RM honoree explains cultural preservation to Manila students -2

Preserve Mehan Garden

With the financial and technical assistance of the Japanese government, he organized efforts to rehabilitate Angkor Wat in Cambodia, to safeguard the ancient Koguryo tomb frescoes in North Korea, and assisted in the rescue of Chinese artifacts from the Yangtze River flood of 1998.

In the spirit of reconciliation, he led a Chinese-Japanese team to rebuild the ramparts of Nanjing, one of the cities most devastated by the Japanese forces in China during World War II. Recently he led an international appeal to the Taliban to preserve rather than destroy the priceless Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.

At the recent Ramon Magsaysay Awardees’ Lecture Series in Manila, Hirayama loaded his audience with the question: "Whose business is cultural preservation?"

The audience was aptly composed mostly of young students from the City College of Manila who needed to know the answer to Hirayama’s question to make sense of the present struggle between conservationists and the Mayor of Manila on whether their campus should be built on Mehan Gardens or not. Actually the Mayor has already agreed to build the campus elsewhere, but that is a story for another column.

This is what Hirayama told the City College of Manila students.

Cultural heritage is what gives each country its individuality. Being aware of and taking part in the preservation of a country’s unique cultural heritage is important for nation-building since it is the source of its citizens’ pride of place and pride of culture. It is the unique cultural heritage of each country that sets it apart from others in the face of rising globalization.

Protecting cultural heritage, Hirayama said, is not limited to material things but also protects the minds of the people and that it is equally important to protect and maintain national values.

A public park like Mehan Gardens is part of our cultural and environmental heritage. Once cultural heritage is gone, it is gone forever. Hirayama brought out examples of the importance of archaeology as a means of determining our history and heritage. He pointed out that in some cities excavations for government infrastructure projects have been either stopped or re-routed to avoid damaging archaeological artifacts accidentally discoveries during the excavation period. Private development projects are also subject to right archaeological control.

Believing that preserving works of art goes hand-in-hand with restoring human societies because preservation helps damaged societies to reestablish kinship with own past, an action to ‘restore their humanity.’