Peter Volk commented on the tendency of museums to "walk a fine line"
between opposing viewpoints inorder to avoid offending anyone. (I totally
agree with you, Peter.) To those of us who present live interpretation
programs, conflict issues are a matter of course.
 
My partner David and I perform an interactive roleplay program for fourth
and fifth-grade classes on the differing viewpoints of a Quaker neutral and
an Irish immigrant Continental soldier during the American Revolution.
Through storytelling and dialogue we encourage the children to think about
the different ways the situation COULD have been handled. Could the war have
been prevented through successful negotiation--or was armed rebellion the
reasonable recourse? Was independence worth the death and destruction that
it brought? How do the students think they would have reacted when faced
with the historical circumstances? After learning about the inconveniences
of soldier life, would they still be willing to join the army? How would
they feel if they had family on the opposing side?
 
We hope the children discover that history is not set on a fixed course--it
is affected by numerous decisions; that circumstances, values, and other
personal baggage influences choices; and that they, too, can come to their
own interpretation of "the facts."
 
We find that children at this age can be analytical, have many thoughtful
questions for our characters, and do come to their own differing
conclusions. Although it does not come as a surprise to me, we find that if
any of the children accept the pacifistic view point of the Quaker
character, they tend to be female. Many of the boys side with the soldier
because they know the outcome of the war and want to be on the winning side.
The ones that really scare me, however, are the boys who say they want to
join the army so they can "kill people and not get punished for it."
 
I toyed with the idea of how one could present the Enola Gay issues through
live interpretation as adjunct programming to a "traditional" exhibition.
(Hmmmmm. If you do not like the notion, wait till I put on my flameproof
suit, please.) I threw out the idea of interactive first-person characters
because I don't feel it would be in the best taste to take liberties with
the thoughts and feelings of the living, considering the emotionality of the
issue.
 
Instead, what about letting the feelings speak for themselves--using a Spoon
River Anthology-style series of readings drawn from letters, diary and log
entries, media quotes, war propaganda, sermons, memoires, etc, reflecting a
broad range of perspectives? This could be read by costumed interpreters, or
perhaps by two or three readers to a background of slides.
 
BTW, the Enola Gay exhibit issue stimulated quite a dialog between my father
(a WWII Air Force vet who was in the Pacific in '44 and '45) and me. We
discussed the problems of allowing one group to exert enough pressure to
significantly alter or pre-empt an exhibition, why it is important to allow
visitors to come to their own conclusions about the decision to drop the
bomb rather than offering a political justification in the exhibit text, and
how the veterans and the museum might come to a compromise over the issue.
 
We both felt that the feelings of veterans were legitimate and thought that
both sides need to re-examine the "lives saved" figure or the need to quote
a figure at all. We both felt it would be a shame if the exhibit were
cancelled or curtailed. Although he initially thought that the museum should
take a pro-vets stance, he listened to my reasons for allowing visitors to
decide the issue, and agreed. The only thing we disagreed about was whether
the dropping of bombs was still a wise foreign policy move today.
 
The whole discussion was very cordial (but I am glad he is not the
President).
 
Stacy
 
Stacy F. Roth                     |    [log in to unmask]
 P.O. Box 383                      |    Voice: (215) 943-1232
 Langhorne, PA 19047               |