If I ask you to imagine the word 'french', chances are your mind is going to conjure an image of a French person in a beret, clutching a baguette and a bottle of wine. It may sound like a cliche but you’d be amazed at how many French people clutching baguettes I actually saw during my first trip to France last month. Doesn’t matter if you’re strolling along the Seine or the Celtic Sea on the coast of Brittany, come noon and everyone’s rushing to lunch dutifully accompanied by a freshly baked loaf. And who’s to blame them? They taste so darn good!
So it comes as no surprise that the French have recently succeeded in bagging the baguette as an indisputable part of their cultural heritage. Join us in this week’s The Global Tiller as we comb through Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list and discover what else made the inscription. Why do countries try so hard to make it to this list and what does it take to join this club?
How does bread become heritage? When it comes to cultural heritage, Unesco has become quite liberal in its definition in the past few decades. It no longer includes only monuments and objects but also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.
In 2003, Unesco created a dedicated instrument: the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, ratified by 180 states, which has so far allowed for the inscription of more than 600 elements throughout the world. Since then, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage gets together to review submissions by different countries and decides what gets added to the list. The artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread was added in the 17th such session held in Morocco in early December 2022 but it was by far not the only one.
UAE managed to get its traditional style of embroidery, Al Talli, added to the list. Columbia succeeded in adding the ancestral system of knowledge of the four indigenous peoples, Arhuaco, Kankuamo, Kogui and Wiwa of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which comprises sacred mandates that keep the existence of the four peoples in harmony with the physical and spiritual universe. Slovenia’s beekeeping skills and Turkey’s culture of Çay (tea) also joined the club.
The rest of the list is as diverse as the people on this planet, which explains why countries may want to preserve these customs and traditions before it’s too late. You see, not all elements carry the same status. This year, four elements were identified as those in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, while 39 were put on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and four on the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.
In the face of increasing globalisation, maintaining cultural diversity can be challenging so Unesco adds these customs to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list to recognise our diverse heritage and to preserve it for the future generations, in much the same way as it does with its more widely known World Heritage List of monuments. The goal is to help intercultural dialogue and foster mutual respect for other ways of life. It recognises that its importance lies not in the cultural manifestation itself, but in the wealth of knowledge and skills that are transmitted through it from one generation to another.
But not every cultural practice can make it to the list — there is a strict criteria for inscription that includes conditions, such as compatibility with human rights instruments. That is why, this year, Unesco actually took off the Ducasse d’Ath from the Processional Giants and Dragons in Belgium and France, an element inscribed in 2008. The committee members decided that the presence of a chained black character called 'le Sauvage' was actually a racist and discriminatory representation that went against their principles.
One could ask how come this racist depiction made it to the list in the first place but 2008 was a different time than now. And what more to show this difference than the fact that one-third of the elements inscribed in 2022 relate to nature and the important challenge of safeguarding biodiversity. Facing the climate crisis, we need all hands on deck and that includes ancestral practices of sustainable resource use, such as Saudi Arabian knowledge and practices related to cultivating Khawlani coffee beans or the Cuban light rum masters.
This list is sort of like a time capsule for the future generations. If today it includes elements that were passed down to us from our ancestors, what are the elements that we will pass on to those coming after us? Is our legacy that of overconsumption and inequality, or will it be one of coming together? What’s your own intangible culture that you want to pass on to the future?
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
Time capsules have held our interest for a long time, even I have one buried somewhere on the grounds of my university campus in Lahore. But what does the time capsule of the entire planet look like?
PS: It is important to note here that this is NASA’s time capsule so, in all likelihood, our future generations may only know what life was like in the United States.
…and now what?
When does a tradition become important to preserve? When should we let it go? If we try to maintain it as it has been for centuries, is it still a living culture or has it fallen into the realm of folklore (the perpetuation of old times)?
When we talk about culture and tradition, we can easily realise how blurred the borders are of these concepts and how subjective they can be. Yet many people will tell you rigidly that “this” is tradition while “that” is not. How can they know? Well they don’t, really, but who are we to tell them they’re wrong if we’re not from the same culture?
These discussions have become even more important today, and even more difficult, when we finally open the space to a more diverse range of voices, identities and as we’re rediscovering elements of those identities that have been silenced for a long time.
And because there can’t really be a clear determination of all these questions, it’s not an easy conversation to have. I wonder, for example, how the Belgian people felt when the Ducasse d’Ath was declared offensive. Was there a Belgian person on the panel? Should there have been?
As I have had the privilege (and sometimes, the challenge) to live in very multicultural environments, I have often faced the questions that come along: can I consider this element of this tradition part of my culture? Who should I ask? Should I limit myself to the culture I was born into? Should I feel some natural inner pride knowing the baguette is now in the pantheon of global culture? And now that I’ve been told that the world is praising the baguette, should I be more careful in how I practice what is seen as my heritage? Should I care? Or is it ok if I buy industrial bread?
Those questions may seem to you as the musings of someone lost in identity (or in cultural translation). But aren’t we all? If I count my cultural influences (counted as blessings?) I’m starting to lose sight of how many cultures have defined who I am.
But is it so important? Why should we limit ourselves? In one of my favorite TED Talks ever, Hetain Patel shows us brilliantly how our quest for authenticity can sometimes lead to a deconstruction of what we think was a key element of our identity. But he does this just to show how free we actually are in terms of building our identity.
Cultures and identities are a collective experience that are built through personal perspectives. And the combination (or the clash) of those two elements is the cause of so many divisions in our world, so many fights. I still remember being told that I “don’t belong” in the Pacific even after living here more than in the land of the baguette to which so many people attach to me automatically once they hear my accent.
Yet, if I had to build my time capsule, and leave a trace of who I was, it will be a mix of Briton crepes, Hollywood movies, Pakistani music, Tahitian “fiu”, Taiwanese discipline, French sense of good food and maybe a hint of the English way of building a cosy house. Who knows? And who will then come to tell me I can’t?
When built through personal experiences, collective sharing, welcoming curiosity and persistent learning, identity becomes a sponge that will integrate whatever element has come to shape my self, shape my stone as many drops of water will shape the magnificent curves of a canyon.
So who am I? Who are you? Think again, you may be more than the identity you think you have.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury