Monkey Business
Modern hominid politics mar 3.2-million-year-old australopithicine Lucy’s travel plans:
The Ethiopian Community Organization in Houston recently announced its position against the Houston Museum of Natural Science planned exhibit of the 3.2-million-year-old hominid.
The group blames museum officials and the Ethiopian government for what it says is a politically insensitive and profit-driven decision that could damage the fragile fossil during its trek to America. Museum officials and other exhibit supporters, however, said bringing Lucy to the U.S. is about cultural exchange — not politics.
“We have to be able to differentiate bad government and good government — government that has engaged in massacre, illegal election fraud, imprisoning people,” said Dula Abdu, one of the group’s board members. “As an institution, it would have been unheard-of for them to do business with the Khmer Rouge or Hitler or Mussolini.”
I have to admit, I’ve been too distracted by events elsewhere to pay much attention to Ethiopia, but according to this article, it’s not a pretty picture. Apparently I’m not the only one.
“The sad commentary is a museum of this significance does not have a bit of the wherewithal to learn about this regime and to do business with it,”said Moges Meshesha, 46, a member of the group who came to the U.S. more than two decades ago under political asylum from Ethiopia.
“There are dirty politics behind Lucy,” Meshesha said, insisting that the museum “has the ethical and moral obligation to draw the line.”
Meanwhile, there’s another issue.
The Smithsonian Institution refused to take part in the traveling exhibition — and other prominent paleontologists have concurred — citing an international agreement not to transport hominid fossils from their ancestral homeland except for significant scientific reasons.
Anthroblogger John Hawks, who called attention to this article, is agnostic on the subject and notes that exhibitions of this sort can draw a great deal of positive attention to the subject.
So where does Lucy figure in? Nowhere. She’s been dead for 3.2 million years. Had a very small brain. Undoubtedly had to deal with politics, however. Pongid, hominid, not so different.
Topics: anthronerdism, pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:34 pm on Wednesday, July 18, 2007
One Response to “Monkey Business”
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July 19th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I’ve been reading every scrap I could find about Lucy for years (there isn’t a whole lot). I’d love to see her, but in the end, it’s just monkeyman bones. I’d get as much satisfaction out of looking at a plastic replica (namely, a visual of just how big she was, how upright she stood, etc).