WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 I want you to picture a scientific conference. 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:03.940 Just, you know, close your eyes and imagine it. 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:07.259 You're probably seeing, what, a hotel ballroom, 00:00:07.459 --> 00:00:10.480 maybe some lukewarm coffee and styrofoam cups. 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:12.759 Yeah, and some guy in a tweed jacket pointing 00:00:12.759 --> 00:00:15.380 at a PowerPoint slide full of, like, dirt samples. 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:19.039 Exactly. It is usually the least dramatic setting 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:21.379 on planet Earth. Usually. Until you take that 00:00:21.379 --> 00:00:25.300 boring conference and throw a geopolitical grenade 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:27.719 right into the middle of it. Right. Imagine that 00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:30.359 same conference becomes so controversial that 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:33.340 it causes a global schism in the entire field 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:35.840 of study. The whole field splits in two. It gets 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.640 expelled, literally kicked out by its own parent 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:41.280 organization. It becomes a battleground for international 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:45.200 politics involving protests, bans, and these 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:48.640 secret high -stakes meetings in Paris. It sounds 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:50.960 like the plot of a spy novel, doesn't it? But 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:52.859 we are, and this is the wild part, we are actually 00:00:52.859 --> 00:00:55.520 talking about archaeology. We are. Today we are 00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:58.359 digging into a book that documents one of the 00:00:58.359 --> 00:01:01.259 biggest, messiest fights in the history of academia. 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:04.560 A really big one. It is titled Academic Freedom 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:07.939 and Apartheid, the Story of the World Archaeological 00:01:07.939 --> 00:01:11.239 Congress. It was written by Peter Ukko and published 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:13.959 way back in 1987. And we should clarify right 00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:15.980 away, this is not your standard textbook about, 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:18.180 you know, digging up bones or carbon dating. 00:01:18.299 --> 00:01:21.480 This is a primary source document. It's effectively 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:24.400 a manifesto in a diary about a massive rupture 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:27.420 that happened in 1986. And it all centers on 00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.540 a question that I think is, well, it's even more 00:01:29.540 --> 00:01:31.980 relevant now than it was 40 years ago. Definitely. 00:01:32.099 --> 00:01:36.239 Is science ever truly neutral? Or does this idea 00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:39.239 of academic freedom sometimes provide, I guess, 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:42.900 a hiding place for ignoring injustice? That is 00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:44.840 the mission for this deep dive. We are going 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.519 to explore how a debate over academic freedom 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:50.200 versus human rights just tore the archaeological 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:53.000 world apart all during the height of the anti 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:54.819 -apartheid movement. And we're seeing it through 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:56.579 the eyes of the man who was right in the center 00:01:56.579 --> 00:01:58.980 of the storm, Peter Ukko. So to understand the 00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:00.719 storm, you really have to understand the landscape 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:04.019 before it all blew up. Right. Yuko spends the 00:02:04.019 --> 00:02:05.739 first part of the book just setting the stage. 