When I was working on my thesis on relations between Olympic hosting countries and indigenous people, one of the most disturbing things I learned was that Australia has a hard time tracing its past. It wasn’t uncommon for a long time for Australians to tear down old buildings so they could build ones that better suited the area. It didn’t occur to them they were destroying history; they were just trying to modernize.
A native Texan, I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. Half my home state is a historic landmark of one sort or another. Old buildings are refurbished and repurposed, and you’d better be ready to be run out of town if you expect to tear down anything.
Then the hubbub started around Tara in Ireland. Tara has a strong role in Irish lore as the burial ground of kings. In some Celtic circles, Tara is set aflame by an Otherworlder at Samhain (Halloween) because it’s one of the places where the veil between our world and the other world is the weakest. It’s been sacred ground. Then the government decided to build a road through the area that would require the hill to be razed. I think the preservation society that was fighting to preserve the hill ended up losing, but the road still isn’t built due to some other issues.
Now, it appears that in the need to build more roads through the English countryside (and because the upkeep on it has become a challenge in light of preparing for hosting the Olympics), there is a movement afoot to revoke Stonehenge’s World Heritage Site status. Stonehenge isn’t in danger of being torn down, thankfully, but its upkeep is becoming less and less important.
The more we modernize, I guess these are going to become issues for countries all over the world. How do you preserve history while keeping up with the times? (Or maybe hosting the Olympics isn’t such a great idea? And that’s coming from a girl who loves the spirit of the Olympic Games and has the Beijing mascots hanging from her cell phone.)
