I stand firmly with Jack Lohman, the director of the Museum of London, when he says it is untrue that we live in a post-colonial era.
The historical stories of African and Asian people in Britain remain ethnically-cleansed from the mainstream.
As the London Museums Agency 2003 Holding Up the Mirror report, a study on museum professionals' attitudes to cultural diversity, told us, most museums are not interested in representing African and Asian communities.
Last month, the Mayor of London's office published a report by the Commission on African and Asian Heritage to bring about a 'sea change' to ensure cultural heritage is inclusive of the whole population.
The 20 commissioners, arts and heritage practitioners from African and Asian lineage, who have spent the past two years discussing, debating, and listening to community groups around London, covered a lot of ground including museums and collections development; access and interpretation; the national curriculum; and leadership and governance. Their brief was to 'open up the heritage sector and allow in a fresh breeze of new ideas and new audiences'.
However, I disagree with Lohman that yet another report will change things considerably for London's 1.3 million African and Asian people; perhaps more of a wavelet than a sea change.
And it is worrying that although honest and revealing testimonies from community-based organisations are threaded throughout the report, the commissioners still look to the policy-makers and funding bodies to alter this dismal picture.
There are not enough new ideas. The need to diversify the workforce in museums, to appoint more African and Asian representatives on boards and to develop collections, exhibitions and programmes, are all old arguments.
I like the idea of the creation of a Heritage Diversity Task Force made up of the Greater London Authority, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Archives, Libraries and Museums London to work with museums and galleries and other bodies and African and Asian experts to bring about joined-up strategies across the heritage landscape.
Much of the power undoubtedly rests with the DCMS to come up with the necessary funding and staffing to support recommendations.
The call for the Heritage Lottery Fund to increase the funding and the administrative support it gives to African and Asian community-based organisations is also welcome. The report also asks for a four-year commitment of about £50,000 to ten 'exemplary' organisations from those communities to build their infrastructure.
But I doubt this will be enough to arm these organisations with the clout they will need to take projects mainstream on their own terms.
It is truly disappointing that the recommendation for the task force to coordinate research to discover the range and scope of London's African and Asian collections, is 'with a view to' developing a centralised catalogue and database.
We need to go further than this. The Victoria and Albert Museum has already begun to research its 3,000 African objects (most of them in store), but it is then considering relegating them to temporary
exhibitions and the web. Making this research available is valuable, but in addition, how about a permanent African and Asian museum in London?
I put this question to Jocelyn Barrow, the chairwoman of the commission, only to be told that we have the British Museum with its established expertise. I disagree.
The British Museum, like the other nationals, is interpreted from a Eurocentric perspective, and it is this version of history that needs to be challenged by an African and Asian-run establishment.
The report recommends, albeit briefly, that a feasibility study should be done for an African and Asian heritage centre where artefacts on long-term loan from museums could be displayed.
Presumably that would be in partnership with the Black Cultural Archives, which has a Heritage Lottery Fund application for £5m pending, to refurbish a building in Brixton for its archives and artefacts (to be loaned from other museums).
If the application is successful, revenue fundraising will begin, which will give the DCMS a chance to demonstrate its commitment to change.
A single monument would be a start to commemorate the contribution that African and Asian people have made to the building of London and Britain, and its intellectual and political foundations. Take your pick, there are numerous historical figures in the report's appendix.
But it is the report's final recommendation that holds one of the major routes to cross-sectoral change. Until we have a national curriculum that teaches every schoolchild about the scientific, cultural and political achievements of African and Asian people in their continents as well as in Britain, then equality, which essentially is the motivation, will never be served.
www.london.gov.uk
The historical stories of African and Asian people in Britain remain ethnically-cleansed from the mainstream.
As the London Museums Agency 2003 Holding Up the Mirror report, a study on museum professionals' attitudes to cultural diversity, told us, most museums are not interested in representing African and Asian communities.
Last month, the Mayor of London's office published a report by the Commission on African and Asian Heritage to bring about a 'sea change' to ensure cultural heritage is inclusive of the whole population.
The 20 commissioners, arts and heritage practitioners from African and Asian lineage, who have spent the past two years discussing, debating, and listening to community groups around London, covered a lot of ground including museums and collections development; access and interpretation; the national curriculum; and leadership and governance. Their brief was to 'open up the heritage sector and allow in a fresh breeze of new ideas and new audiences'.
However, I disagree with Lohman that yet another report will change things considerably for London's 1.3 million African and Asian people; perhaps more of a wavelet than a sea change.
And it is worrying that although honest and revealing testimonies from community-based organisations are threaded throughout the report, the commissioners still look to the policy-makers and funding bodies to alter this dismal picture.
There are not enough new ideas. The need to diversify the workforce in museums, to appoint more African and Asian representatives on boards and to develop collections, exhibitions and programmes, are all old arguments.
I like the idea of the creation of a Heritage Diversity Task Force made up of the Greater London Authority, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Archives, Libraries and Museums London to work with museums and galleries and other bodies and African and Asian experts to bring about joined-up strategies across the heritage landscape.
Much of the power undoubtedly rests with the DCMS to come up with the necessary funding and staffing to support recommendations.
The call for the Heritage Lottery Fund to increase the funding and the administrative support it gives to African and Asian community-based organisations is also welcome. The report also asks for a four-year commitment of about £50,000 to ten 'exemplary' organisations from those communities to build their infrastructure.
But I doubt this will be enough to arm these organisations with the clout they will need to take projects mainstream on their own terms.
It is truly disappointing that the recommendation for the task force to coordinate research to discover the range and scope of London's African and Asian collections, is 'with a view to' developing a centralised catalogue and database.
We need to go further than this. The Victoria and Albert Museum has already begun to research its 3,000 African objects (most of them in store), but it is then considering relegating them to temporary
exhibitions and the web. Making this research available is valuable, but in addition, how about a permanent African and Asian museum in London?
I put this question to Jocelyn Barrow, the chairwoman of the commission, only to be told that we have the British Museum with its established expertise. I disagree.
The British Museum, like the other nationals, is interpreted from a Eurocentric perspective, and it is this version of history that needs to be challenged by an African and Asian-run establishment.
The report recommends, albeit briefly, that a feasibility study should be done for an African and Asian heritage centre where artefacts on long-term loan from museums could be displayed.
Presumably that would be in partnership with the Black Cultural Archives, which has a Heritage Lottery Fund application for £5m pending, to refurbish a building in Brixton for its archives and artefacts (to be loaned from other museums).
If the application is successful, revenue fundraising will begin, which will give the DCMS a chance to demonstrate its commitment to change.
A single monument would be a start to commemorate the contribution that African and Asian people have made to the building of London and Britain, and its intellectual and political foundations. Take your pick, there are numerous historical figures in the report's appendix.
But it is the report's final recommendation that holds one of the major routes to cross-sectoral change. Until we have a national curriculum that teaches every schoolchild about the scientific, cultural and political achievements of African and Asian people in their continents as well as in Britain, then equality, which essentially is the motivation, will never be served.
www.london.gov.uk