00:02:06.269 --> 00:02:09.310 The year is leading up to 1986. The governing 00:02:09.310 --> 00:02:11.830 body for all of this is an organization called 00:02:11.830 --> 00:02:15.550 the IUPPS. Which is a bit of a mouthful. Let's 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:17.509 break that down. It is. It stands for the International 00:02:17.509 --> 00:02:20.210 Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.729 It sounds incredibly dusty. It was. I mean, think 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:26.710 of the IUPPS as the old guard. It's this very 00:02:26.710 --> 00:02:29.469 established, very traditional international body. 00:02:29.689 --> 00:02:32.590 They hold a major congress every few years. And 00:02:32.590 --> 00:02:36.169 in 1986, it was Britain's turn to host. And this 00:02:36.169 --> 00:02:38.490 is where Peter Ukko enters the picture. He's 00:02:38.490 --> 00:02:40.389 a professor at Southampton University in the 00:02:40.389 --> 00:02:42.710 UK, and he gets hired as the national secretary. 00:02:43.030 --> 00:02:44.969 So basically, he's the guy in charge of organizing 00:02:44.969 --> 00:02:47.849 this whole massive event. Yeah. But reading the 00:02:47.849 --> 00:02:50.210 intro in chapter one, it is immediately obvious 00:02:50.210 --> 00:02:51.810 that Ukko isn't interested in just, you know, 00:02:51.810 --> 00:02:54.210 keeping the seat warm. Not at all. Ukko is a 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:56.409 disruptor by nature. He opens the book with a 00:02:56.409 --> 00:02:59.490 very sharp critique of his own field. He argues 00:02:59.490 --> 00:03:02.430 that the IUPPS and archaeology in general was 00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:05.030 just far too Eurocentric. An exclusive club. 00:03:05.620 --> 00:03:08.379 Exactly. He felt it ignored viewpoints from what 00:03:08.379 --> 00:03:10.979 he calls the third and fourth world. He didn't 00:03:10.979 --> 00:03:12.939 just want a meeting. He wanted a global exchange. 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:16.340 But before we even get to the politics, I love 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:19.240 that Uco describes the absolute logistical nightmare 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:21.900 of just trying to pull this off. Oh, it's great. 00:03:22.099 --> 00:03:24.979 Chapter one is titled How Not to Finance a Congress. 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:29.439 It is a surprisingly honest look at the the sausage 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:31.620 making of academia. We tend to think of these 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:34.060 international bodies as these well -oiled machines. 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:37.500 But he describes the fundraising as shambolic. 00:03:38.020 --> 00:03:40.659 Shambolic is such a fantastic British word for 00:03:40.659 --> 00:03:44.680 total disaster. It fits perfectly here. He details 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:46.919 the struggle to get underwriting, the disorganized 00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:49.740 committees, just a lack of support. But his goal 00:03:49.740 --> 00:03:51.860 wasn't just to pay the bills. Oh, he was trying 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:53.960 to change who got to sit at the table. He wanted 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:56.259 indigenous people. people from developing nations, 00:03:56.419 --> 00:03:58.680 the people whose history was actually being studied, 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.159 to be the ones presenting the papers. And that's 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.659 the key. So you have this ambitious, slightly 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:07.180 chaotic organizer, UCO, who wants this diverse 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:10.759 global Congress, but then reality crashes in. 00:04:10.819 --> 00:04:13.759 This is the mid -1980s. And the global movement 00:04:13.759 --> 00:04:16.560 against apartheid in South Africa is reaching 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:18.720 a boiling point. This is where the rubber meets 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:21.319 the road. We are in chapters two and three now. 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:25.500 The political climate in 1985 was incredibly 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:29.779 intense. There was this global push to isolate 00:04:29.779 --> 00:04:33.120 South Africa culturally, economically, academically. 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:36.500 And Uko is based in Southampton. In chapter three, 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:38.860 he details the pressure he was under locally. 