Cultural genocide

Cultural genocide refers to the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political, military, religious, ideological, ethnical, or racial reasons.

Relevance to international law

As early as 1933, Raphael Lemkin proposed a cultural component to genocide, which he called "vandalism".

However, the drafters of the 1948 Genocide Convention dropped that concept from their consideration. The legal definition of genocide is left unspecific about the exact nature in which genocide is done only that it is destruction with intent to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or national group as such.

Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples uses the phrase "cultural genocide" but does not define what it means. The complete article reads as follows:

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

It should be noted that this declaration only appeared in a draft. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007, but only mentions "genocide", not "cultural genocide", although the article is otherwise unchanged.

Beside its legal currency, the term has acquired rhetorical value as a phrase that is used to protest against the destruction of cultural heritage. It is also often misused as a catchphrase to condemn any destruction the user of the phrase disapproves of, without regard for the criterion of intent to destroy an affected group as such.

Examples of the term's usage

Cultural advocates have leveled charges of "cultural genocide" in connection with various events:

• In reference to the Axis powers (primarily, Nazi Germany) policies towards some nations in World War II (ex. destruction of Polish culture)

• In 2007, a Canadian Member of Parliament criticized the Ministry of Indian Affairs' destruction of documents regarding the treatment of First Nations members as "cultural genocide."

• The destruction by Azerbaijan of thousands of medieval Armenian gravestones at a cemetery in Julfa, and Azerbaijan's subsequent denial that the site had ever existed, has been widely written about as being an example of cultural genocide.

• When Turkey's Minister of Cultural Affairs re-opened the medieval Armenian Aghtamar church in eastern Anatolia as a museum, critics objected to the use of its Turkified name, seeing in it a denial of the region's Armenian heritage and as a sort of "cultural genocide".

• Some scholars have discussed whether "cultural genocide" properly describes Japan's suppression of Korean language, traditions, and names, and the teaching of Korean history during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.

• Some people in the Western World have applied the term "cultural genocide" to what they see as a downfall of Western civilization due to liberal immigration policies, diversity, and multiculturalism.

• In 1989, Robert Badinter, a high-profile French criminal lawyer, participated to a famous french television program, Apostrophes, devoted to human rights, in the presence of the 14th Dalaï Lama. Talking about the disappearance of the Tibetan culture in Tibet, Robert Badinter used the term "cultural genocide". Later on, and for the first time in 1993, the Dalaï Lama used the same term of cultural genocide to describe the destruction of the Tibetan culture. More recently, at the time of 2008 Tibetan unrest, the Dalai Lama accused China of practising cultural genocide against the peoples of Tibet.

• According to Rebiya Kadeer, the President of Uyghur American Association, "In the name of so called bi-lingual education, the Chinese authorities have begun to impose the Chinese language and replace the Uighur language. They began to gradually erase Uighur people's language, scripture, literature, and the way of life. We consider this a sort of cultural genocide, a way to gradually eradicate the Uighur people."

• South Koreans have accused United States Christian missionaries of "cultural genocide" for their success in converting large number of South Koreans to Christianity.

See also

• Ethnic nationalism
• Endangered language
• Language policy
• Linguicide
• Ethnocide
• Korea under Japanese rule
• Mission Indians
• Stolen Generation of Australia
• Residential schools in Canada
• Native Schools in New Zealand
• Native American boarding schools in the United States
• Welsh Not
• Vergonha

External links

• Raphael Lemkin
• Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum Documenting Cultural Genocide in Azerbaijan
• Tibetan cultural genocide
• Cultural genocide of Armenian monuments continues
• Aboriginal cultural genocide
• Spiritual and cultural genocide of the Native Americans
• Bloodless Genocide of the Pitcairn People in Norfolk Island
• Cornish cultural genocide
• Canada Cultural Genocide: Forced Removal of Native Children