freezing intangible cultural heritage in some pure or primordial form.

According to the UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is about the transferring of knowledge, skills and meaning. Transmission or communicating heritage.

This should be from generation to generation which is emphasized in the Convention rather than the production of concrete manifestations such as dances, songs, musical instruments or crafts.

Safeguarding measures to ensure that intangible cultural heritage can be transmitted from one generation to another are considerably different from those required for protecting tangible heritage (natural and cultural).

However, some elements of tangible heritage are often associated with intangible cultural heritage. That is why the Convention includes, in its definition of intangible cultural heritage, the instruments, cultural objects and cultural spaces associated with it.

Intangible cultural heritage is the emblem of the spiritual culture of the many different peoples of the world, and at the same time, is an important legacy shared by many people.

There has been active discussion in the global community on recognition and respect for the diversity of culture in this age of globalization.

In particular, the importance of preserving and promoting the intangible cultural heritage that comprises the roots of each people's cultural identity has especially been gaining attention around the world.

Intangible cultural heritage cannot be recovered once it has been lost just like an African saying goes; when an elder dies, a library burns. In recent years, due to the aging of practitioners and the lack of successors for their arts and crafts, a great amount of Intangible Cultural Heritage is facing the danger of extinction. Urgent steps must be taken to preserve and promote intangible heritage.

Published on December 12, 2012