National heritage and nationalist narrative in contemporary Thailand : an essay on culture and politics

Abstract

In contemporary perception vestiges of the past are like endangered species: the ones still surviving have to be protected to avoid their possible disappearance. Hence, similar to animals under threat of extinction, relics are kept in enclosed areas that safeguard and allow their display while lists of crumbling monuments are drawn up to establish a Noah's Ark of cultural remnants. Removed from daily vicissitudes, heritage becomes an essential element of "extra-ordinary" life, holiday time, when visiting a museum or an exhibition is a more likely event. Yet, just as captivity changes animal behaviour, the survival of heritage in "cultural zoos" alters its character and value. Furthermore, memory, which allows people to relive their history, never has an idealistic nature. It always is a function of present and particular perspectives, at the personal as well as at the collective level. Nevertheless, conservation of ruins is nowadays implemented with global aims under the formula of World Heritage, a list of natural and cultural sites to maintain for future generations. World Heritage has UNESCO as its great sponsor and national governments as its main executor. It is thus clear that, despite the stress on antiquity from which relics emerge and the posterity for which they are preserved, the establishment and consumption of a world cultural heritage is a social and cultural phenomenon which matters essentially in the present.