On July 7, in the wake of the destruction of the sacredshrines in Timbuktu “ a Unesco World Heritage site “ the spokesman of AnsarDine, one of the Islamist groups controlling northern Mali, declared to thepress that ''there is no world heritage. It does not exist. Infidels must notget involved in our business.''
This statement captures the challenge we face. For thespokesmen of Ansar Dine, culture is narrowly defined. It is exclusive andstatic. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizationstands for a different vision. Culture has universal meaning. When culturalheritage is attacked anywhere in the world, like the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppoand World Heritage sites damaged by severe bombing in Syria, each of us isshocked; this is a loss to all humanity.
Some cultural sites have an outstanding universal value “they belong to all and must be protected by all. Let’s be clear. We are notjust talking about stones and building. This is about values, identities andbelonging. Destroying culture hurts societies for the long term. It deprivesthem of collective memory banks as well as precious social and economic assets.Warlords know this. They target culture because it strikes to the heart andbecause it has powerful media value in an increasingly connected world.
Culture is not hit as collateral damage. Culture stands onthe frontline of conflicts, deliberately targeted to fuel hatred and blockreconciliation. This is why we must start seeing cultural heritage as aninternational security issue. The question is how do we stand up for it. ForUnesco, we must act at three levels.
First, after years of efforts to build stronger legalinstruments, we must do more to implement them and strengthen the capacities ofstates to do so. We have today a comprehensive set of legally bindinginternational treaties to protect culture “ the 1954 convention for theprotection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, the 1970 Unescoconvention against illicit trafficking of cultural property, and the 1972 WorldHeritage Convention, whose 40th anniversary we celebrate this year. Each ofthese sends the messages: States have an obligation to protect their heritage,and not everything is allowed in war.
Unesco is helping Mali to undertake damage assessment andreconstruction, and to secure museum collections. This means transmittinggeographical coordinates of protected sites to military forces and recallingtheir obligation to keep this heritage a ''safe place.'' Most soldiers havenever heard of the cultural conventions “ they need training; they need simpleand accurate information. All of this calls for more resources and experts onthe ground.
Implementing legal texts means also bringing cultural warcrimes to justice. Already in 2001, the International Tribunal for the FormerYugoslavia included the destruction of cultural heritage in its case regardingthe 1991 attack against the Croatian port of Dubrovnik. Today, the destructionof cultural heritage is part of the debates in the U.N. Security Council aboutthe situation in Syria. The chief prosecutor of the International CriminalCourt, Fatou Bensouda, declared that the destruction of Timbuktu’s shrines wasindeed ''a war crime.'' The world must now act accordingly.
Second, we must build stronger ''coalitions for culture’'through tighter coordination with all partners involved, including armedforces, Interpol, the World Customs Organization and other actors, such asinternational auction houses. This is delicate work. Attracting too much attentionto culture can expose it to new risks. But the significant results we got afterthe museum of Baghdad was pillaged in 2003 showed what broad cooperation cando. No single agency can succeed alone..
Lastly, the best way to protect culture in conflict is tomake the most of it to prevent conflicts, and make it a pillar of peacebuilding. Unesco works across the globe to harness the power of culture tobring people together and foster reconciliation. I saw this personally whenUnesco helped restore the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina, destroyedduring the war in the 1990s. We saw the same power during the restoration ofthe Koguryio Tombs complex in North Korea, undertaken with the financialsupport of South Korea.
This might sound high-minded compared to the terrible newswe hear every day from conflict zones. And it is true that culture alone is notenough to build peace. But without culture, peace cannot be lasting. The worldthought big when the convention was adopted in 1972. We need to think big onceagain, to protect culture under attack. We often hear that protecting cultureis a luxury better left for another day, that people must come first. The factis, protecting culture is protecting people “ it is about protecting their wayof life and providing them with essential resources to rebuild when war ends.This is why, for culture also, there is a responsibility to protect.
Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, discussed''Protecting Culture in Times of War'' at the Forum for New Diplomacy convenedby the IHT and the Academie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris on Dec 3
