Skip to main content

 

Cultural Genocide

Cultural genocide is a term almost certainly created to alarm and trigger immediate attention. A term first introduced by a Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, in 1943, it is described as “the intentional destruction of assets of cultural heritage which would result in the extinction of some ethnic group’s culture through targeted destruction or forced assimilation into the dominant culture”  

 While history shows that some cultures and civilizations either became extinct such as the Indus Valley Civilization, or diluted beyond recognition such as the Greek and Roman civilizations, we can only speculate about the causes .  However, closer to our era, we are witness to some horrific and brutal policies to destroy cultures in the name of assimilation.

The native tribes of the Americas and Canada, who once rode freely across the prairies, are today confined to reservations, having being coerced into giving up their language, religion and lifestyle.  The Canadian government had the courage to apologize for the Resident Schools policy that took away the children of indigenous people from their families to reside in boarding schools to erase their heritage and indoctrinate them into white Christian values and beliefs. They were forbidden to speak their languages and all ceremonial practices were banned. They were to be changed not included. Similar practices targeted Australian Aborigines. It is worth noting this was not in the throes of territorial wars, but was implemented when all conflict had ended, and the practices continued well into the 1960sand 70s.

The “re-education” camps  for Uyghurs in China, and the assimilation of Tibet is probably motivated by a need to establish political rather than  cultural sovereignty, as is the removal of any traces of Palestinian history  in the lands now occupied by Israel.

Grimmer methods used to exterminate a people have been eugenics, forced sterilization, and wartime rape.  History is full of the en masse massacres of Jews, Bosnian Muslims, Circassians, Armenians,  Tutsis, Chechans , Pygmies, Mayans, Indigenous tribes of North and South America, Canada and Australia, and far too many others. The British went on a killing spree after the 1857 mutiny in India . The partition of India, the creation of Bangladesh and the French Revolution created targeted bloodbaths. International law continues to question the separation of genocide and cultural genocide as there is inevitable overlap, the one physical the other a human rights issue.

There are more subtle ways of isolating a people.  They may be denied a place in the national narrative, their contributions overlooked or even erased ;  They may be refused jobs, or promotions; their culture may be mocked. It may happen within a country or be something migrants face in their host countries.

Heritage monuments may be destroyed, or taken away for museum collections. The seizure of homes, as in Palestine, or the refusal to allow the purchase of homes in localities occupied by the privileged , is another way of denigrating a people, as is selecting portions of history to determine who has greater rights to a land. Citizenship acts are created to ensure who remains “inside” and who are left “outside”. 

The “civilizing” mission of colonialism unraveled the cultural ecology of occupied nations. Missionary zeal to save the souls of people practising religions other than one’s own may be well intentioned, but when achieved through force and on a large scale, the effect is not enlightenment but a loss of self-esteem.  

International law, as explained by Elisa Novic, recognizes a variety of methods used:  Politicide- sidelining political groups; Libricide -the destruction of books and libraries; Gendercide - selective killing and disappearance of males, especially battle-age males; Linguicide - the concerted elimination of languages;  Eliticide- killing of leadership, the educated and the clergy of a group.

Even more subtle ways of uprooting culture can be seen in the spread of universal consumer products. urban planning, music videos, hairstyles, clothing, universal slang and of course educational curricula, all of which stagnate the natural evolution of local systems.  One could see this universality as a positive direction for uniting the peoples of the world, but the hierarchical divisions remain between dominant and “inferior” cultures.

The enterprise of cultural genocide does not completely succeed in its aims in communities that keep  languages alive, where elders capture the attention of the young through story-telling, where traditional recipes, crafts, poetry, wedding and funeral ceremonies , and other micro level practices remain.  As newer generations of dominant communities emerge, who have lived or worked with diverse people, intermarried or travelled, they acquire greater respect for cultural diversity which filters up from the individual level to international human rights policies.  As Maya Angelou says “if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."

 

Durriya Kazi

March 28, 2022

Karachi

 durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

 

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Decorated Trucks of Pakistan

International Institute for Asian Studies / Association for Asian Studies / Asia Committee, European Science Foundation First International Convention of Asia Scholars Leeuenhorst Conference Centre, Noordwijkerhout , Netherlands , 25-28 June, 1998 Panel: “ Shaking the Tree: New Approaches to Asian Art” / Session: Decorated Transport Decorated Trucks of Pakistan Durriya Kazi June 1998. Karachi Meaning is always in process, what has been called “a momentary stop in a continuing flow of interpretations of interpretations”. This paper pauses at some facts and some observations about decorated trucks of Pakistan , a subject that has elicited tantalisingly few studies. Pakistan is often presented geographically and thus historically as the corridor of land between the mountain passes that separated the near East from the plains of India . Less mentioned and more significant is its identity as the valley of the River Indus which has historically ...
  How Much is Enough? Most discussions about what is considered ‘enough’ centre around money and power. To be the most powerful, the wealthiest or the most famous, once the desire of mighty kings and despots, has now filtered down in modern societies, with rags to riches stories becoming commonplace. However, the modern world is increasingly characterised by insatiability, an inability to say “enough is enough”, and an insatiable desire for more money or power. Enough means having enough to live, enough to be happy, and enough to thrive. So how does one arrive at what is enough? Enough is not a number. Individuals have their own measure of enough. The wise know what that limit is, for others, society’s limiting systems — legal or moral — determine when enough is enough. King Ashoka won a battle against the Kalinga kingdom, with 100,000 deaths and even more taken captive. That was his ‘enough’. Appalled by his own ruthlessness, Ashoka became a Buddhist, dedicated to spreading th...
  ‘o Travelling Together or Going Our Separate Ways We live, and have lived for centuries, in a politically and economically divided world.   Unable to accept these differences, there is always one group that takes the further step of dominating another. The most direct way is for a stronger group to take over a weaker group by sheer force. Where the two forces are equally matched, subterfuge, divide et imperia – divide and rule, is effective. Sometimes all it takes is cultural seduction. Something as innocuous as blue jeans became an important symbol of the Free West during the Cold War. Bruce Springsteen told the East Berlin youth in a July 1988 concert “I’m not here for any government. I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”   History books are filled with the constant constructing and dismantling of alliances, based on the perceived enemy of the moment. All the great wars in Europe, India and China ...