Host: Ezgi Toper
Guests: Nasra Omar Bwana

Producer: Ezgi Toper
Craft Editor: Nasrullah Yilmaz
Supervising Editor: Burak Bayram
Production Team: Afzal Ahmed, Mucteba Samil Olmez, Khaled Selim
Executive Producer: Nasra Omar Bwana

Transcript

NASRA: The Omanis have decided that, OK, this area has ties to Oman, so we're gonna use this space to tell our history. But what's happening is you are implying that this is the history of the people. You're implying without implying it. And so in the end, by selecting what gets to be preserved, what gets to be displayed, you are cementing what story will be carried forward for the next generation.

EZGI: Who gets to decide what history is told? Whose stories are prioritised? 

In this episode, we explore the politics of preservation, and more specifically, what gets remembered or erased from history.

My colleague Nasra Omar Bwana joins me today. She’s been looking into a story that takes us to the island of Lamu in Kenya: one of East Africa’s oldest living Swahili settlements and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The region is known for showcasing the rich cultural heritage of Swahili and coastal communities. 

Much of this history was preserved in artefacts at the Lamu Museum. But between 2022 to 2023, the museum underwent a renovation funded by the Sultanate of Oman. When it finally opened its doors to the public, local curators, historians, residents and international visitors were shocked at the changes that went far beyond renovations.

It left many asking: What happened to Lamu’s story? Let’s unpack it.

EZGI: Hey, Nasra, welcome to the studio.

NASRA: Thanks for having me.

EZGI: So you recently wrote an article for TRT Afrika English titled “Why Kenya's Lamu Museum Renovation Sparks Debate on Indigenous Heritage.” So this article has elicited quite the response online, but for those of us who know nothing about this museum, are hearing about this for the first time. Can you walk us through how the museum looked before and now after these changes?

NASRA: So the museum was dilapidated. The roof was leaking, the paint was coming off. It's right by the sea. And so the climate and the humidity that is present on the East African coast had taken a toll on the museum, but inside the museum, it was something else. It was carrying stories. It had the largest ethnographic material for the Swahili in East Africa, according to the museum. It had exhibits for different communities in Lamu, the Pokomo, the Orma, the Boni. So this is where stories of the past lived for decades. Now, this renovation had been sponsored by the Sultanate of Oman, and they are the ones who had handled the renovations and funding it. And also the reorganisation of the exhibits inside. So now, when you go to the museum after the renovation, the story was different. It was the story of Oman. Half the museum, which was one floor, almost the entire first floor of the museum, now told Omani stories. You have seven new galleries about the Omani maritime, about modern Oman, about people and culture. You had displays of how people dress in Oman. You have 3D models of buildings that are in Oman, like the Omani Opera House, which was built just less than 20 years ago. There's a TripAdvisor comment which says the museum should just be called the Oman Museum.

EZGI: So when did all of this happen?

NASRA: The renovation was completed in 2023. This was two years ago. Interestingly, this has been in this state for the last two years, but it's only local people. It's only people who have visited the museum who know what's happened. During the launch, there were complaints that were also raised on the same, but it was until we did this piece with TRT Afrika that the story went to a much bigger audience, that there was a bigger spotlight on what has happened, and so the reaction, though it is coming 2 years later, it is coming just as strong. And the emotions that are almost constant in all the reactions are anger, disappointment, but one surprising one was sadness. This I expected only to see from the local community, but it's a sadness that's being shared by multiple people. And at the same time, this is happening at a time when there have been protests in the country, in Kenya, that are against the government, and they have been criticising the state of affairs and how things are being run. So a lot of these reactions are tying this renovation into the state of the nation.

EZGI: And speaking of the government, what has the response been on the official side?

NASRA: We're yet to hear from the Kenyan side and the Omani side. They have acknowledged receipt in some cases, because when we were investigating this, we did reach out to them, but we are yet to receive any official response or hear of any official response. Though in some unofficial capacities, they have raised concerns as well, and they have stated that they are acting on it. But people need to see it officially first to believe it. At the same time, there have been efforts to some capacity, but it has been on a much smaller scale, but still has some impact. For instance, there is the collections manager. He saw the erasure that had happened and decided that he would put back some of the exhibits. So he's been actively identifying spaces to be able to return the exhibits that were removed from the museum.

EZGI: So you mentioned the removal of artefacts. What removal are you talking about? 

NASRA So what happened is the first floor, half of it and all the prime spots in the museum had been taken up by Omani artefacts, but there were things there before. Things were moved or completely removed to make space for them. And some of the things that were completely removed were exhibits of three indigenous communities in Lamu, which is the Pokomo, the Orma, and the Boni. Those ones, there's no sign of them at the museum or when we visited the museum while doing the story. And then for the Swahili artefacts, which are what has remained in the museum. Something like the Lamu Siwa, which was voted in 2016 as the most treasured object in Africa. It had the prime spot. Now it's been moved downstairs into this dark corner. We have the Lamu, we have the Mtepe dhow, which is a rare indigenous doll that's disappeared. There's a replica of it that was removed completely, but the collections manager returned it. Unfortunately, right now, it sits on the floor in a corner. And in its place now is this large replica of an Omani dhow, which is reportedly actually a European dhow. So it's striking and also symbolic when you walk into the room that was once the maritime display for the local culture, and now right in the middle is a huge dhow with an Omani flag. And all the fishing nets, all the different types of replicas of old dhows, all the stories that lived in that room that told the stories of the indigenous people have been taken out. And in their place now are panels talking about Omani sailors, translated into three languages: Arabic, English, and Swahili. Whatever is left of the old exhibits is just as is in one language, sometimes in just A4 laminated paper. Quite a contrast.

NASRA: Some of these panels, which I'm talking about, that have been now introduced, are of AI-generated images. AI-generated images of an Omani sailor from the past who was relevant in Oman. And yet the images of the people that were there, the images of the people that need to be told, of the people that existed, have been removed ir they have been left just as is, they haven't been preserved. And it goes back to the agenda. If you have this story that's here and you're ignoring it, or you're prioritising something that's not even relevant. What are we really trying to do here? 

EZGI: So when we talked about reactions from Kenyans that had seen the museum post renovations, you spoke about emotions of anger, emotions of sadness. And I can only assume there would be emotions of betrayal as well, because trust was put in this foreign government to carry out this project with this funding.

NASRA: There are two sides to this. One is a lot of times, in the Kenyan space, the cultural space, preservation of culture has often been done by foreign bodies or foreign entities or private individuals. It seems as to be a less of a priority for the state, especially as time progresses. So the Omani government doing this wasn't a new thing, but how it was done is where the betrayal came about. Why did this agreement happen? What is the hidden agenda behind the agreement, not just on the Omani side, but also on the Kenyan side? Because right now, the space that Kenya is in or the state of the country is a lot of questions are being raised in terms of corruption and the spending of state funds. So when you come to this project. The other sense of betrayal is that it's not that we do not have the money to do this as a country. That's what a lot of people are saying because this project was about $200,000. 20 million Kenyan shillings, give or take. And yet it's the same country which can afford 1.2 billion shillings to build a church and state house, and 890 million Kenyan shillings. In dollar terms, that would be about $9 million US dollars. To build a church in State House, and $6.8 million US dollars to renovate State House in one year. So if you have that amount for the statehouse, there should be spare change to renovate a museum that's representative of an entire population.

NASRA: They say he who pays the piper chooses the songs that he sings, right? Whatever people have or whatever a community has and thinks is great, whatever the piper knows is his best music. In the end, it's the person who pays that selects. So this is what's starting to happen in these spaces. 

NASRA: The Omanis, for example, have decided that, OK, this area has ties to Oman, so we're gonna use this space to tell our history. But what's happening is you are implying that this is the history of the people. You're implying without implying it. And so in the end, by selecting what gets to be preserved, what gets to be displayed, you are cementing what story will be carried forward for the next generation.

EZGI: This really speaks volumes on the priority that the government had as far as conservation, especially when we look at the fact that this renovation happened under the leadership of a former museum director that is under some pretty heavy fire right now.

NASRA: Yes, so this happened under Mzalendo Kibunjia, who currently he is charged with embezzlement of funds at the National Museum of Kenya, which was allegedly paying salaries to ghost employees. With most of the people that I spoke to while doing this research, this was done under his time. And it sounded as though people were pointing fingers without necessarily wanting to point fingers. But I do have to note that the partnership was brought in with UNESCO and the Omani Sultanate with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture. So this came at a national government level and less on the museum level. And it's not just a Kenya thing. When you go and look at the Benin bronze and who has the story of the Benin bronze. The Benin bronze, right now, some of them are housed in the UK, though there have been calls to return them back to West Africa, because why are these stories of these people being told in a space that is not theirs?

EZGI: It feels symbolic of an overarching theme that we're kind of getting into here, which is colonialism. So how does this incident reflect maybe a larger debate about decolonising museums and heritage sites?

NASRA: What it reflects is that colonialism never ended. That colonialism exists in different forms. We'll call it neocolonialism, but people are still looking for ways to control narratives, whether it's the locals who want to control their own narrative or foreign influence that wants to introduce new narratives and cement it. And in the past, colonialism came from a space of, it was packaged as trying to civilise people, but what it was actually doing was utilising resources from certain people. And so once again, it comes about in this package of “we're trying to improve the state of affairs.” And when you listen to it closely.

It's an undertone of you don't know what you're doing. We know better, or you don't know how to conserve this, we know better. And so that's the biggest argument, that we have the tools, we have the expertise, so let us handle it. But you do not have the knowledge, and you do not have the right. That's what matters. The knowledge and the right to do this. And without the consent and without the participation of these communities, then there is no decolonising, there's no museum. There is no heritage conservation. There's nothing like that.

EZGI: And are there any examples of communities that have been able to successfully reclaim control over their own cultural narratives? 

NASRA: The ones that I know of, especially, are in Latin America, in Brazil there is an indigenous museum that is there. And they were very intentional in partnering or working with and for the indigenous communities. And so even in the preservation of a lot of the materials, it was done in the ways that they know how to do it and then translated for everybody else.

Oral literature is a very key part of this because these communities, most of them, don't have written literature. Things were passed down in a very specific way. And another project which used a similar structure was in Peru. It was called the Quipu Project, where it's a recent history kind of project. There were men, about 20,000 men and over 250,000 women were sterilised involuntarily. And this is a part of history that's there, but it was brushed under the carpet. And the people who were sterilised were illiterate, and they didn't speak the language that is known by many. So their stories were disappearing or were going untold, and they couldn't advocate for their rights. But then the Quipu project, what they ended up doing is they recorded as many stories as they could. You can even visit the website, and they immortalised them to a certain degree. And they translated it. So they used it how they know it, gave it to the people, and then now reverted it back for everybody else to be able to understand, not using the models that everybody understands and then forcing them down on people. And that has helped them fight for their rights.

EZGI: So you mentioned that this was also a partnership with UNESCO. When it comes to managing donor influence, do you think that it should have played a stronger role in regulating the Omani side?

NASRA: They should have definitely evaluated the project while it was going on and after it was, and upon the completion, checked in with the local community to make sure that this happened appropriately, although they were not directly involved in coordinating everything. But at the same time, it goes back to the question, why is the final, final say being given to UNESCO? Why isn't the final stamp of approval the people who can say, “yes, this is fine,” or “this is not fine.” Coming back to involvement, if they were involved, then you wouldn't even need the stamp of approval because they would have been constantly making sure that it has been done right.

EZGI: So, coming back to the Lamu Museum, what steps do you think need to be taken to restore these removed artefacts and move forward to reverse this decision?

NASRA: The first step would be going back to where we started, how the museum was before, and then mapping out what needed to be done. Not reorganising it based on what is there now because that is not representative of what the museum should be, or even close to what the museum should be. And a more collaborative process in the whole thing.

EZGI: So now with your article, you've raised awareness about this. What's next?

NASRA: What's next is understanding and appreciating that people do care about culture and heritage, and things cannot happen on a fly without consultation. And I believe that people are now more aware, and so they are raising more flags on other projects that have faced a similar fate and other places where erasure is slowly happening.

EZGI: Thank you so much for joining us, Nasra.

NASRA: Thanks for having me.

EZGI: We heard how centuries-old Swahili culture was sidelined in favour of a foreign narrative. One that, in many cases, lacks connection to the local community. It’s a pattern echoed across the Global South, where underfunded institutions often depend on foreign donors to keep their doors open.

But Nasra reminds us of the need to decolonise heritage spaces. For example, in Brazil or in Peru, we’ve seen that when communities take ownership of their own stories, preservation becomes more meaningful and just.

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, I’m Ezgi Toper, and this was “In the Newsroom”.

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