Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term genocide.[1] The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide.[1] Though the precise definition of cultural genocide remains contested, the United Nations does not include it in the definition of genocide used in the 1948 Genocide Convention.[2] The Armenian Genocide Museum defines culturicide as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction",[3] which appears to be essentially the same as ethnocide. Some ethnologists, such as Robert Jaulin, use the term ethnocide as a substitute for cultural genocide,[4] although this usage has been criticized as risking the confusion between ethnicity and culture.[5] Cultural genocide and ethnocide have in the past been utilized in distinct contexts.[6] Cultural genocide without ethnocide is conceivable when a distinct ethnic identity is kept, but distinct cultural elements are eliminated.[7]
Culturicide involves the eradication and destruction of cultural artifacts, such as books, artworks, and structures.[8] The issue is addressed in multiple international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute, which define war crimes associated with the destruction of culture. Cultural genocide may also involve forced assimilation, as well as the suppression of a language or cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate.[8] Among many other potential reasons, cultural genocide may be committed for religious motives (e.g., iconoclasm which is based on aniconism); as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in an attempt to remove the evidence of a people from a specific locale or history; as part of an effort to implement a Year Zero, in which the past and its associated culture is deleted and history is "reset". The drafters of the 1948 Genocide Convention initially considered using the term, but later dropped it from inclusion.[9][10][11] The term "cultural genocide" has been considered in various draft United Nations declarations, but it is not used by the UN Genocide Convention.[4]
The notion of 'cultural genocide' was acknowledged as early as 1944, when lawyer Raphael Lemkin distinguished a cultural component of genocide.[12] In 1989, Robert Badinter, a French criminal lawyer known for his stance against the death penalty, used the term "cultural genocide" on a television show to describe what he said was the disappearance of Tibetan culture in the presence of the 14th Dalai Lama.[13] The Dalai Lama would later use the term in 1993[14] and again in 2008.[15]
The concept of cultural genocide was originally included in drafts of the 1948 Genocide Convention.[9][10][11] Genocide was defined as the destruction of a group's language, religion, or culture through one of several methods. This definition of genocide was rejected by the drafting committee by a vote of 25 to 16, with 4 abstentions.[16]
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.
This wording only ever appeared in a draft. The DRIP—which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007—only makes reference to genocide once, when it mentions "genocide, or any other act of violence" in Article 7. Though the concept of "ethnocide" and "cultural genocide" was removed in the version adopted by the General Assembly, the sub-points from the draft noted above were retained (with slightly expanded wording) in Article 8 that speaks to "the right not to be subject to forced assimilation."[18]
The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called "cultural genocide". This definition was the result of a negotiating process and reflects the compromise reached among United Nations Member States while drafting the Convention in 1948...To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy [the] group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group, though this may constitute a crime against humanity as set out in the Rome Statute. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique.[2]
While not qualifying as genocide under the Convention, the issue is addressed in multiple international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute, which define war crimes associated with the destruction of culture.
