What is The Right to Heritage?

Egypt’s rich cultural heritage is inextricably linked to the identity of individuals, groups, and the nation as a whole. It is the legacy of our collective past handed down from previous generations. But what does a “right” to heritage mean and why is it a necessary component of building, sustaining, and improving our cities? One of the best articulations of the somewhat elusive “right to heritage” explains that it is:

[t]he right for everyone, alone or collectively, to benefit from the cultural heritage and to contribute towards its enrichment; [it includes also] the responsibility for everyone, alone or collectively, to respect the cultural heritage of others as much as their own heritage, and consequently the common heritage […]. The exercise of the right to cultural heritage may be subject only to those restrictions which are necessary in a democratic society for the protection of the public interest and the rights and freedoms of others (Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005).

Although not explicitly articulated as cultural heritage, the right to heritage has roots in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” In 1965, the International Council on Monuments and Sites adopted the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites (Venice Charter), which recognized the importance of preserving not only historic monuments, but also their surrounding environment.

The Right to Heritage in Egypt

Egypt’s cultural heritage played a critical role in mobilizing the international community to recognize the universal value of heritage and the need to work collective to protect it for future generations. When Egypt decided to build the Aswan High Dam in the late 1950s, it would have flooded the Temples of Ramses II at Abu Simbel and the Sanctuary of Isis at Philae. At the urging of the Egyptian and Sudanese government, UNESCO launched an international campaign to save these monuments. With $80 million in support between 1960 and 1980, the temples were carefully disassembled, moved, and reconstructed on dry ground. The success of this campaign set a precedent of international cooperation to preserve and protect heritage and culminated in the creation of the World Heritage Convention in 1972. Egypt has six World Heritage sites in within its borders, including Historic Cairo and the Pyramids at Giza. As a party to the convention, Egypt has pledged not only to conserve and protect the Egyptian World Heritage Sites, but also its national heritage (UNESCO no date).

Egypt’s built environment is part of its cultural heritage as well. Rulers and wealthy patrons of previous eras built mosques, tombs, universities, and palaces in Cairo, yet some of these structures are now located in densely-populated residential neighborhoods with vibrant commercial and industrial areas laced through them. Maintaining historical buildings has often been financially challenging, as new monuments are built, and others ignored. As tourism grew in the last few decades, the Egyptian government and the international community began to restore and renovate many heritage-rich areas which were ‘significant’ for the tourist economy.

This tension over a nation’s heritage and the appropriate roles for public authorities, public funds, civil society, private actors, and citizens in protecting, maintaining, and celebrating one’s heritage has led to many debates internally in Egypt about our cultural heritage, and globally, these debates and complex issues have led to the development of “the right to heritage.”  TADAMUN believes it is necessary for the institutions responsible for the protection of Egyptian heritage to open a dialogue with communities to define their cultural heritage and to leverage the expertise and resources of communities to help safeguard it. The right to heritage is both an individual right as well as a collective right. Each individual and community has the right to enjoy their own cultural heritage as well as the cultural heritage of others, but also bears the responsibility to respect and safeguard the diversity of their cultural heritage.

Heritage in the Egyptian New Constitution (2012)

As Egypt emerges from a comparable period of political transition the New Egyptian Constitution of 2012 leaves no doubt concerning the State’s prerogative to preserve “the nation’s cultural heritage and [promotion of] cultural services”(Article 46, New Egyptian Constitution, 2012). The articles referring to heritage mainly evoke the importance of protecting the primacy of the Arabic language within the country [Article 12; 60], moral values and Arab culture, without defining specifically what constitutes it. But, more importantly, the Constitution is not precise about who decides the contours Egypt’s heritage, and whether that is an exclusive or inclusive notion.

Our survey concerning other Constitutions around the world demonstrates, in most cases, that the State is the main actor in the protection, preservation, and promotion of the heritage environment, but other potential actors (the private sector, religious institutions, and civil society) are not mentioned. Article 213 of the New Constitution does stress the importance for the Government to “protect the cultural and architectural heritage of Egyptians.” Still, the decision remains in the hands of unelected state officials and bureaucrats and the citizenry is not actively involved in any way. TADAMUN questions how the right to heritage and public deliberation about its meaning could become a channel for democratization. A broader notion of heritage can give citizens the right to interact with, to use, to be part of the city, through their concern, appreciation, and maintenance of the city’s urban landscape.

Conflicts between Heritage and Other Rights

We recognize that the right to cultural heritage, especially of the built environment, may conflict with other some of the other rights TADAMUN promotes. For example, should the state be able to deem something historic and deprive a private property owner of their right to modify or develop their land? Which rules and bureaucracies should prevail if residential safety in historic buildings conflicts with historical significance of a building? Should one arm of the state forcibly close and destroy vibrant local markets or industries if their aesthetics or presence conflicts with the supposed sensibilities or interests of tourists, which another arm of the state is devoted to promoting?

At times, a conflict between the right to heritage and the right to housing also raises difficult issues for individuals and the state (and its various diverse bureaucratic entities). The twin economic pressures of land scarcity and housing demand are constant threats to historic structures in Cairo.

The Right to Heritage and TADAMUN’s approach

The right to heritage should be a right for people to collectively decide the meaning of heritage, to identify its value now and for the future. At the same time, heritage protection needs mechanisms that prevent the manipulation of historical areas or buildings for self-interested political or financial ends. Even though the government has a crucial role in promoting the right to heritage, the protection and conservation of heritage is everyone’s responsibility.  Thus, public media campaigns should present best practices of heritage conservation and promotion to citizens and explore approaches to protect and conserve Egypt’s heritage, particularly at the community scale. The public’s right to heritage is thus not only the responsibility of the government, but it is also the responsibility of individuals, acting deliberatively and collectively.