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Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept 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]
Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) uses the phrase "cultural genocide" but does not define what it means. [17] The complete article in the draft read as follows:
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 United Nations does not include cultural genocide in the definition of genocide used in the 1948 Genocide Convention:
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:
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.
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people.
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime, and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, on 9 December 1948, during the third session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 153 state parties as of June 2024.
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish Jewish lawyer who is known for coining the term genocide and campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention. During the Second World War, he campaigned vigorously to raise international awareness of atrocities in Axis-occupied Europe. It was during this time that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe Nazi Germany's extermination policies.
Pan-Turkism or Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), South Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, with its aim being the cultural and political unification of all Turkic peoples. Turanism is a closely related movement but it is a more general term, because Turkism only applies to Turkic peoples. However, researchers and politicians who are steeped in the pan-Turkic ideology have used these terms interchangeably in many sources and works of literature.
Forced assimilation is the involuntary cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, during which they are forced by a government to adopt the language, national identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, way of life, and often the religion and ideology of an established and generally larger community belonging to a dominant culture.
Ethnocide is the extermination or destruction of ethnic identities. Bartolomé Clavero differentiates ethnocide from genocide by stating that "Genocide kills people while ethnocide kills social cultures through the killing of individual souls". According to Martin Shaw, ethnocide is a core part of physically violent genocide. Some substitute cultural genocide for ethnocide, and other argue the distinction between ethnicity and culture. Cultural genocide and ethnocide have been used in different contexts. While the term "ethnocide" and "ethnic cleansing" are similar, the intentions of their use vary. The term "ethnic cleansing" has been criticized as a euphemism for genocide denial, while "ethnocide" tries to facilitate the opposite.
The Greek genocide, which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia, which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) – including the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) – on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. It was perpetrated by the government of the Ottoman Empire led by the Three Pashas and by the Government of the Grand National Assembly led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, against the indigenous Greek population of the Empire. The genocide included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches through the Syrian Desert, expulsions, summary executions, and the destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments. Several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Most of the refugees and survivors fled to Greece. Some, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire.
Anti-Armenian sentiment, also known as anti-Armenianism and Armenophobia, is a diverse spectrum of negative feelings, dislikes, fears, aversion, racism, derision and/or prejudice towards Armenians, Armenia, and Armenian culture.
White genocide is a descriptive term that is used in the Armenian diaspora, for the threat of assimilation, especially in the Western world.
Azerbaijani nationalism, also referred to as Azerbaijanism originated as a result of the Pan-Turkist agenda expressed during the October Revolution and historiography under the Soviet Union.
Armenians had a historic presence in Nakhchivan. According to an Armenian tradition, Nakhchivan was founded by Noah, of the Abrahamic religions. During the Soviet era, Nakhchivan saw a significant demographic shift. The Armenian population saw a great reduction in their numbers throughout the years repatriating to Armenia. Nakhchivan's Armenian population gradually decreased to around 0%. Still some Armenian political groupings of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, claim that Nakhchivan should belong to Armenia. The Medieval Armenian cemetery of Jugha (Julfa) in Nakhchivan, regarded by Armenians as the biggest and most precious repository of medieval headstones marked with Christian crosses – khachkars, was completely demolished by 2006.
Anti-Armenian sentiment or Armenophobia is widespread in Azerbaijan, mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Armenians are "the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and racial discrimination." A 2012 opinion poll found that 91% of Azerbaijanis perceive Armenia as "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan." The word "Armenian" (erməni) is widely used as an insult in Azerbaijan. Stereotypical opinions circulating in the mass media have their deep roots in the public consciousness.
Soviet leaders and authorities officially condemned nationalism and proclaimed internationalism, including the right of nations and peoples to self-determination. Soviet internationalism during the era of the USSR and within its borders meant diversity or multiculturalism. This is because the USSR used the term "nation" to refer to ethnic or national communities and or ethnic groups. The Soviet Union claimed to be supportive of self-determination and rights of many minorities and colonized peoples. However, it significantly marginalized people of certain ethnic groups designated as "enemies of the people", pushed their assimilation, and promoted chauvinistic Russian nationalistic and settler-colonialist activities in their lands. Whereas Vladimir Lenin had supported and implemented policies of korenizatsiia, Joseph Stalin reversed much of the previous policies, signing off on orders to deport and exile multiple ethnic-linguistic groups brandished as "traitors to the Fatherland", including the Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Kalmyks, Koreans and Meskhetian Turks, with those, who survived the collective deportation to Siberia or Central Asia, were legally designated "special settlers", meaning that they were officially second-class citizens with few rights and were confined within small perimeters.
The 2020 shelling of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral took place prior to the Battle of Shusha on 8 October, when the Holy Savior Cathedral of the city of Shusha, known as Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, was struck twice by missiles, resulting in the collapse of a part of the roof. Armenia accused the Azerbaijani Armed Forces over the shelling.
Genocide recognition politics are efforts to have a certain event (re)interpreted as a "genocide" or officially designated as such. Such efforts may occur regardless of whether the event meets the definition of genocide laid out in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan refers to historic buildings and cultural traditions of Armenians who lived in what today conforms the territory of Azerbaijan. Armenians had a historic presence in Azerbaijan going back to at least the 2nd century BC in Nakhchivan, which was part of the new Kingdom of Armenia established by Artaxias I Armenians also had presence in Baku dating back to the 7th century AD. Prior to calls for independence from Azerbaijan by Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh in what is now called the Republic of Artsakh, and the ensuing First Nagorno-Karabakh War, about 500,000 Armenians lived in Soviet Azerbaijan where they had an active cultural presence. Most Armenians have fled during the war and their numbers in Azerbaijan today is less than 1% of their pre-war figures. After the ceasefire of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, there has been a marked increase of Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan coupled with reports about destruction of Armenian cultural monuments there.
On 19–20 September 2023 Azerbaijan initiated a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region which ended with the surrender of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh and the disbandment of its armed forces. Up until the military assault, the region was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but governed and populated by ethnic Armenians.
The Russo-Caucasian conflict was a protracted ethnic and political struggle between various North Caucasian peoples and Russian, Soviet, and Imperial Russian authorities. This conflict dates back to the 16th century, as Russian forces sought to expand southward. Various Caucasian groups, including Abazins, Abkhazians, Circassians, Chechens, Ingush, Karachay-Balkars, Ossetians and Dagestanis, resisted Russian control through both armed and diplomatic means. The conflict’s modern phase intensified following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, with separatist aspirations and resistance movements that continued to face suppression into the 21st century.
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.
There is no doubt that a cultural genocide is taking place in Artsakh where the vandalism or destruction of Armenian monuments has become the norm.
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.
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';
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.
The Australian practice of Indigenous child removal involved both systematic racial discrimination and genocide as defined by international law