The term has been used to describe the destruction of cultural heritage in connection with various events which mostly occurred during the 20th century:
Historian Stephen Wheatcroft states that the Soviet peasantry was subject to cultural destruction during the creation of the "New Soviet man",[19] Lynne Viola makes a similar characterization of Collectivization in the Soviet Union adding a noted colonial character to the project in their observation of the event.[20]
During the genocide of the Chechens and Ingush in 1944, Soviet forces destroyed almost every piece of Chechen and Ingush language literature in existence, and damaged or destroyed many Chechen and Ingush cultural sites and artifacts, including towers in the highlands that had been built to resist Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Chechens and Ingush gravestones were destroyed, and when the Chechens and Ingush were allowed to return to their homes a decade later, they were forbidden from settling in their ancestral mountain lands.[21][22][23]
2004 unrest in Kosovo.[27] In an urgent appeal,[28] issued on 18 March by the extraordinary session of the Expanded Convocation of the Holy Synod of Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), it was reported that a number of Serbian churches and shrines in Kosovo had been damaged or destroyed by Albanian rioters. At least 30 sites were completely destroyed, more or less destroyed, or further destroyed (sites that had been previously damaged).[29]
After the Greek Civil War, Greek authorities had conducted a cultural genocide upon Slavic Macedonians in Northern Greece through prohibition of communication in Slavic languages, renaming of cities, towns and villages (Lerin/Лерин to Florina etc.), deportation of Slavic Macedonians, particularly women and children, as well as many other actions intended to marginalize and oppress the Slavic Macedonians residing in Northern Greece. While some of these actions had been motivated by political ideology, as many of the Slavic Macedonians had sided with the defeated communists, the majority of actions were committed to wipe out any traces of Slavic Macedonians or their culture in Northern Greece.[30][31]
Turkey: Especially in the island of Imbros. The island was primarily inhabited by ethnic Greeks from antiquity until approximately the 1960s, when many were forced to flee due to a campaign of cultural genocide and discrimination enacted by the Turkish government.[32] Massive scale persecution against the local Greeks started in 1961, as part of the Eritme Programmi operation that aimed at the elimination of Greek education and the enforcement of economic, psychological pressure and violence. Under these conditions, the Turkish government approved the appropriation of >90% of the cultivated areas of the island and the settlement of additional 6,000 ethnic Turks from mainland Turkey.[33][34] Finally, the island was also officially renamed by Turkey in 1970 to Gökçeada to finalize the removal of any remaining Greek influence.
Francoist Spain: the alleged prohibition of the use of minority languages such as Catalan or Galician in the public space, from schools to shops, public transport, or even in the streets, the banning of the use of Catalan or Galician birth names for children, the renaming of cities, streets and all toponyms from Catalan, Basque or Galician to Castilian-Spanish, and the abolition of government and all cultural institutions in Catalonia as well as in Basque Country and Galicia with the goal of total cultural suppression and assimilation.[35]
John D. Hargreaves writes that "A policy of cultural genocide was implemented: the Catalan language and key symbols of Catalan independent identity and nationhood, such as the flag (the senyera), the national hymn ('Els Segadors') and the national dance (the sardana), were proscribed. Any sign of independence or opposition, in fact, was brutally suppressed. Catalan identity and consequently the Catalan nation were threatened with extinction."[36]
Although Josep Pla and other Catalan authors published books in Catalan in the 1950s, and even there were prizes of Catalan Literature during Francoism like the Premi Sant Jordi de novel·la, editorial production in Catalan never recovered the peak levels it had reached before Spanish Civil War[37][38] A prominent case of popularization of Catalan was Joan Manuel Serrat: although he could compose Catalan songs and gained certain notoriety, he was not allowed to sing in Catalan in the Eurovision contest its La, la, la. theme, and was replaced by Spanish singer Massiel, who won the Eurovision contest.[39] Overall, despite some tolerance as Franco's regime relaxed in the late 60s and early 70s, Catalan and the rest of minority languages of Spain were strictly banned from higher education, administration and all official endeavors, thus being in practice confined to the private sphere and domestic uses (see Language policies of Francoist Spain).
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, some schools in Wales adopted the Welsh Not policy to discourage students from speaking Welsh instead of English. Under this total immersion policy, students caught speaking Welsh were punished, most typically by having a lump of wood with the letters "WN" placed around their neck. Though the policy enjoyed widespread support among parents and the general public in Wales, some Welsh nationalists have described it as an example of cultural genocide. Academic Martin Johnes noted that despite the Welsh Not not being an official state policy, instead coming down to actions taken by individual teachers, it nonetheless remains "a powerful symbol of the oppression of Welsh culture."[40]
When at the mid-19th century, primary school is made compulsory all across the State, it is also made clear that only French will be taught, and the teachers will severely punish any pupil speaking in patois. The aim of the French educational system will consequently not be to dignify the pupils' natural humanity, developing their culture and teaching them to write their language, but rather to humiliate them and morally degrade them for the simple fact of being what tradition and their nature made them. The self-proclaimed country of the "human rights" will then ignore one of man's most fundamental rights, the right to be himself and speak the language of his nation. And with that attitude France, the "grande France" that calls itself the champion of liberty, will pass the 20th century, indifferent to the timid protest movements of the various linguistic communities it submitted and the literary prestige they may have given birth to.
