Bruce Miller wrote:
>
> Robert T. Handy wrote:
> >
> > Eric Siegel wrote:
> > >
> > > > You're concise definition of slavery, "one group of humans
> > > > systematically degrading another for profit"
>
> > >
> > > Eric
> >
> > I think you would have to closely examine whether or not many people
> > could in reality, "pick up and leave." It just is/was not that easy for
> > many.
> > --
> > Bob Handy, Director
> > Brazoria County Historical Museum
> > 100 East Cedar
> > Angleton, Texas 77515
> > (409) 864-1208
> > (409) 864-1217 (Fax)
> > http://www.bchm.org
>
> Bob, Eric,
>
> I wonder if, in our stampede to reveal the "truth", we sufficiently add
> the dimension of gratitude for living in a society so fortunate as to
> afford us such an opportunity? Many Americans might benefit from
> occasionally remembering to pause and count their blessings. Impiety
> occurs when we take everything for granted, and then demand more. But
> one cannot focus entirely on our brightest or darkest achievements. The
> IRS April 15 deadline is another issue.
>
> The Congress Party of India, political rulers of the subcontinent during
> the mid-seventies, admitted that during its term there were still
> "approximately 250,000" indentured servants working on sugar plantations
> in Bihar, an impoverished and backward state in eastern India. These
> people were born into servitude, many still paying off their
> grandfather's loan for a dowry: in some cases amounting to little more
> than a dollar! These plantations are on fair-weather roads (navigable
> about 6 months a year), populated by nonvoting illiterates. The
> politician's socialist sensitivities recoil at the words "slave" or
> "serf", so they are classified as indentured, by their ancestor's debt.
> How would a curator or director in India approach that one? Very, very
> delicately, if at all.
>
> Like colleagues at museums in areas facing the dilemma of a local slave
> history, how should one who manages a museum in an industrial state
> exhibit or portray the sweat shop/factory workers of the nineteenth and
> early twentieth centuries? Some sympathy for the caricatured,
> pot-bellied industrialists who charted America's growth to world power?
> The Chinese, Japanese, and Irish immigrant railroad builders who in
> their search for a better life, naively contributed to the dismantling
> of the native societies? The interned American-born of WWII? Realistic
> dioramas or re-enactments of victimization? I doubt if one on holiday
> pays a visit to a museum, or takes one's children to see exhibits which
> are appalling or depressing, however illuminating, realistic and
> accurate. Down goes the attendance and revenues and contributions, up
> goes the controversy and ammunition for the "lunatic fringe", and out
> goes the exhibit director. Where does the sacked museum-person nowadays
> seek new opportunities? Little inspiration can be culled from a thorough
> scan of the "situations vacant" section in the Havana Daily Bugle.
>
> I wholeheartedly admire and support intelligent and concerned people,
> such as yourself, who shoulder the burden of directing institutions
> involved with educational projects. Responsible education may one day
> help eliminate such farcical tragedies as the fact that also in Bihar,
> home of the largest mental hospital in India, 30% of all long term
> mental hospital inmates- not outpatients- are women who were admitted
> for temporarily acting "strangely" during postpartum.
>
> Do curators and directors have a duty or right to expose every injustice
> and force our personal crusades down the throats of museum visitors?
> Most definitely not. It is unprofessional and offensive to parade one's
> political or religious convictions in the alledged secular environment
> of a museum.
>
> By the way, sex has replaced sugar as the leading impetus of
> contemporary slavery; ergo
> brothels are the plantations of the twentieth century. How will the
> future generations of curators deal with that?
> I invite you to visit www.bangkokpost.net -The Bangkok Post Newspaper,
> 24 February '98 edition - Opinion & Analysis page; "More needs to be
> done to protect victims of modern-day slavery". Written by Professor
> Vitit Muntarbhorn, faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, for an
> fact-filled article on the current trade in tribal women AND children
> sex slaves in the Mekong River region. It does not inspire hope or
> cultivate a sense of brotherly love for the perpetrators, many in
> uniform. How does one possibly portray these pathetic souls and their
> living nightmare in an institution visited by elementary school
> children, the squeamish or simply less broad minded? Any suggestions,
> Bob, Eric, anyone? Actors? Brothel scenarios with pimps and beatings?
>
> One must appreciate the difference between entertaining visitors and
> educating them. The ideal solution is to offer an educational
> opportunity while entertaining visitors. The heavily- interactive
> Ethnographic Museum in Leiden, Holland has done pretty well in that
> effort. Interactive displays at ethnographical exhibits there are very
> popular- much like at the more modern science-oriented museums. More
> interactive displays but also some costumed live exhibits, to intensify
> and humanize the experience.
>
> People are invariably attracted to a spectacle. Whether its a film clip
> of a lunar landing or a lynching. People's natural curiousity is one of
> the curator's best assets.
>
> At a temple near Bangkok, there is a Museum of Hell. Not recommended for
> the faint hearted. Its murals and life size mannequins depict graphic
> and grisly scenes of torture and punishment- as described in ancient
> Buddhist texts of the Therevada tradition. Its purpose is to presumably
> inspire the devout to avoid a potentially similar fate. Although not
> touted as an ideal tourist hot spot during the current "Amazing
> Thailand" promotion, it does attract lots of curious Oriental and east
> Asian visitors. Across the border in Penom Penh, there's the Cambodian
> War Museum.......
>
> Bruce Miller
> [log in to unmask]
>
> PS
> For those of you on the list who cannot download or haven't time to
> visit the Bangkok Post website, post me - off list - and I'll try to
> email you a copy of Professor Muntarbhorn's article.
Thanks. Your thoughts will go into my master file for future reference
as we move into this project.
--
Bob Handy, Director
Brazoria County Historical Museum
100 East Cedar
Angleton, Texas 77515
(409) 864-1208
(409) 864-1217 (Fax)
http://www.bchm.org
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