CULTURAL heritage is particularly vulnerable in times of hardship.
Conflict, economic transition and abject poverty invite speculators and criminals to attack cultural heritage.
Big money is made from other people’s misfortune.
Most of those persuading local people to pillage tombs and museums are well aware of what they are doing, and they do it for the profit they make from selling into the international market.
Each time an illicit sale is made, profits are distributed to all dishonest people in the chain, encouraging more theft and more damage.
The seller in most countries is not required to reveal the name of the buyer.
A telling point is how a piece of the Zimbabwe Bird was stolen and transported all the way to Germany.
The bird was brought back in 2003 courtesy of a 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property and negotiations between the German and Zimbabwean governments. Some birds however were not recovered from South Africa that Cecil John Rhodes ‘excavators recklessly dug at the Zimbabwe Ruins’.
Communities and galleries around Zimbabwe continue to fall prey to gullible cultural artists who offer a pittance for their art and make fortunes in their countries, everyday tourists throng the Mbare musika market buying artefacts such as mbira, rattles or magagada, hwamanda, drums, axes, baskets, bangles and even wire cars, to ship to European buyers to sell them for a fortunes.
The BaTonga art, remains a target of such buyers. Artefacts from Binga remain top the list of the most sought after by historians and treasure collectors.
However, when these artefacts are shipped out of the country, the BaTonga have benefitted little or nothing at all from their treasure as the money paid for artefacts is very little or in some cases exchanged for food and clothing.
The BaTonga have over the years surrendered items of value to buyers and tourists who traded these cultural artefacts for thousands of dollars in the international art market.
These items include the famous doors made from Mukwa trees on the banks of the Zambezi River, doors with two panels and measuring up to a metre in width. They were used on the Nganda, a special bedroom for the matriarch grandmother.
Only a few remain at the BaTonga Museum and the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe.
The famous Ndombona or Inchelwa Gourd, mainly used by the elderly BaTonga women as a smoking pipe, also tops the list on the collectors list.
The Buntimbe ceremonial drums that come in a set of three are also a favourite for collectors, although these drums are communally owned tourists and other buyers have paid communities to part with their valuable part of history.
The Nyele is a very common musical instrument.
It is made out of a male duiker horn and it is played as a musical instrument during rainmaking and other special ceremonies.
To top the collectors list are figurines of the Nyaminyami which are in the form of walking sticks, plaques, necklaces while an assortment of baskets, mats, sculptures mainly of hippo, lion and elephant are also sought after.
The issue of tangible culture is important to the development of human personality and individual identity.
Its destruction causes alienation and disorientation.
Protection of cultural heritage is, therefore not simply the protection of things: it is the protection of the rights of personality and is fundamentally humanitarian. Furthermore, it aims to preserve cultural diversity and make its study possible so that all human kind may rejoice in a variety and richness of the human response to its environment.
It should be recalled that some objects presently traded as commodities on the Western art market are not regarded as such by their creators, to whom the idea of their commercial exploitation may be deeply offensive, items created for ceremonial purposes such as drums and the Nyele are examples.
The community Museums programme in Zimbabwe which started in 2000 seeks to empower small communities through promotion of their cultures as well as their languages especially in lower schools.
The programme emerged as an alternative ‘museums conception’ which was driven by the community relevance in museum issues.
Workshops held at the community museums aim to empower local artists, provoke inert talents, carry out community exhibitions, develop dying skills, promote community arts and engage in exchange programmes.
In addition the new concept has removed the curator as the ‘god-father’ of the museum who has been replaced by the community.
The aim is not to stop the legal art trade, nor to hamper it unduly, but to prevent illicitly acquired cultural objects from entering the legal trade.
This new concept of ‘Museums with community relevance’ has not only helped promoting the diversity of the Zimbabwe culture-scape, but has also assisted the communities in enhancing their livelihoods through workshops, sale of exhibition products and direct crafts.
A classical example and a first of its kind is the BaTonga Community Museum located in North Western Zimbabwe.
Other community museums are the Nambya, still located in Northwestern Zimbabwe, and the Budja community in north-eastern Zimbabwe.
Ziwa Museum (Nyanga-Eastern Zimbabwe), Domboshava Museum (northern Zimbabwe), National Heroes Acre Museum (Harare), Old Bulawayo (Bulawayo) Pomongwe, (Matobo Hills area-Bulawayo) Nswatugi, (Matobo Hills area-Bulawayo) Mutoko Museum (North-eastern Zimbabwe), Tsindi Site Museum (Marondera), Mashonaland West Provincial Heroes Acre (Chinhoyi).