[...]
France, that under Franco's reign was seen here [in Catalonia] as the safe haven of freedom, has the miserable honour of being the [only] State of Europe—and probably the world – that succeeded best in the diabolical task of destroying its own ethnic and linguistic patrimony and moreover, of destroying human family bonds: many parents and children, or grandparents and grandchildren, have different languages, and the latter feel ashamed of the first because they speak a despicable patois, and no element of the grandparents' culture has been transmitted to the younger generation, as if they were born out of a completely new world. This is the French State that has just entered the 21st century, a country where stone monuments and natural landscapes are preserved and respected, but where many centuries of popular creation expressed in different tongues are on the brink of extinction. The "gloire" and the "grandeur" built on a genocide. No liberty, no equality, no fraternity: just cultural extermination, this is the real motto of the French Republic.
Ukraine. As of February 29, 2024, according to the published data of the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal, about 900 objects of national heritage were damaged or destroyed in the occupied zones of Ukraine, and more than 20 thousand cultural monuments are under occupation.[47][48][49]
Historian Sarah Cameron believes that while the Kazakh famine of 1931–1933 combined with a campaign against nomads was not genocide in the sense of the Genocide Convention's definition, it complies with Raphael Lemkin's original concept of genocide, which considered destruction of culture to be as genocidal as physical annihilation.[19]
The Sinicization of Tibet from the 1950s onwards. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising, 97% of Tibet's monasteries were destroyed, while 2 million Tibetans, including 500,000 nomadic farmers, were relocated to newly created urban centers.[63]
The persecution of Sri Lankan Tamils during the Sri Lankan Civil War was a campaign of ethnic cleansing which was sponsored by the government and it has continued until the present day as a part of the Sinhalaisation of the northern and eastern parts of the island.
The persecution of Uyghurs in China. Some one million members of China's MuslimUyghur minority have been detained in massive detention camps, termed "reeducation camps", which exist for the purpose of changing the political thinking, identities and religious beliefs of the detainees, under the guise of "anti-terrorism".[66] Satellite evidence suggests that China has also razed more than two dozen Uyghur Muslim religious sites to the ground.[67]
In the mid-1800s to early 1900s, the United States established American Indian boarding schools to assimilate Native American children and youth into Euro-American culture.
In 2015, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin, of the Supreme Court of Canada, stated in a speech to the Global Centre for Pluralism that Canada's historical treatment of Indigenous peoples was an attempt at cultural genocide, and "the worst stain on Canada's human-rights record."[70]
^ ab"Cultural genocide". The Armenian genocide Museum-institute. Archived from the original on 22 August 2024. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
^ abJaulin, Robert (1970). La paix blanche: introduction à l'ethnocide [White Peace: An Introduction to Ethnocide] (in French). Éditions du Seuil.
^Delanty, Gerard; Kumar, Krishan (29 June 2006). The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism. SAGE Publications. p. 326. ISBN978-1-4129-0101-7. Retrieved 28 February 2013. The term 'ethnocide' has in the past been used as a replacement for cultural genocide (Palmer 1992; Smith 1991:30-3), with the obvious risk of confusing ethnicity and culture.
^Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (21 April 1989). Les droits de l'homme [Human rights]. Apostrophes (Videotape) (in French). Ina.fr. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
^Draft United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples drafted by The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Recalling resolutions 1985/22 of 29 August 1985, 1991/30 of 29 August 1991, 1992/33 of 27 August 1992, 1993/46 of 26 August 1993, presented to the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council at 36th meeting 26 August 1994 and adopted without a vote.
^ abThe Complexity of the Kazakh Famine: Food Problems and Faulty Perceptions Stephen G. Wheatcroft
^Viola, Lynne (2014). "Collectivization in the Soviet Union: Specificities and Modalities". The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe:Comparison and Entanglements. Central European University Press. pp. 49–69. ISBN978-963-386-048-9.
