Speech by the Hon. Evarist Bartolo, Minister of Education and Human Resources at the opening ceremony of the Council of Europe Seminar on "Heritage Classes for Mediterranean Europe: A way of understanding cultures." - Ta' Qali - 23.03.98

Heritage seems to have won public acceptance, at least in the developed world. There seems to be universal consensus on its protection. We have gradually come to appreciate the irreplaceable value of what we have inherited from the past so much so that we are incorporating it into our design for the future. Conservation has become a burning issue, even for us politicians who are faced with the fundamental dilemma of safeguarding the past while continuing to build for the future - to balance the demands of development and those of heritage. The need for a permanent protective framework covering legal, administrative and financial aspects has resulted in the drawing up of Charters and the ratification of Conventions. The Council of Europe "Valletta Convention" is only one amongst the many.

Yet, apart from the traditional dangers of age, military conflict, illegal trafficking, and neglect, more contemporary but not less serious threats to heritage include pollution, the frenzy of property developers, and disorganized tourism which are all eating away the significance of cultural properties. This commercial exploitation of heritage assets, together with the actual highly prolific communication media, are becoming more important than the cultural items themselves and their authenticity. Paradoxically, in a situation which at first glance seems to be the most favourable ever, human beings are losing their ability to communicate and are becoming passive consumers of all sorts of monuments, sites and works of art in the form of lifeless products that do not convey much. Within this system the most meaningful works can become as alien to us as dusty pieces lying in the dark store-rooms of a forgotten museum.

In this contradictory scenario, the question arises why, besides the right to literacy as a basic component of our democracy, our young people should not also enjoy the right to heritage education; for if memory is the basis of the individual's personality, heritage is the basis of the collective personality of a people. Heritage classes can help pupils see things whose significance is not immediately apparent. Curiosity stimulates the mind and gives rise to dialogue. Heritage classes can start at the earliest possible stage in the education system and can take many different pedagogical approaches based on worksite and workshop practice. Apart from instilling heritage awareness, these classes can provide cognitive and practical ateliers outside the classroom, even outside the school workshops, as part of wider initiation programmes to heritage crafts. Pupils will discover that the manufacture of an object is difficult yet noble work. Discovery arouses and increases motivation. Heritage classes can foster a sense of observation and a power of deduction and reflection, unless they become trivial or routine. Nor should they be turned into lectures or rigorous academic learning but into critical discussions on the basis of concrete and tangible archaeological, historical, and architectural data collected on the spot and set within their wider original context and environment.

Not all aspects of Culture found material expression in major works. The production of everyday articles, clothing, domestic utensils was not a matter of simple reproduction. Many-a-time they were endowed with the same kind of creativity that went into the art produced for the court or for religious celebrations and embody a universe of signs that carry meaning. Monumentalism and Aesthetics should not take precedence over significance. So heritage classes should not cover only the "big, rich, and beautiful" - that is, prestigious monuments, but also the "small, poor and humble" - the vernacular. Further still, all has to be taken into account within the urban or rural texture. Heritage classes should analyse the influence of society, economics, and technology on heritage monuments. For heritage cannot be seen only as masterpieces, but as something experienced and lived by people.

Nor can it be reduced to its material forms alone. Much was concentrated in the oral tradition. The patrimony of any culture is not only an inheritance from the past but also preserves some of its most lasting models and points of reference. This concept of a non-material culture made up of those spiritual, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a social group is to be taken into account. It includes ways of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs, not only of the "victor", the political, social or ethnic majority; but also of those who suffered and who have been brushed aside.

The approach to heritage classes should never be demagogic. Regional and national identity need not be taken to mean isolation, separation, exclusion or, worse still, conflict and domination. Identity is not a barrier that keeps people apart, but a mosaic of relationships - a "plural identity". What would have Europe been without the Danube which brought peoples together ? What would have Malta been without the Phoenicians, Arabs, Romans, Spaniards, French, British and Maltese except a barren rock ? The Mediterranean basin is a communications network of the three great monotheistic religions, four alphabets, the major philosophies, mathematics, scientific discovery, letters and the arts.

Heritage classes should trace the links which developed in Mediterranean Europe since the Neolithic era. They should help pupils seek unity in diversity : the significance and interaction of parts within the whole. Especially at the time when Europe is dropping its internal physical barriers and attracting an increasing flow of migration from the Mediterranean, cultural diversity should mean respect for different value systems which can co-exist and the avoidance of exclusion. This is the new duty of tolerance and solidarity.

Transplanting young people from region to region and from country to another within Meditarranean Europe can undoubtedly be an effective means for achieving this state of affairs. It can be done on the pattern of the European Heritage Classes which the Council of Europe had launched in France in the 1980's. Euro-Mediterranean Heritage Classes can propagate the idea of a common heritage.

They would not only give the opportunity to young people to take a new glance at ancient skills and ways of life, but also to adapt themselves to the life-styles of others, establishing in the end real lasting friendship. The European Heritage Classes experience has shown that children develop camaraderie not only during their work and recreation, but also in sharing domestic tasks and in the services rendered to the local residents. Children can cross the threshold of verbal communication and communicate through gestures, sounds and images, using music, drama and art. They can meet archaeologists and other collaborators, work with specialists and craftsmen, and ultimately approach the reading of a monument with another vision. However it would be necessary to establish clear cultural and educational objectives and to design effective means for attaining them. On their return pupils would make their school and community more Euro-Mediterranean by highlighting the comparative aspect.

With proper organization, methodology, content, resource material, and the collaboration of teachers, archaeologists, ecologists, craftsmen and local communities we can pass Mediterranean Europe's common heritage into young hands. This forward-looking attitude can make people understand each other. After all, people are the most important living monuments of the cultures to which they belong.