A central plank of the British character is a fascination with the British character – if the Americans speak of their traits with pride, and the French with nonchalance, we speak of ourselves as amateur naturalists might discourse on a favourite beetle: amused, affectionate, alive to detail.
It is British to talk about the weather but also to talk about ourselves talking about the weather. How much of “classically British” literature involves an inventory of our quirks and habits, as if for future anthropologists? It might be a human tendency to assume your foibles are universal, but our bias runs the other way: we prefer to think of ourselves as eccentric, an island of outliers.
So it is strange that it has taken us 20 years to decide to submit our favourite habits and traditions to the world’s official register, Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list, so that they can be properly curated and preserved.
Or rather, a selection of them. Carol singing, sea shanties, pantomime, basket weaving, wreath-making, bog snorkelling, tweed – no, these are not items on the “Things Nicky Haslam Finds Common” tea towel, another symptom of British self-consciousness, but suggestions for “living heritage” that need particular safeguarding. The public are to put up ideas, and the government will this year send some of these to the UN, which will decide whether they deserve a place alongside such practices as kok boru, a Kyrgyzstani game played on horseback where a dead goat was traditionally used as the ball.
The UN’s cultural body set up this convention in 2003: it’s the counterpart to its famous list of world heritage sites, which the world tends to use as a sort of “see before you die” coffee-table book. As museums started making exhibits more interactive, so Unesco expanded its focus from buildings to traditions. Governments can apply for funds on behalf of “masterpieces of oral and intangible culture” in danger from globalisation, and these also go on a high-profile list, attracting attention and, through visitors, more money.
It’s hard to argue against money for culture when anything helps: a report last week tells us the country’s brass bands, for example, are on the point of bankruptcy, but is Unesco’s project really the solution? Although the UK was partly responsible for founding the body, we’ve had an uneasy relationship with it since; Margaret Thatcher pulled us out, then Tony Blair took us back in, then Penny Mordaunt wanted us to follow the US out again in 2019. In 2021, Liverpool was stripped of its status because of new developments on the waterfront (it replied that it did not care). Unesco’s aims are noble, but I think we were right to be sceptical of the project. Is a global approach to culture really the best way to stave off the effects of globalisation?
We’re at the first problem already: how to choose what goes on the list? There is barely a thing humans do that can’t be categorised as “culture”. Unesco’s programme draws much inspiration from organisations that protect the natural world; but, unlike those, it has no scientific principles on which to decide the value of one item over another. How to decide between pantomime and cheese rolling, or pancake flipping and High Wycombe’s weighing of the mayor (and why are British traditions all so silly?).
One of the criteria is that the custom must be endangered – but this doesn’t quite match to the list so far, which includes the French baguette, Spanish flamenco, Italian opera, Neapolitan pizza making and the Mediterranean diet. Are these really at risk? Or are they instead world famous and commercially viable? Environmentalists are sometimes accused of prioritising charismatic beasts such as the panda as thousands of lesser-known species go extinct. The UN’s cultural programme might be falling into the same trap.
And there’s also the opposite risk, of course: that money will be wasted keeping almost-dead traditions on life support when the community around them has become indifferent. Plays will be performed and songs sung by people who have ceased to remember why, in a culture that has moved on.
A larger flaw is that Unesco might not be capable of protecting cultures that are in danger – such as those of minorities persecuted by states, as they must work through governments in the first place. China’s ruling party donates more money to the international body than any other group, but critics claim it uses Unesco’s heritage lists to reinforce its version of the country’s history: favoured groups are credited with a longer, kinder and more influential past, while ethnic minorities are sidelined, nominated only for folk practices here and there.
But perhaps the worst charge levelled at Unesco is that it can end up actually harming the traditions it decides to protect. Unleashing a horde of tourists, with the attendant litter and chain restaurants, is not always the best way to conserve. When a tiny mining town in northern Japan ended up on the world heritage list, alongside places such as Angkor Wat, it was inundated with thousands of visitors, for which it didn’t have the infrastructure.
Traditions and practices can be even more fragile than buildings once visitors arrive with cameras and the new global status sinks in to the minds of participants. Unesco is careful with its wording – it wants to preserve “evolving” heritage; the value must be for the community, not the world. Still, not everyone reads the small print on the UN website, and there is a danger that the new fame might freeze a culture in aspic: locals performing Disneyfied versions for international tourists.
Britain is perhaps more robust than some – and we could do with the cash, even if we have to turn into pantomime versions of ourselves in the process. Still, I’ve been to the Gloucester cheese-rolling, where tramping visitors flattened six fields: any more attention and it might be the end of Gloucester. If we are going to join the project, we should submit some healthy British scepticism along with our entries.
• Martha Gill is an Observer columnist
