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Definition

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. It also refers to premeditated distortion of historical facts about the people and culture subjected to destruction aiming to cover this crimes.

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.

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.

Reasons

Cultural genocide appear to be a direct consequence of a lack on taking timely measures for prevention and censure the crimes qualified as genocide.

Obvious case

Cultural Cleansing during Jewish Holocaust was not the first practice, that dishonour goes to the Turks and Kurds in present-day Turkey . Numerous unquestionable facts indicate that annihilation of millions Armenians taken place in 1894–1896, 1909, 1915-1923 in Ottoman empire/Turkey had been accompanied with a systematical destruction of all material testimonies of the Armenian civilization that existed in the east Anatolia for thousands years. All eyewitnesses say that Young Turks were very much aware on the role of the church and Christian faith within the Armenian nation and they knowingly massacred Armenian clergymen first , then Armenian churches, monasteries and other properties of church were destroyed, along with thousands of medieval handwritten illuminated manuscripts and science books collected during the centuries. Republican Turkey too looked to Armenian historical and cultural heritage as undesirable witnesses of the Armenian presence. Since the 1921s Turkey starts the process of Turkification of the Armenian geographical sites' names in the territories emptied of Armenians. Presently 90% of the Armenian cities and towns have been Turkified. Simultaneously Turks devised a systemanic method of destruction, thousands of architectural monuments have been destroyed and all Armenian inscriptions erased. According to 1974 UNESCO statement: "after 1923, out of 3368 Armenian monasteries left in East of Turkey, 464 have vanished, 252 are in ruins, and 197 are in need of repair". Turks systematicly demolished Armenian architectural buildings using dynaminte, also Armenian monasteries had been used as a targets during Turkish military training exercises ; usually undamaged stones are used as construction materials, Turkish government converted Armenian churches into mosques . A few Armenian monasteries and churches serving as a stables, stores, clubs and a jail. In 2010 numbers alredy 90 Armenian landmarks. Another display of a cultural genocide is a falsification during so-called restorations when most of Armenian inscriptions disappears from the walls (for example: "restorations" in Ani and Ahktamar ) also several Armenian graveyards with wiped out crosses from Cross stones and added an Arabic letters, this all represented as a Seljuk graveyard.

Other examples of the term's usage

The term was also used for describing destruction of cultural heritage 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 the early 2000s, the term "cultural genocide" had been used by László Tőkés to describe the persecution of Hungarians in Transylvania by the Romanian state.

• 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".

• Japan's suppression of the Korean language, traditions, and names, and the teaching of Korean history during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 has been mentioned as a case in point of cultural genocide, although some Japanese scholars have discussed more narrowly ascribing the term.

• 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. The Dalai Lama would later use the term for himself in 1993 and in 2008.

See also

• Cultural Revolution
• Cultural imperialism
• 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

References

1. Raphael Lemkin, Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations (J. Fussell trans., 2000) (1933); Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, p. 91 (1944).
2. See Prosecutor v. Krstic, Case No. IT-98-33-T (Int'l Crim. Trib. Yugo. Trial Chamber 2001), at para. 576.
3. Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, art. 2, Dec. 9, 1948, 78 U.N.T.S. 277.
4. 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.
5. Cultural Cleansing: Who Remembers the Armenians?
6. Bevan, Robert. The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. Reaktion Books, 2007, pp. 52–60
7. A Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts
8. Ambassador Morgenthau's Story
9. British Reaction on massacre of Armenian church priests
10. TURKIFICATION OF THE TOPONYMS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
11. The Genocide of Armenian Culture, Destruction of Civilization
12. Turkish military exercises on blasting of Armenian churches
13. Fate of the Armenian monuments after the genocide
14. William Dalrymple about Armenian churches converted into mosques
15. Monastery of Apostles (X cen.) converted to MOSQUE in 1920
16. THE RAPE OF ANI BY The Turkish "Restorations"
17. A POLITICALLY-INSPIRED RESTORATION OF THE HOLY CROSS CHURCH ON AKHTAMAR
18. William Schabas, Genocide in international law: the crimes of crimes, Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 0521787904, Google Print, p.179
19. Jorge Barrera , ‘Genocide’ target of fed coverup: MP, Edmonton Sun, April 25, 2007.
20. History Today, November 2007, "Sacred Stones Silenced in Azerbaijan"
21. Switzerland-Armenia Parliamentary Group, "The Destruction of Jugha", Bern, 2006.
22. Cengiz Çandar, The So-Called ‘Akdamar museum’, Turkish Daily News, March 30, 2007.
23. CGS 1st Workshop: “Cultural Genocide” and the Japanese Occupation of Korea
24. Les droits de l'homme Apostrophes, A2 - 21 April 1989 - 01h25m56s, Web site of the INA
25. 10th March Archive
26. BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | 'Eighty killed' in Tibetan unrest

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

• Genocide
• Human rights by issue