The ashes of memory: Ideology, war and the destruction of cultural heritage

Since antiquity, the world's cultural heritage has stood as both a testament to human creativity and a casualty of human conflicts. 

Take, for instance, the Serapeum of Alexandria, demolished in 391 A.D. by order of Emperor Theodosius, who sought to eradicate the last vestiges of pagan worship; or, the destruction of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - set ablaze in 356 B.C. by Herostatus in his quest for a tragically misguided fame. Likewise, the son of Saladin ordered a breach to be opened in one side of the Pyramid of Menkaure in an attempt to plunder the pharaoh's golden funerary treasure - a sarcophagus that was later lost when the ship carrying it to London sank off the coast of Spain. 

By the 20th century, the international community had begun to recognize cultural heritage not merely as a legacy of the past, but as a critical issue of international security - prompting the development of an articulate framework of international treaties, conventions, organizations, and tribunals dedicated to safeguarding it. 

International law protects cultural heritage because it is intrinsically linked to both individual and collective identity, and the right of a community to develop and preserve its own culture is considered an integral part of the right to self-determination. 

The Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution states that “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed,” and that “a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world; and that peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”. 

Is that solidarity under strain?

Cases such as the destruction of temples and artifacts in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the devastation of the mausoleums of Timbuktu by jihadist groups have demonstrated that these acts are increasingly driven by ideology, used as tools of propaganda, and conceived as symbols of the imposition of cultural control.

​​A before and after of the cave that contained the Bamiyan Buddha (6th-7th century CE), one of two giant rock-carved Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. 

© Pascal Maitre/Panos Pictures

Ethnic conflicts, the rise of religious fundamentalism, and new forms of autocratic expansionism have shown that mere political or economic agreements between governments cannot prevent the effective safeguard of our cultural heritage. What is needed is a deeper awareness of the importance of our shared cultural heritage and of the value of cultural pluralism. These are the most powerful tools for the preservation of peace. The recent episodes of deliberate destruction of cultural property stand as a stark manifestation of the growing division within the international community and the progressive decline of the “intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity”. Contemporary conflicts have revealed how such acts of destruction have been deliberately conceived and carried out as means to erase a people’s identity and collective consciousness. In some situations, the destruction of cultural property has taken on the characteristics of genocide, regarded today as “the crime of the crimes”. 

From a pragmatic perspective, we know that international humanitarian law has its limits in attempting to “civilize” war. There will never be a provision capable of deterring the malevolent or those driven by extreme ideology (O’Keefe). The nazi regime, for instance, orchestrated one of history’s biggest campaigns of cultural plunder, looting thousands of works of art across occupied Europe. 

Boxes, records and clothing are guarded by a US soldier at a church in Ellingen, Germany, a Nazi depot for goods seized in France and the Netherlands 

NARA/Public Domain

History has repeatedly shown that compliance mechanisms for compliance in international law – which already appear fragile under the most favorable circumstances and become even more ineffective in times of conflict – can do very little to restrain the irreducible.

Despite all the constraints imposed by international instruments, war will always remain the greatest threat to our cultural heritage — and the only true safeguard lies in preventing it altogether (O’Keefe).

Author: Ludovica Firpo