Cultural genocide

The legal definition of genocide is unspecific about the exact way in which genocide is committed, only stating that it is destruction with the intent to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or national group.[5]

As such, cultural genocide involves the eradication and destruction of cultural artifacts, such as books, artworks, and structures, as well as the suppression of cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate.[6]

Among many other potential reasons, cultural genocide may be committed for religious motives (e.g., iconoclasm); as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in order 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 suppression of an indigenous culture by invaders and colonisers, etc.

The term has been used to describe the destruction of cultural heritage in connection with various events:

• In reference to the Axis powers (primarily, Nazi Germany)'s policies towards some nations during World War II (ex. the destruction of Polish culture).[13]
• The persecution of Baháʼís in Iran as a case of religious persecution has been called a cultural genocide.[14][15][16]
• In the Bosnian War during the Siege of Sarajevo, cultural genocide was committed by Bosnian Serb forces. The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina was specifically targeted and besieged by cannons positioned all around the city. The National Library was completely destroyed in the fire, along with 80 percent of its contents. Some 3 million books were destroyed, along with hundreds of original documents from the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.[17]
• The Stolen Generations in Australia where half-caste children were removed and bred with white people in order to destroy their race.
• 2004 unrest in Kosovo.[18] In an urgent appeal,[19] 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 rioters. At least 30 sites were completely destroyed, more or less destroyed, or further destroyed (sites that had been previously damaged).[20]
• Francoist Spain: the alleged prohibition of the use of minority languages such as Catalan in the public space, from schools to shops, public transport, or even in the streets, the banning of the use of Catalan birth names for children, the persecution and destruction of books in Catalan language, renaming of cities, streets and all toponyms from Catalan to Spanish, and the abolition of government and all cultural institutions in Catalonia, with the goal of total cultural suppression and assimilation.[21]
  • 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."[22]
  • However, these allegations can be contested: 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. Other prominent case of popularization of Catalan was Joan Manuel Serrat: he could compose Catalan songs and gained certain notoriety. So there were no official repression on using the Catalan but a political one.[23]
• In reference to the newly-unified Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War (particularly its policies towards South Vietnam).
• In reference to the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia (particularly the Khmer Rouge's policies towards both the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Khmer Republic).
• 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 cited as an example of cultural genocide.[24][25]
• Branch of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the German occupation of Poland and the Japanese occupation of Korea have also been cited as cases of cultural genocide.[26]
• 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.[27] The Dalai Lama would later use the term in 1993[28] and he would use it again in 2008.[29]
• Historian Jean Brownfield cited the 1638 Treaty of Hartford as a "clear and explicit historical example of a cultural genocide, in which the Pequot language and name were outlawed and there was a clearly stated intention that this cultural entity would simply cease to exist."[30]
• Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey.
• The persecution of Native Hawaiian culture in annexed Hawaii.
• The persecution of Native Taiwanese culture under the martial law.
• ISIL forced conversions in its territory and destroyed ancient Assyrian, Roman, Yazidi and Christian heritage sites and museums.[31]
• Indigenous peoples in Canada.
  • In 2007, a Canadian Member of Parliament criticized the Ministry of Indian Affairs' destruction of documents that were evidence to the "cultural genocide" imposed on Indigenous peoples within Canada.[32]
  • The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada concluded that the Canadian Indian residential school system "can best be described as 'cultural genocide.'"[33]
  • 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."[34]
• Hmong persecution in Laos.
• Ireland has been described as enduring cultural genocide under British rule, which aimed to eradicate the Irish language, Irish culture, and the Catholic faith.[35][36][37] Ireland's cultural genocide is discussed in the Dictionary of Genocide (2007), as well as by Christopher Murray (1997) in reference to the suppression of the Irish language;[38] Hilary M. Carey (1997) in reference to the transportation of Irish convicts to Australia;[39] and by Tomás Mac Síomóin (2018).[40]
• The Uyghur genocide in China. Reportedly, some one million members of China's Muslim Uyghur minority have been detained in mass detention camps, termed "reeducation camps," which are aimed at changing the political thinking of detainees, their identities, and their religious beliefs.[41] Satellite evidence suggests that China has also razed more than two dozen Uyghur Muslim religious sites to the ground.[42]

• Cultural conflict
• Cultural imperialism
• Culture war
• Ethnic cleansing
• Ethnocide
• Forced assimilation
• Institutional racism
• Linguistic discrimination (includes Linguicide)
• Language death
• Policide
• Religious cleansing
• Stolen Generations
• List of destroyed heritage