The world is shrinking daily. The global village is a reality. Mass communications are absorbing the attention of almost everyone; whether one lives in a metropolitan city or in a remote isolated village the major happenings of the world reach them virtually at the same time, be it through the radio or satellite dishes. Transportation, with a supersonic speed, has been improved and we can reach different parts of the world within a day.

It is an immense achievement to break isolation, but isolation has its own price. Yesterday has its own value. The rush for the global village has created an "instant culture" that results in some imbalance in our mentality, some sort of hollowness. To fill in this vacuum greed is creeping in without any limit of the ethical principles of yesterday. Especially in the Third World, there is an ugly manifestation of contempt for yesterday which is unknowingly associated with the problem of development. This kind of feeling contributes to an unjustified hate for our past; it is as if we are "throwing the baby out with the bath water".

However, without the past there is no present and without the present there is no future. It is not a must to love the past. Nevertheless, one is forced to respect the past for the sake of others, at least, to fulfill the basic requirement of human rights. The past has its own value, be it good or bad. It is like scientific experiments, one tries a hundred and one times before striking the right answer. The past could also be taken like one of the experiments to come to a better life style. If we do not register all our experiments properly then it is likely that we will repeat old mistakes. The call for proper documentation is not only for nostalgic love of the past but also to prevent old mistakes. It is therefore out of necessity that we should register and protect the past.

One of the possible ways of registering the past is through the cultural heritage of a country. It is an accepted dictum that this heritage is our collective identity as well as our image of yesterday. Without names it is difficult to communicate. Cultural heritage is our name, our form of existence. It is impossible to describe a content without its actual form. Colonial looting, natural and manmade disasters were/are affecting the cultural objects of countries. A recent study on this issue asserts that "one of the most serious but least publicized threats is the hemorrhaging of cultural objects from the archaeological sites of Latin America, Africa and Asia" (Thornes, R. Protecting cultural objects. 7.1995). Scholars are analyzing Africa's past through pillage rather than in situ archaeological findings. This is the stark reality. How can we reach a plausible conclusion with distorted evidence ?

Ethiopia is a country with an old civilization. It is considered the cradle of mankind, a cross-road of civilization and a museum of nationalities. It is a country which hosts the three monotheistic religions of the world, besides many more local belief systems. Its long history has made Ethiopia rich with heritage. To cite but a few, Hadar, the birth place of Lucy, the famous lofty steles of Axum, the great wonder of Lalibella rockhewn churches, the magnificent Gondar castles, the stone tool archaeological site of Tiya besides exotic natural parks are some of which exist in the list of the world heritage of UNESCO. There are still some more awaiting their turn to be included in the list.

Fortunately, Ethiopia was not colonized. But it has faced many external aggressions and numerous internal wars. The first damaging experience occurred during the Battle of Mekdela (1868) against an expeditionary force of Britain led by Lord Napier. This expeditionary force brought with it a museum expert to collect historic documents and cultural objects from the library of Emperor Tewodros for the British museum as well for personal collection. This loot affected the country very much and later on Emperor Yohannes IV, who was in good terms with Britain, had to appeal to the British government for restitution of two essential items; they are Kibre Negest and Kwerata Re'esu.

The Kebre Negest is a legendary legal-political manuscript of the country. Kwerata Re'esu, Crown of Thorn, is a painting of Christ which goes back to the sixteenth century. This painting used to move from battle to battle fields as good omen. The British government complied in returning the manuscript; as to the painting R. Pankhurst, a scholar of repute in different issues of the country and a leading figure for the ongoing campain of restitution, is following its whereabouts. Attempts are still going on to return the remaining heritage from Britain. The second major damage was during the Fascist occupation (1935-41). Mussolini sent his soldiers to revenge an earlier Italian defeat at the Battle of Adwa (1896) and ordered them to dismantle one of the Axumite obelisks as well as the statue of the Lion of Judah as a sign of submission. Thanks to the Italian government, the statue was returned in the 1950's. Although, it is difficult to claim the whole loot of Fascist Italy, the return of the obelisk of Axum is becoming one of the national priorities. Recently, the parliament of the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Republic has passed a resolution on the return of the obelisk.

