Is it ever justified for a people to destroy their cultural heritage?

No, in most cases. Once cultural heritage is destroyed, it is lost forever. So although self-determination allows a community to decide the fate of the symbols of its past, that does not mean that there is a free reign to destroy them. In many cases, a cultural property is considered a common heritage of all humankind, like that of ancient civilizations. In fact, that is the basis behind UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. Also, artifacts should be protected for more than their aesthetic value. They tell us stories about how our ancestors used to live. The historical and archaeological knowledge we need about past civilizations is nearly impossible to gather without such monuments. If cultural property is meaningless to a community today, that could change and become enmeshed into the the identity of a new generation. Relics of the past are more than relics, they generate tourism which could significantly contribute to an economy and benefit an entire nation.

Two exceptions exist where it might be understandable for a community to destroy its own heritage. The first case, where it might be necessary to destroy cultural property, is to alleviate the immediate suffering of a people. That happens where basic survival is at stake. For example, Egypt had to move some temples, and demolish a few, when building a dam in the 1960s on the Nile river to allow its population to grow food all year round. International organizations were sympathetic to such needs and provided help with the massive task of moving the temples.

Photo: Cranes carefully lift the face of a statue from the Abu Simbel Temples in Egypt. For thousands of years, the Egyptian farmers would depend on the Nile’s annual flooding to irrigate their lands, which meant that agriculture was not possible all year round. During the 1950s, the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, saw the dam as a solution to the nation’s agriculture and electricity shortage. That would also bring about rapid industrialization and self-sufficiency—a great buzzword at the time. Solutions like nuclear power were not available. But it became clear that the dam would back up the Nile river and many priceless ancient temples would be drowned including the temples of Abu Simbel and Philae Island. Egypt appealed for help. An international committee confirmed Egypt’s need to build the dam. Over a period of five years, twenty-six countries participated in the massive undertaking of moving the ancient temples. Construction started in 1960. The project was considered a success for the international community, though it was impossible to save all ancient monuments. Also sadly tens of thousands of Nubians were displaced.

The second case is when the objects in question are symbols of hate such as slavery or racism. But even those could protected as a testimony to the horrors of the past. For example, Poland’s preservation of the site of Auschwitz in memory to the victims of the Holocaust. Statues or monuments deemed by a community to represent the darkest chapters of their history are better removed from public spaces and placed in museums dedicated to the education of future generations.

A toppled statue of Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet leader, in Bucharest on March 5, 1990, signaling the end of the Communist era. Three months earlier, in December 1989, a Romanian Revolution overthrew the Communist Party after ruling for 42 years. Soon after, museums like Budapest’s Memento Park, were created to house monuments from the Communist era rather than destroying them.

Is it ever justified for a people to destroy their cultural heritage?

How to deal with symbols of hate?

Erasing history: Iconic photos of eight types of iconoclasm

ARTICLE: THE FUTURIST MANIFESTO

‘Destroy museums!’–Why an Italian waged war against the past

ARTICLE: THE FUTURIST MANIFESTO

The Communist Manifesto in 35 historical photos

BOOK: THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO