Museums and race equality in Wales

The gap between the Welsh government’s approach to race equality in the cultural sector, and that of the English government, grows wider by the month.

In November 2020, the Welsh government published a report, The Slave Trade and the British Empire: An Audit of Commemoration in Wales. It provides a comprehensive list of people commemorated in Wales who were associated with the slave trade or with crimes against Black people. When the report was published, first minister Mark Drakeford said:

“We need a clear understanding of the legacies of the slave trade and the British Empire […] This is not about rewriting our past or naming and shaming. It is about learning from events of the past. It is an opportunity for us to establish a mature relationship with our history and find a heritage which can be shared by us all.”

The audit, and a separate report on the teaching in schools of the histories and experiences of Black communities, are consistent with the Welsh government’s commitment to equalities of all people with protected characteristics. In March 2021, the Welsh government published a consultation document, An Anti-Racist Wales: The Race Equality Action Plan for Wales and, in July 2021, it published a Consultation on the LGBTQ+ Action Plan.

Culture, heritage and sport were initially omitted from the scope of An Anti-Racist Wales, because the research evidence apparently did not indicate that this was a priority in achieving race equality. However, representatives of the communities in Wales then made a strong case for its inclusion, on the grounds that cultural inequality is a foundation for other inequalities.

In making a commitment to being actively anti-racist, the Welsh government is committing itself to an activist role. This strongly conflicts with the position of the English government, which has explicitly warned publicly funded museums in England that there may be significant financial consequences if they follow this path – creating what some senior professionals have described as a climate of fear.

In an article in The Guardian on 11 February 2021, the Irish president Michael D Higgins urged that the United Kingdom, as well as Ireland, engage in an exercise of ethical remembering. He added that:

“A feigned amnesia around the uncomfortable aspects of our shared history will not help us to forge a better future together […] And while it has been vital for our purposes in Ireland to examine nationalism, doing the same for imperialism is equally important and has significance far beyond British/Irish relations.”

We know that Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales does not represent the ethnic and cultural diversity of Wales and we are implementing an action plan across all services to change this. Will all museums now honour their solemn public promises last year to remove the structural inequalities still faced by Black and other communities in our museums?

This will only happen if museum leaders in England and the nations stand together with racialised communities in publicly opposing the UK government’s interventions to control the narratives of history.

Image caption: Somali Heritage Day at St Fagans National Museum of History, 2019