The second type of loot came with the expansion of tourism. Ethiopia was begin discovered for a large-scale tourism in the late 1960's. Tourism as an industry was realized and it gained a strong attention to expand the necessary infrastructure. But, the protection of the cultural heritage was lagging behind. Most of precious heritage started trekking out of the country at this time. The establishment of the National Antiquity Administration and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies helped in saving some of these heritage and now they are proud in their collections as bastions of heritage for the existing society as well as for the posterity.

To cite the new inhuman kind of loot, let us consider the disastrous famine of the Horn of Africa of the recent past. Individuals who came to save lives ended up collectors of cultural items. Country's collective heritage, family mementos, personal memories were bartered for small coins to survive. Ethiopia lost irreplaceably much of its cultural items at those dark days. How do we classify such an exchange ? Legitimate balanced exchange or illegitimate theft ? The Marxist government of the time had a different agenda then. Its main concern was to spread Marxist ideology and was undermining the anchorage of yesterday as a feudal remnant. The whole country, especially the north, was left open for an uncontrollable loot. It seems this loss created some sort of disorientation in our attitude to the past. One feels as if the jinni is out of its bottle to disseminate distraction to our heritage.

Recently, G. Hancock, wrote, probably unaware of the possible consequences, a best seller book titled "The Sign and Seal: A Quest for the Lost Ark of Covenant". Personnally, I have discuss about the book with different individuals. Most of them believe that the true Ark is in Ethiopia. This belief has created an explosive situation as that of the famous film Indiana Jones. I met travelers in a few countries I was able to visit promising to themselves to come to Ethiopia to discover the Ark. This is a really dangerous situation. There are reports of theft of covenants from many churches that signifies the volatile condition that we are in. We have not finished proper registration of our cultural items. Without a proper control system it is difficult to save our heritage. A few weeks ago, an innocent foreign tourist took or stole an item from Axum museum. When asked why he stole, the simple answer he gave was he needed such a beautiful item for his museum.

Another area of unexpectedly dangerous consequence is that of the new infighting among scholars of paleontology. Ethiopia is rich in many genetic resources and paleontological findings. The major problem is coming from the scholars working in the field. The International Herald Tribune of April 27, 1995, presented a lengthy account of the current misunderstanding among scholars concerning ethics of field excavation. As the Arabic saying warns us, the scholars are considered as salt of society and if the salt is spoiled guess what happens to the society.

The shrinking world needs a close collaboration to pretect both natural and man-made heritage to posterity. The recent awareness on the burning issue of ecology is actively engaging the attention of the whole world. This issue of ecology is directly linked to the protection of cultural heritage. There are many conventions and laws concerning international legal protection of cultural heritage. These legal tools are not enough by themselves. We need basic cooperation at a grass root level. High international legal contexts are ideals everybody should respect. However, this is not the end of the road. CIDOC is pursuing the issue of internet. It is a recommendable call. But considering the stage of documentation in the Third World such as Ethiopia, we have to go a long way before we can taste the benefit of sophisticated technology. My tentative recommendations are :

1. strengthening of documentation with all necessary acessaries such as photography of movable as well as immovable cultural items
2. publishing official lists of the cultural items of the country
3. encouraging touring exhibitions for better under-standing among world communities
4. reviving craft industries both for foreign tourism and internal markets
5. advising individual collectors and organizations for collaborative efforts rather than destructive greed
6. encouraging eco-tourism for a better respect of eco-logical as well as cultural heritage
7. organizing regional seminars and workshops to fight illicit trafficking and to exchange experiences on the issue of documentation

These recommendations are possible when the world communities are aware that illicit trafficking is a dange-rous game. This game is not only distorting the past but also imbalancing the present and the future. The fight against illicit trafficking of cultural heritage is not for its extrinsic value but also for its unrecoverable intrinsic value. Especially, we the people of the Third World who are in disadvantaged position when we consider the financial strength, should join our efforts. Our collective call should be "stop mutilating our common past". It is our desperate call for all potential clients of cultural objects to think twice before committing illegal transactions. Our call extends to benevolent collectors and respected museums not to deal with the precious heritage of the world. let us take a solemn oath that we should save this world for our progenys with minimum damage. Let us prefer the way of exhange of knowledge to that of destructive illegal means.

Ahmed Zekaria
A.A.U. IES P.O. Box 1176
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia