‘Cultural genocide’ is a term almost certainly designed to alarm and trigger immediate attention. A term first introduced by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1943, it’s 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 civilisations either became extinct, such as the Indus Valley Civilisation, or diluted beyond recognition such as the Greek and Roman civilisations, we can only speculate about their 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 been coerced into giving up their language, religion and lifestyle. The Canadian government had the courage to apologise for the Resident Schools policy, which 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 1960s and 1970s.

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 sterilisation, and wartime rape. History is full of the en masse massacres of Jews, Bosnian Muslims, Circassians, Armenians, Tutsis, Chechens, Pygmies, Mayans, and the 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, or 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 is left “outside”.

The “civilising” mission of colonialism unravelled the cultural ecology of occupied nations. The 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, recognises 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 — the 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 of 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, 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 is a Karachi-based artist.

She may be reached at durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 3rd, 2022