00:04:39.060 --> 00:04:40.699 I mean, this wasn't just vague international 00:04:40.699 --> 00:04:43.600 vibes. No, this was real. We are talking about 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.060 the Southampton City Council, the student unions, 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:47.879 the local community. They were all telling him, 00:04:47.899 --> 00:04:49.839 if you let South African scientists come here, 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:52.339 we are shutting you down. They threatened to 00:04:52.339 --> 00:04:54.519 pull funding. They threatened picketing. They 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:57.399 threatened to make the conference literally unholdable. 00:04:57.519 --> 00:04:59.980 And this is the dilemma. The World Archaeological 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:03.740 Congress, or WAC, had a binary choice. Do they 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:06.240 allow South African scientists to attend or do 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:08.730 they ban them? And they chose the ban. They decided 00:05:08.730 --> 00:05:10.750 to ban South African and Namibian participation. 00:05:11.250 --> 00:05:13.110 And just to be clear for the listener, Namibia 00:05:13.110 --> 00:05:15.129 was under South African occupation at the time. 00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:16.509 Right. So they were sort of lumped together. 00:05:16.949 --> 00:05:19.509 Exactly. Now, you might think, OK, makes sense. 00:05:19.569 --> 00:05:22.689 Down with apartheid. But this decision is the 00:05:22.689 --> 00:05:25.250 flashpoint. It is. You have to understand the 00:05:25.250 --> 00:05:28.329 IUPPS that parent body operates on a core principle 00:05:28.329 --> 00:05:31.629 of free academic exchange. Their rules and the 00:05:31.629 --> 00:05:33.750 rules of almost all international scientific 00:05:33.750 --> 00:05:36.290 bodies at the time said that everyone should 00:05:36.290 --> 00:05:38.550 be welcome. Regardless of their country's politics 00:05:38.550 --> 00:05:41.870 or laws. Exactly. So on one side, you have the 00:05:41.870 --> 00:05:45.350 IUPPS saying science has no borders. We don't 00:05:45.350 --> 00:05:47.170 care about your passport. We care about your 00:05:47.170 --> 00:05:49.589 data. And on the other side, you have the WAC, 00:05:49.750 --> 00:05:52.870 UCO's group, saying we cannot host representatives 00:05:52.870 --> 00:05:56.029 of a racist apartheid regime. It's a clash of 00:05:56.029 --> 00:05:58.569 moral frameworks. And UCO documents how everything 00:05:58.569 --> 00:06:00.350 just starts to unravel. People who initially 00:06:00.350 --> 00:06:02.430 said they'd come started pulling out. The press 00:06:02.430 --> 00:06:04.290 got involved. It wasn't just an administrative 00:06:04.290 --> 00:06:06.430 decision anymore. It was a line in the sand. 00:06:06.629 --> 00:06:10.519 And the parent body. The IUPPS was furious. Which 00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:12.759 leads us to the showdown. We are looking at chapters 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:16.259 4, 5, and 6 now. The narrative moved to Paris 00:06:16.259 --> 00:06:21.160 January 17, 1986. The meeting of the IUPPS International 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:24.759 Executive Committee. This was the trial. Ukko 00:06:24.759 --> 00:06:27.339 describes trying to get third and fourth world 00:06:27.339 --> 00:06:30.040 representatives there to plead their case to 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.879 explain that if the South Africans came, no one 00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:35.459 else would. The conference would be boycotted 00:06:35.459 --> 00:06:37.810 by the rest of the world. But the old guard wasn't 00:06:37.810 --> 00:06:40.470 hearing it. No. The IAPPS executive committee 00:06:40.470 --> 00:06:44.410 officially expelled the WAC. They disowned the 00:06:44.410 --> 00:06:47.649 Congress entirely for banning the South Africans. 00:06:47.850 --> 00:06:50.050 And they didn't just disown them. No, they decided 00:06:50.050 --> 00:06:53.009 to hold an alternative official Congress in Mainz, 00:06:53.009 --> 00:06:55.750 Germany instead. They basically said, you are 00:06:55.750 --> 00:06:57.910 no longer the real conference. We are taking 00:06:57.910 --> 00:07:00.370 our ball and going to Germany. That is a massive 00:07:00.370 --> 00:07:02.949 rejection. And Ukko does not pull any punches 00:07:02.949 --> 00:07:05.199 about how he felt. that the title of chapter 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:08.379 five is just it's western european manipulation 00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:11.040 and presidential timidity you can feel the venom 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:13.379 in that title can't you uco viewed the decision 00:07:13.379 --> 00:07:16.079 not as a defense of freedom but as a desperate 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:18.759 attempt to protect the status quo to keep the 00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:21.459 club exclusive he felt they were hiding behind 00:07:21.459 --> 00:07:24.560 the rules to avoid taking a moral stand That's 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:27.420 his whole argument. So the WAC is kicked out. 00:07:27.459 --> 00:07:29.560 They have no parent organization. Most people 00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:31.100 would probably just cancel the event at that 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:32.899 point. I mean, the funding was already precarious. 00:07:33.019 --> 00:07:35.939 Exactly. But then we get to Chapter 6, which 00:07:35.939 --> 00:07:39.339 Ukko titles, Cancel and or be damned. Which captures 00:07:39.339 --> 00:07:42.839 the spirit perfectly. It does. On February 8th, 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:47.120 1986, the WAC executive committee meets. And 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:49.819 instead of folding, most of the members resign 00:07:49.819 --> 00:07:53.019 from the IUPPS connection. They decide to stick 00:07:53.019 --> 00:07:56.399 with UCO and the boycott. They go rogue. It's 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:59.439 practically a mutiny. It is. They chose to forge 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:01.959 ahead as an independent entity. This is the split 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:04.699 that defined the field for years. They were betting 00:08:04.699 --> 00:08:07.360 that the moral imperative of opposing apartheid 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:09.300 was more important than the official seal of 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.800 approval from the IUPPS. And the amazing thing 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.550 is they pulled it off. We get to chapters 8 and 00:08:14.550 --> 00:08:17.089 9, and Uco reveals that the Congress actually 00:08:17.089 --> 00:08:20.949 took place September 1986 in Southampton. Against 00:08:20.949 --> 00:08:23.350 all odds. And based on Uco's narrative in the 00:08:23.350 --> 00:08:25.250 photos in the book, the atmosphere was completely 00:08:25.250 --> 00:08:27.209 different from a standard academic conference. 00:08:27.470 --> 00:08:30.509 Because the IUPPS had pulled out, a lot of the 00:08:30.509 --> 00:08:33.070 traditional Western European scholars didn't 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:35.889 come. But scholars from Africa, Asia, and South 00:08:35.889 --> 00:08:38.570 America did. The people Uco wanted there in the 00:08:38.570 --> 00:08:41.190 first place. There's this one specific photo 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:43.570 mentioned in the book that I think really paints 00:08:43.570 --> 00:08:45.889 the picture. It's described by Jane Hubert. I 00:08:45.889 --> 00:08:47.929 know the one you mean. It shows a Sani child 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:50.710 that's an indigenous person from northern Scandinavia 00:08:50.710 --> 00:08:54.470 playing with a Turkish puzzle ring. And where 00:08:54.470 --> 00:08:56.850 is this child sitting? On the lap of a Kichwa 00:08:56.850 --> 00:08:59.970 Indian from Ecuador. That image is the thesis 00:08:59.970 --> 00:09:02.629 statement of the whole event. It symbolizes that 00:09:02.629 --> 00:09:05.350 global mixing Ukko was fighting for. You have 00:09:05.350 --> 00:09:07.370 indigenous peoples from opposite ends of the 00:09:07.370 --> 00:09:09.889 earth connecting. Ukko contrasts this sharply 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:13.190 with the tweed jacket Eurocentric past. So it 00:09:13.190 --> 00:09:15.149 wasn't just professors reading papers. It was 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:17.850 a meeting of cultures. And according to the book, 00:09:17.889 --> 00:09:20.519 the participants loved it. The verdict was apparently 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:23.440 overwhelming enthusiasm for this new inclusive 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:26.500 format. But, and we have to play devil's advocate 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:29.820 here, what was the intellectual cost? Or rather, 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:32.580 what was the philosophical argument that justified 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:35.039 the ban? Because banning scientists because of 00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:37.320 where they live is a very slippery slope. Right. 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:41.120 And in Chapter 10, The Aftermath, Ukko really 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:43.940 lays out his philosophy. He has this line that 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:46.740 stood out to me. He says, Academics cannot hide 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:49.059 behind the shaky edifice of their own academic 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:52.759 freedom. Shaky edifice. That's a strong critique. 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.580 Uco's argument is that until apartheid ends, 00:09:55.740 --> 00:09:58.740 priorities have to shift. He says academics must 00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:02.080 prioritize freedom itself over academic freedom. 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:04.980 So essentially, you can't have true academic 00:10:04.980 --> 00:10:07.519 freedom if people aren't free in the real world 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:10.120 first. That's it. If the black population of 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:12.899 South Africa can't vote or travel freely, then 00:10:12.899 --> 00:10:14.779 a white South African archaeologist claiming 00:10:14.779 --> 00:10:17.100 academic freedom is just benefiting from oppression. 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:19.620 He's saying that clinging to the idea of academic 00:10:19.620 --> 00:10:22.059 freedom while ignoring state sponsored racism 00:10:22.059 --> 00:10:25.659 is a form of complicity. Precisely. And he tried 00:10:25.659 --> 00:10:28.360 to institutionalize this. He includes appendices 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:30.480 in the book letters to UNESCO, things like that, 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:32.580 showing that he wanted to make this the new normal 00:10:32.580 --> 00:10:35.679 for international science. So Ukko clearly sees 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:39.009 himself as a pioneer here. But this brings us 00:10:39.009 --> 00:10:42.210 to the reception of the book, because not everyone 00:10:42.210 --> 00:10:45.929 agreed with his version of events or his methods. 00:10:46.090 --> 00:10:49.029 When the book came out, the reviews were, well, 00:10:49.129 --> 00:10:52.250 mixed is an understatement. Oh, it was incredibly 00:10:52.250 --> 00:10:54.950 polarizing. And looking at the reception section 00:10:54.950 --> 00:10:56.909 of our source material, you see that people were 00:10:56.909 --> 00:10:58.950 angry for very different reasons. Let's start 00:10:58.950 --> 00:11:01.649 with Sandra Baudler. She had a bone to pick with 00:11:01.649 --> 00:11:04.110 the title itself. She did. She called it a false 00:11:04.110 --> 00:11:07.049 title. She picked up academic freedom and apartheid 00:11:07.049 --> 00:11:09.529 expecting this deep philosophical debate, you 00:11:09.529 --> 00:11:12.129 know, about the nature of freedom under oppressive 00:11:12.129 --> 00:11:14.629 regimes. And instead? Instead, she felt she got 00:11:14.629 --> 00:11:16.730 a bureaucratic account of organizing her conference 00:11:16.730 --> 00:11:19.210 minutes, funding issues, logistics. She basically 00:11:19.210 --> 00:11:21.370 said, this isn't philosophy. This is the diary 00:11:21.370 --> 00:11:24.049 of a meeting planner. So she wanted Plato and 00:11:24.049 --> 00:11:26.669 she got a spreadsheet. Essentially. But then 00:11:26.669 --> 00:11:29.519 you have J. Desmond Clark. He was much more critical 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:32.639 of Ukko personally. He described the book as 00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:36.600 an ego trip. An ego trip. Yes. Clark felt Ukko 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:39.019 was portraying himself as the leader of a humanitarian 00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:42.320 crusade. He thought Ukko was centering himself 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:44.840 too much, acting like the savior of the discipline. 00:11:45.059 --> 00:11:48.120 He basically accused Ukko of having a messiah 00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:50.720 complex. But there were also substantive political 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.059 critiques, right? It wasn't just about Ukko's 00:11:53.059 --> 00:11:55.620 personality. Correct. And this is where the debate 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:57.990 gets really interesting. Connor Cruz O 'Brien 00:11:57.990 --> 00:12:00.909 wrote a review in Nature, I mean, a major science 00:12:00.909 --> 00:12:03.250 journal, arguing that the boycott was simply 00:12:03.250 --> 00:12:05.750 ineffective. He claimed that banning individual 00:12:05.750 --> 00:12:08.889 academics did absolutely nothing to change the 00:12:08.889 --> 00:12:10.870 apartheid regime in South Africa. And that it 00:12:10.870 --> 00:12:13.389 just silenced dialogue, that it curtailed free 00:12:13.389 --> 00:12:15.870 speech. He worried it set a dangerous precedent. 00:12:15.990 --> 00:12:18.750 If you silence researchers because of their government's 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:21.669 actions, where does it stop? Do you ban American 00:12:21.669 --> 00:12:24.129 scientists because of US foreign policy? Do you 00:12:24.129 --> 00:12:26.950 ban Chinese scientists? Exactly. He saw it as 00:12:26.950 --> 00:12:29.210 damaging the universality of science without 00:12:29.210 --> 00:12:30.850 actually hurting the South African government. 00:12:31.340 --> 00:12:32.899 There was also a really important point about 00:12:32.899 --> 00:12:35.080 the Nazi occupation, wasn't there? This feels 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:37.340 like critical context for why the Europeans were 00:12:37.340 --> 00:12:39.919 so dead set against the van. It is the most crucial 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:42.399 bit of context and maybe the one Ukko underestimated. 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:45.259 Critics noted that Ukko just seemed to ignore 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:48.340 the European perspective. Many continental European 00:12:48.340 --> 00:12:52.799 scholars, French, German, Dutch, they lived through 00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:55.360 the Nazi occupation, or at least its immediate 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.679 aftermath. For them, Academic freedom wasn't 00:12:58.679 --> 00:13:01.019 a buzzword. No, it meant protection from state 00:13:01.019 --> 00:13:03.639 interference. Exactly. They had seen what happens 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:06.139 when politics dictate science. They had seen 00:13:06.139 --> 00:13:09.299 Jewish professors purged. They had seen curriculum 00:13:09.299 --> 00:13:11.460 rewritten by the state. So they believed science 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:14.190 had to exist outside of government. So when the 00:13:14.190 --> 00:13:16.909 WAC started banning people based on politics. 00:13:17.149 --> 00:13:19.690 To those European stallers, it looked frighteningly 00:13:19.690 --> 00:13:22.009 similar to the political purges they had had 00:13:22.009 --> 00:13:26.250 against. They saw the IUPPS as a sanctuary that 00:13:26.250 --> 00:13:28.889 UGA was violating. That is a really heavy perspective. 00:13:29.129 --> 00:13:32.190 It makes the IUPPS's resistance make a lot more 00:13:32.190 --> 00:13:35.250 sense. It wasn't just stubbornness. No, it was 00:13:35.250 --> 00:13:37.509 a trauma response to history. It's a clash of 00:13:37.509 --> 00:13:40.769 two different moral frameworks. One says science 00:13:40.769 --> 00:13:43.309 must stay out of politics to survive. The other 00:13:43.309 --> 00:13:46.350 says science is inherently political and we must 00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:49.350 choose the side of justice. But surely UCO had 00:13:49.350 --> 00:13:52.029 supporters. It wasn't all bad reviews. No, not 00:13:52.029 --> 00:13:54.330 at all. Larry J. Zimmerman, for instance, called 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:56.970 the book courageous and candid. He acknowledged 00:13:56.970 --> 00:14:00.009 that Uco was biased and Uco himself admits his 00:14:00.009 --> 00:14:02.970 bias. But Zimmerman praised him for documenting 00:14:02.970 --> 00:14:05.389 the personal struggle. He felt that thinking 00:14:05.389 --> 00:14:08.090 archaeologists would see their own ethical struggles 00:14:08.090 --> 00:14:11.370 reflected in Uco's story. So he saw it as a necessary 00:14:11.370 --> 00:14:13.870 document of a difficult time, even if it was 00:14:13.870 --> 00:14:17.090 one sided. Yes. It is less of a balanced history 00:14:17.090 --> 00:14:19.570 textbook and more of a manifesto or, you know, 00:14:19.610 --> 00:14:22.090 a war diary. It's raw. Which brings us to the 00:14:22.090 --> 00:14:23.809 legacy of this whole event. I mean, the book 00:14:23.809 --> 00:14:27.559 ends. And we are left with this split. What happened 00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:30.200 next? The split eventually healed for the most 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.220 part, but the WAC still exists today. It remains 00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:35.840 a distinct organization with a focus on indigenous 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.379 rights and political engagement. The questions 00:14:38.379 --> 00:14:40.659 Zuko raised didn't go away. They fundamentally 00:14:40.659 --> 00:14:42.919 changed how archaeology is done. They really 00:14:42.919 --> 00:14:45.320 did. You can't just swoop in, dig up stuff and 00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:47.559 leave anymore without engaging with the local 00:14:47.559 --> 00:14:51.899 people. So if we look at this book, what is the 00:14:51.899 --> 00:14:54.710 real takeaway? Is it a manual for how to run 00:14:54.710 --> 00:14:58.169 a conference? Or a warning? That's the question. 