I recently learnt of the concept of Dark Heritage- broadly defined as cultural heritage that is associated with real and commodified sites of atrocity, death, disaster, human depravity, tragedy, human suffering, as well as sites of barbarism and genocide. Although relatively new as a concept, dark heritage has been the oldest form of tourism, given the innate human fascination with sites of death and horror.
Dark Heritage can have three elements. There is the touristy London Dungeons type of dark heritage site that primarily entertains. Then there is dark heritage associated with known events and sites of human suffering, like the Holocaust. Lastly, there is dark heritage, that may or may not have a known site associated with it. Often this type of dark heritage is un-named, and in many, cases unwanted. An example of this type of dark heritage is that of comfort women who provided sexual services to Japanese soldiers during World War II. They were housed in comfort houses, known and unknown. The women were in most part silenced and forgotten for many years following the war. And yet they carried on a dark legacy.
In trying to understand more about Dark Heritage, this is what I came away with-
There is much unsaid.
Even in the most visible situations of dark heritage, there is a reluctance among others to accept the truth. There still exist Holocaust disbelievers. Australia as a nation did not acknowledge the rights of their indigenous people, until very recently. The Myanmar government continues to deny the atrocities committed on the minority Rohingya community
Very often, the survivors themselves do not want to talk about it. The comfort women for example, were forced into a life of sexual services, without a choice. Yet they were regarded as “fallen” women in their own countries. In many cases, as they returned home after the war, their families did not want them back. So, the stories remained untold.
The legacy continues.
The trauma suffered is carried forward within the immediate family into the following generations. The Partition of India and the consequent loss of life and property is kept alive as a legacy of dark heritage within the present generation. There is still a strong sense of being wronged. Anecdotal information shows that the descendants of the original Partition refugees may carry forward a general antipathy towards each other’s countrymen.
In my book, Un-belonging, the story titled Identity is one in which the protagonist seeks to right a wrong committed two generations ago, during WW2. The need to avenge or seek reparations can continue into the next few generations, thereby creating a legacy of Dark Heritage.
There is reparation.
On a positive note, governments and individuals have formally apologized or taken steps to right the wrongs committed by their forefathers. Germany signed a reparation agreement with Israel in 1952 that included payments to individual holocaust survivors. The payments continue to this day and apparently cost Germany $1.1billion annually.
Japan issued a series of apologies from the 1950s onwards, to the countries they occupied during WW2. A formal apology was issued to comfort women in 1992 by the then PM of Japan, Kiichi Miyazawa, who in a press conference, said: "Concerning the comfort women, I apologize from the bottom of my heart and feel remorse for those people who suffered indescribable hardships".
More recently Australia has put a robust Reconciliation Action Plan in place to recognise the indigenous people of Australia and their rights to land and other natural resources.
We all have dark heritage.
Whilst usually used as a term to define large, catalytic events of trauma, dark heritage can be closer to home than we think. Events that may be small in the scale of things, but equally traumatic and damaging; instances of violence, abuse, death, and suffering, all form a trail of personal dark heritage.
This nuanced legacy of dark heritage is much more ingrained and hard to erase. The abuse suffered personally as a child, may cause a mother to be overprotective of her own children, thus unknowingly setting into motion a legacy of overwhelming fear and caution.
In the case of the protagonist of The Victim in my collection, Un-belonging, the legacy drives a darker outcome. The concept of Un-belonging itself has its roots in dark heritage. Sometimes the events are so traumatic that survival may be possible only through dissociation from that dark heritage.
Should dark heritage be preserved?
The jury is out on this one. Some survivors of large-scale traumatic events like the Holocaust, believe strongly in the need to preserve, not just the factual but also the oral narratives through generations. The intent is to ensure that such events do not recur and that this legacy of dark heritage compels a continuation of the legacy of reparation over generations.
Others believe that dark heritage can help future generations learn and grow. The survivors of the Tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, believe that the dark heritage surrounding the Tsunami will help build a stronger disaster management and recovery program in the future.
However, there is also the view that the darkness around such legacy needs to be dissipated so that healing can take over. The heritage is important in itself, but the feelings of in-equity, revenge, and other negative connotations only impede the process of healing.
I am interested in what you think. Look forward to your comments and insights on Dark Heritage.
References
- https://www.nhb.gov.sg/nationalmuseum/-/media/nms2017/documents/publication-and-resources/historiasg-lecture-1-22-feb-2019--kevin-blackburn-transcript.pdf?la=en
- https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation-action-plans/
- https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/summer/germany-japan-reconciliation/
- https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/630/1/012028/meta
Sanghamitra Bose lives and works in Singapore. An MBA from MS University, Baroda, she has held leadership positions in several industries such as Hospitality, Financial Services, Education and Travel. Sanghamitra gave wings to her passion for writing in 2015. Her first short story was published in the anthology, Tell Me a Story by Penguin India. Since then her stories have been featured in anthologies such as Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas and When They Spoke, both published by Readomania. Her travels in South East Asia have helped her experience different cultures and her new collection of short stories, Un-belonging, reflects her deep knowledge of the South East Asian communities.
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