Dear All,
Many thanks to those who replied to my original message. I would like to make
some comments on the opinions so far expressed before this gets too
complicated.
Tom King raises the question of scale and I agree, Tom, that this is an issue
and I am glad that you raised it. Though I recognise the problem I certainly
don’t think that “explicitly welcoming financial support from anybody and
everybody, with the explicit statement that receiving and using such support
does not in any way imply WAC concurrence in anybody's activities or point of
view” represents a good solution. As Sam Hardy eloquently put it this would
mean to accept potential funding from, for instance, racist or fascist
organisations. You also advocate, in your later email, some form of ethical
relativism. But there are people in the world who have an ethical code that
implies that women are inferior human beings, do we take those on board because
we cannot discriminate? WAC has no history of ethical neutrality and an
“exercise in taxonomy” is therefore I’m afraid necessary. A comprehensive
principle that will cover for all possible situations is probably unrealistic,
which is why we suggested the implementation of an ethics code for WAC funding.
This will not solve all problems but it can provide a reference document that
will help to analyse individual cases. Let me also add that the issue of scale
applies to all of our ethical decisions and grey areas also exist between
justice and injustice, violence and self defence, war and peace etc etc but
this does not mean that we cannot take positions. The existence of such grey
areas is in fact commonly used as an excuse for not dealing with ethical
dilemmas. And going back to the Rio Tinto issue there is no question in my mind
that we are not dealing with a grey area but rather with a flagrant case of a
company with a dubious human right record.
Andrew Wilkinson believes that change is better dealt with from inside and that
by accepting Rio Tinto money WAC has in fact the opportunity to improve the
company’s human right record. Andrew, I take your point, but let me express my
scepticism. I fear that the balance of power between big business and
archaeologists is not exactly in our favour and that there is therefore a much
greater chance that our integrity will be compromised by them rather than their
policies will be reformed by us.
To Kev Beachus I would like to say that *I* did not accept any money from Rio
Tinto. As Larry Zimmerman explains, the WAC executive did. If the statement
that we are all WAC is real and not just empty rhetoric it is my right to
question the actions of the executive, with no implications, Larry, that these
were not thought through or debated. I am not accusing anybody, but only
exposing a problem.
Larry Zimmerman encourages us to deal with the real world with open eyes rather
than hiding from it. Presumably dealing with the real world means taking money
from Rio Tinto and other similar large companies. Lack of realism is the
typically accusation launched at pacifists, environmentalists, human right
activists and all those visionaries who try to work for a better future. But it
is a weak argument, because, although there is ONE real world, there are MANY
realisms. One possible realism is to recognise that the world economy (and
more!) is in the hands of a few large international corporations, this is where
the money is, and we’ll better “engage” with them if we want to survive.
Another realism is the same recognition of the power of big business, but with
the understanding that without challenging this imbalance of power and
distancing ourselves from the greed of big business we are never
*realistically* going to have a better world. So realism is subjective, in its
name there are those who decide to side with the rich and powerful and those
who choose to stay with the oppressed, the dispossessed and the poor - they
won’t get any funding from them though.
Cheers,
Umberto
--
Umberto Albarella
Department of Archaeology
University of Sheffield
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET
United Kingdom
Telephone: (+) 44 (0) 114 22 22 943
Fax: (+) 44 (0) 114 27 22 563
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/albarella.html
For Archaeologists for Global Justice (AGJ) see:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/global-justice.html
"There is no way to peace. Peace IS the way".
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