Question

Role to maintain peace culture

Answer 1

Answer:In recent years, cultural heritage and cultural expressions have increasingly become the direct targets of systematic and deliberate attacks in numerous conflicts around the world. Culture is particularly vulnerable to collateral damage, looting and intentional destruction, which is often paired with the persecution of individuals based on their cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation, the violation of their cultural rights and the denial of their identities. Because of the strong connection between culture and peoples’ identities, the intentional destruction and misappropriation of cultural heritage and the violation of cultural rights are aggravating factors in armed conflict and represent major obstacles to dialogue, peace and reconciliation. This is especially true in recent intra-State conflicts, which are often fought amongst groups along ethnic and religious lines.

In countries such as Iraq, Mali and Syria, extremist groups are applying a deliberate strategy aimed at eradicating cultural diversity. This involves the persecution of peoples and groups on the basis of their cultural and religious identity, including by intentionally targeting their material cultural references - such as shrines, monuments, sites, museums and their artefacts, libraries and archives, but also schools and other places of knowledge, and even teachers, intellectuals and religious leaders. It also includes preventing people from practicing their intangible cultural heritage, including religious rituals, and from exercising their cultural rights. Such strategy has been termed ‘cultural cleansing’ by UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova.

In parallel, a growing number of natural disasters is causing serious damage to heritage and disrupting the culture sector in general, thus undermining the resilience of the affected communities and their prospects for a sustainable development based on local resources and capacities. In some regions, disasters are also exacerbated by the impact of climate change, particularly in the case of extreme meteorological events

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