Gallipoli - tourism and heritage don't mix: Historian

THURSDAY 3 APRIL 2008

Further damage to the heritage aspects of Gallipoli in Turkey is inevitable unless limits are placed on the number of tourists visiting the area for memorial services, an expert will suggest at The Australian National University tonight.

In the lead up to Anzac Day the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at ANU is hosting its First International Symposium on Gallipoli: History, Art and Literature, which will feature experts discussing Turkish and Australian perspectives.

Historian Joan Beaumont, soon-to-be Director of the Faculty of Arts at ANU, argues that the tension between heritage and tourism at Gallipoli remains unresolved after a 2005 outcry over roadwork at the site that supposedly disturbed soldiers’ remains.

“Over the last decade attendance at the Anzac Day services at Gallipoli has grown steeply – from 4,500 visitors in 1994 to 18,000 in 2004,” Professor Beaumont said. “Despite this site falling under Turkish sovereignty, it’s clear that a kind of cultural annexation has taken place, with many Australians and New Zealanders believing that ownership has been conferred by the deaths of their compatriots during WWI.

“In 2005 the conflict between Turkish sovereignty and ANZAC-heritage claims came to the fore when road expansions at Gallipoli was thought to have disturbed the remains of some diggers. In this instance it was convenient for the Howard Government to try to shift blame to Turkey, even though the Government had requested that access to the site be improved.

“Amid the outcry over the road-works incident, few people questioned whether the development should proceed, simply in order to accommodate the growing number of battlefield tourists. This incident highlights the difficulty of protecting the integrity and authenticity of international sites that are significant to Australians’ memory of war, from the pressures of resurgent nationalism and tourism,” explains Professor Beaumont, who is currently based at Deakin University.

Other speakers during the International Gallipoli Symposium will discuss: how Gallipoli is represented in Turkish literature and source documents; how Gallipoli is represented in films as a national and transnational myth; and Turkish paintings of Gallipoli.

Abstracts are available here: http://arts.anu.edu.au/cais/seminars.asp

ANU media: Simon Couper 02 6125 4171, 0416 249 241