00:14:58.330 --> 00:15:01.210 I think if we synthesize all this, the book is 00:15:01.210 --> 00:15:04.169 less of a philosophical treatise, as Bodler complained, 00:15:04.470 --> 00:15:07.429 and more of a blow -by -blow account of a specific 00:15:07.429 --> 00:15:10.350 political rupture. It's a case study in what 00:15:10.350 --> 00:15:12.730 happens when the ivory tower gets smashed by 00:15:12.730 --> 00:15:15.169 the real world. It forces us to look at the messy 00:15:15.169 --> 00:15:18.190 reality. And it forces you, the listener, to 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:21.220 ask. Does banning individuals to protest their 00:15:21.220 --> 00:15:23.740 government's actions actually work? Or does it 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:25.620 just cut off the very people who might be your 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:28.179 allies inside that regime? That is the hard part, 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:30.500 isn't it? By banning all the South Africans, 00:15:30.659 --> 00:15:33.240 did they isolate the regime? Or did they abandon 00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:35.500 the liberal academics inside South Africa who 00:15:35.500 --> 00:15:37.980 are fighting apartheid from within? And we know 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:40.120 there were many anti -apartheid archaeologists 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:42.440 in South Africa who were suddenly cut off from 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:44.960 their global colleagues. That's the dilemma Ukko 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:48.460 leaves us with. He chose his side. He believed 00:15:48.460 --> 00:15:51.240 freedom itself was more important than the feelings 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.360 or careers of those individual scientists. He 00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:57.179 beloved, you cannot do business as usual with 00:15:57.179 --> 00:15:59.600 an immoral regime. It really makes you think 00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:01.840 about our own time. We deal with boycotts and 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:04.220 cancel culture, though that's a loaded term, 00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:07.139 and questions of academic responsibility constantly. 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:10.720 The parallels are striking. The specific conflict 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:13.620 was about apartheid, but the core tension is 00:16:13.620 --> 00:16:16.879 timeless. It is. Where does a scientist's responsibility 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.480 to their field end and their responsibility to 00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:21.860 the world begin? Can you be a good archaeologist 00:16:21.860 --> 00:16:24.200 if you ignore the suffering of the living people 00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:26.879 on the land you are studying? Uco would say absolutely 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.460 not. The old guard would say that your job is 00:16:29.460 --> 00:16:31.840 the data, not the politics. And frankly, both 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.039 sides have points that are hard to dismiss. And 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:35.580 I think that tension is where we're going to 00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:38.279 leave you today. It is a fascinating story of 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.600 a conference that became a crusade. Peter Uco's 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:43.539 academic freedom and apartheid might be from 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:47.480 1987, but the fight it documents feels like it 00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:49.779 could have happened yesterday on Twitter. Absolutely. 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:52.240 It is a reminder that even in the study of the 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:55.860 ancient past, the present is always right there 00:16:55.860 --> 00:16:58.259 demanding to be heard. Well, that's it for this 00:16:58.259 --> 00:17:00.419 deep dive. We hope this sparks some thoughts 00:17:00.419 --> 00:17:02.259 for you about the intersection of science and 00:17:02.259 --> 00:17:04.759 justice. Definitely something to mull over. Thanks 00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:06.539 for listening, and we'll catch you on the next 00:17:06.539 --> 00:17:06.700 one.