^ abCGS 1st Workshop: "Cultural Genocide" and the Japanese Occupation of Korea (archive) "During Germany's occupation of Poland (1939–1945) and Japan's occupation of Korea (1910–1945), the prohibition of use of the native tongue, the renaming of people and places, the removal of indigenous people from institutions of higher education, the destruction of cultural facilities, the denial of freedom of religious faith, and the changing of cultural education all took place. The instances of German cultural genocide, which Lemkin took as his basis, cannot be ignored when conducting comparative research." "One of the most striking features of Japan's occupation of Korea is the absence of an awareness of Korea as a "colony", and the absence of an awareness of Koreans as a "separate ethnicity". As a result, it is difficult to prove whether or not the leaders of Japan aimed for the eradication of the Korean race."
^Alexis Alexandris, "The Identity Issue of The Minorities in Greece And Turkey", in Hirschon, Renée (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey, Berghahn Books, 2003, p. 120
^Limpitsioúni, Anthí G. To plégma ton ellinotourkikón schéseon kai i ellinikí meionótita stin Tourkía, oi Éllines tis Konstantinoúpolis tis Ímvrou kai tis Tenédou Το πλέγμα των ελληνοτουρκικών σχέσεων και η ελληνική μειονότητα στην Τουρκία, οι Έλληνες της Κωνσταντινούπολης της Ίμβρου και της Τενέδου [The nexus of Greek-Turkish relations and the Greek minority in Turkey, the Greeks of Constantinople, Imbros and Tenedos] (in Greek). Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης. pp. 98–99.
^Benet, Josep (1978). Catalunya sota el règim franquista [Catalonia under the Franco regime] (in Catalan) (1. reedició ed.). Barcelona: Blume. ISBN84-7031-064-X. OCLC4777662.
^Benet, Josep (1979). Cataluña bajo el régimen franquista [Catalonia under the Franco regime] (in Catalan) (1. ed.). Barcelona: Blume. ISBN84-7031-144-1. OCLC7188603.
^Petrosyan 2010 – Petrosyan H., Cultural ethnocide in Artsakh (mechanism of extortion of cultural heritage), state terrorism of Azerbaijan and the policy of ethnic cleansing against Nagorno Karabakh, Shushi, pp. 137-148 (in Arm.). Petrosyan 2020 – Ethnocide in Artsakh: The Mechanisms of Azerbaijan’s Usurpation of Indigenous Armenian Cultural Heritage, Cultural Heritage. Experiences & Perspectives in International Context, Proceedings of the ROCHEMP center international conference, 23rd- 24th of January 2020, Yerevan, pp. 79-90.
^Kellogg, Ethan. "Cultural Erasure in the Modern Day: The Destruction of Armenian Heritage Sites in Azerbaijan."The Cornell Diplomat 9 (2023). This wide-spread destruction has taken place since at least the late 1990s, primarily in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan, eliminating millennia of artifacts and altering the ethnic and cultural makeup of the region in a manner that may constitute cultural genocide.
^Falcone, Daniel (6 January 2024). "Armenians Suffering in Nagorno-Karabakh Are Going Largely Ignored in US Media". Truthout. Retrieved 20 February 2024. In this under-reported case of cultural genocide involving political persecution, strains on due process rights, torture, lack of healthcare and food supplies, tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians have fled from Nagorno-Karabakh region after surrendering to Azerbaijan on September 20.
^"Texts adopted - Destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh - Thursday, 10 March 2022". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 29 January 2024. The European Parliament... calls on Azerbaijan to fully implement the provisional decision of the ICJ, in particular by 'refraining from suppressing the Armenian language, destroying Armenian cultural heritage or otherwise eliminating the existence of the historical Armenian cultural presence or inhibiting Armenians' access and enjoyment thereof' and by 'restoring or returning any Armenian cultural and religious buildings and sites, artefacts or objects';
^"The Cultural Genocide Against Armenians". TIME. 12 October 2023. Retrieved 6 February 2024. This is how cultural genocide plays out. A little more than 100 years ago was the Armenian Genocide waged by the Ottoman Empire, followed by largescale looting, vandalization, and destruction of Armenian sites across what is now modern-day Turkey. The prospect of a second cultural genocide is now on the table. Except now, Armenians will watch the spectacle unfold online, enduring the trauma site by site and monument by monument.
