Month: February 2023

Cultural Heritage Under Attack: The United Nations and Uyghur China

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
Cultural Heritage Under Attack: The United Nations and Uyghur China
/

“Culture isn’t just dead stones and statues; culture is life. Culture is, you know, all the ways in which we move and interact together as peoples.”

In 2005, the United Nations agreed to a new framework called Responsibility to Protect (R2P) aimed at preventing genocide and crimes against humanity. However, this norm neglected to protect cultural heritage explicitly, despite the fact that the destruction of cultural heritage, including intangible heritage such as traditions and religious practices, often goes hand in hand with ethnic cleansing. This dynamic is playing out today in Xinjiang China, home to the ethnic minority Uyghur people.

In this episode, former Getty President Jim Cuno speaks with Simon Adams, president and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, and Rachel Harris, expert on Uyghur culture and professor of ethnomusicology at SOAS, University of London, about the role of the UN in protecting cultural heritage in times of crisis and the current case of the Uyghur people in China. Adams and Harris are contributors to the recent publication Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities, edited by Jim Cuno and Thomas G. Weiss and available free of charge from Getty Publications.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/cultural-heritage-under-attack-the-united-nations-and-uyghur-china/ or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To read Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities, visit https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/

Cultural Heritage Under Attack: Monuments and War Zones

Getty Art + Ideas
Getty Art + Ideas
Cultural Heritage Under Attack: Monuments and War Zones
/

“Protecting cultural heritage, like protecting civilians directly, had strategic import.”

How does the presence of a cultural heritage site on the battlefield change wartime decision making? In 1944, as Allied generals postponed an attack on an Axis stronghold—located at the culturally important Catholic abbey Monte Cassino—they had to consider the potential for loss of life, the cultural significance of the abbey, the negative propaganda they would face for attacking a religious site, and the possible strategic alternatives to an all-out attack. Political scientists Ron E. Hassner and Scott D. Sagan make the case that the presence of cultural heritage sites is always an important consideration for troops in both offensive and defensive positions—even in cases where those sites are ultimately destroyed.

In this episode, hosted by former Getty President Jim Cuno, Hassner and Sagan discuss battles from WWII through the current war in Ukraine to explore how politicians and military officials think about cultural heritage sites during times of war.

Ron E. Hassner is Chancellor’s Professor of Political Science and Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S. G. Munro Professor of Political Science and senior fellow and codirector at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Hassner and Sagan are contributors to the recent publication Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities, edited by Jim Cuno and Thomas G. Weiss and available free of charge from Getty Publications.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/cultural-heritage-under-attack-monuments-and-war-zones/ or http://www.getty.edu/podcasts

To read Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities, visit https://www.getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities/