The securitisation of cultural heritage

ABSTRACT

It is not a novelty for art to come under attack: cultural heritage has always been endangered by wars, conflicts and political violence. Since the last century, the international community has started reacting, moved by the concern that these threatened monuments be protected. Lately, cultural heritage can be seen to undergo a veritable crescendo from politicisation to criminalisation and securitisation. Accordingly, this article seeks to analyse the pathway that characterises the international protection of cultural heritage in crisis-torn contexts, employing a discursive lens and mapping the narrative threads that the main international actors have constructed in reaction to recent attacks on archaeological sites (i.e. Palmyra) and historical artefacts, especially in the Middle East (namely Syria and Iraq). After having traced this process, we will offer a tentative explanation of what we consider a process of securitising an under-researched field (i.e. cultural heritage).

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural heritage
• securitisation
• terrorism
• Palmyra
• UNESCO
• UNSC

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. According to the 2017 Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (released by EUROPOL), the conflicts in Libya, Syria and Iraq have indeed intensified the trafficking of antiquities; this does not, however seem to constitute a major source of terrorist financing as compared to other revenue streams (EUROPOL 2017).

2. The authors thank one of the anonymous referees for highlighting this point.

3. See in particular §§ 15, 16, 17.

4. For a detailed account of quotes exemplifying the emergence of this international discourse, please refer to: ‘“Stop the destruction!” urges UNESCO Director-General’, 2013; Niland (2014); ‘Director-General requests UN Security Council meeting on destruction of heritage in Mosul’, 2015; ‘UN General Assembly calls for an immediate halt to “wanton” destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage’, 2015; ‘Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of the Signature ceremony of the Funding Agreement for the project Conservation and management of the World Heritage site of Samarra Archaeological City – Phase 1: Great Mosque and Al-Melwiyah Minaret’, 2015; ‘’Culture is the identity card of one’s people’ declares Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to Culture Ministers gathered at EXPO MILAN 2015’, 2015; ‘Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO to the Forum for New Diplomacy “The Protection of Cultural Heritage in Times of Conflict: Challenges and Threats”’, 2015.

5. In another example, the Chair of the European Parliament’s committee on culture and education, Silvia Costa, adopted the terms ‘cultural cleansing’, adding that artistic and archaeological relics are being exploited as ‘improper weapons’ (Komodromos 2015).

6. Authors’ personal communication with a Syrian expert in archaeology and renovation (June 2017).

7. On that occasion (24 March 2017), Bokova addressed the public briefing of the Security Council, reiterating that attacks against cultural heritage are ‘a tactic of war to tear societies over the long term, in a strategy of cultural cleansing. This is why defending cultural heritage is more than a cultural issue, it is a security imperative, inseparable from that of defending human lives’. The Council was also addressed by Yury Fedotov, UNODC Executive Director, and Fabrizio Parrulli, Head of Italy’s Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The briefing by Director-General Bokova before the Security Council marked the first time a Director-General of UNESCO had been invited in this capacity. The briefing was held at the initiative of France and Italy and under the Presidency of the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that Italy’s activism in New York was followed up in Florence when it promoted and hosted the first G7 Culture Ministers’ meeting (30 March 2017). On that occasion the ‘Florence Declaration’ was adopted, recognizing the distinctive role of culture as an instrument for dialogue, reconciliation and response to emergency situations. ‘UN Security Council adopts historic resolution for the protection of heritage’, http://en.unesco.org/news/security-council-adopts-historic-resolution-protection-heritage; ‘#Unite4Heritage: G7 Culture adopts Declaration of Florence; UNESCO’s Bokova praises Italy’s leading role’, http://www.onuitalia.com/2017/03/30/unite4heritage-g7-culture-adopts-declaration-florence-unescos-bokova-praises-italys-leading-role/.

8. Authors’ personal communication with an archaeologist with extensive experience in excavation sites in Syria and Iraq, recently working for the Italian Archaeological Mission in Assyria (May 2018).

9. Michael Danti (director of two archaeology projects in Iraq and advisor to the U.S. State Department on preservation) and Amr Al-Azm (chair of the Syrian Interim Government’s Heritage Task Force) advocated tighter border controls between Syria and Turkey. In February 2015, Syria’s Cultural Minister, Issam Khalil, called for the international community to pressure Turkey to tighten the countries’ shared border; the following day, Turkish troops conducted a raid into Syria to recover a thirteenth-century Ottoman crypt and evacuate approximately 40 troops who had been trapped there for months while guarding it (Guensburg 2015).

10. See Foradori, Giusti, Lamonica (2018) for a discussion of the cases of France, Italy and the United Kingdom.

11. For example, a meeting was organised in April 2015 in Qatar, with the participation of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco; additionally, during a ministerial conference in Cairo in May 2015 the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Oman agreed to unite their efforts against the trafficking, destruction and looting of cultural heritage (Cairo Declaration). An increasing number of summits, meetings and conferences have been organised in Uzbekistan, Iran, Ukraine, Russia and China, to name a few, while regional organisations such as ASEAN and SAARC have begun to include the protection of cultural heritage from terrorist attacks on their agendas.

12. Authors’ interview with an archaeologist who has worked for a long time in Syria (April 2017).

13. In May 2016, the Associated Press agency reported rumours about this, citing an ‘American heritage organization’ and a ‘top Syrian archaeologist’ as its sources as well as satellite images that apparently showed construction (e.g. helicopter landing pad, fences) on the edge of the ancient site. The Russian Ministry of Defence has described this construction as a temporary camp for sappers to clear the site of mines laid by ISIS without specifying how long the operation is scheduled to take (ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives 2016). Satellites images (http://wikimapia.org/21681816/Palmyra-Tadmur, accessed April 2018) show that Russia still maintains a presence in the area. Interviews with two archaeologists (April 2018) have confirmed this fact.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alessandra Russo

Alessandra Russo is Research Fellow at Sciences Po Bordeaux (Fellowship ‘IDEX - Initiative d’Excellence de l’Université de Bordeaux’). She has published, among others, on European Security, Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asian Survey, The International Spectator. Her main research interests are IR Theories, Comparative Regionalism, Critical Security Studies, Post-Soviet Politics.

Serena Giusti

Serena Giusti is Head of the research group on EU's Eastern neighnourhood, Russia, Post-Soviet space at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) Pisa. She is also a senior associate researcher at the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), Milan. She has published, among others, on The International Spectator, European Foreign Affairs Review, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. Her main research interests are IR Theories, Foreign Policy Analysis, EU and Russia’s Foreign Policy.