Is Western Condemnation of Cultural Destruction Reserved Exclusively for Enemies?
Posted by Simon Maghakyan
on
August 16, 2012
The Armenian Weekly
Aug. 18, 2012
International organizations, Western governments, and mainstream media
are vociferously outraged-and rightfully so-over the recent
destruction of majestic Sufi Muslim shrines by Islamist extremists in
Timbuktu, Mali, mirroring the reaction to the Taliban’s 2001
demolition of two beautiful Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
The cemetery before it was destroyed (Photo: djulfa.com)
The violators of cultural rights in both instances are anti-Western,
al-Qaeda-linked groups, and that alone seems to have merited the strong
Western condemnation.
Otherwise, why has the West maintained its overwhelming silence regarding
the complete destruction of the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery
by Azerbaijan, a major energy supplier to, and arms purchaser from, the
West?
In December 2005, clerics from the Armenian Church of Northern Iran
videotaped over 100 uniformed men across the border in ex-Soviet
Azerbaijan destroying the thousands of breathtaking and unique
Armenian khatchkars, or cross-stones, of the magnificent Djulfa
cemetery. The church later issued photographs clearly showing that the
sacred site had been replaced by a military rifle range.
Azerbaijan vehemently denied the destruction report, suggesting that
the cemetery, like the medieval Armenians it memorialized, never
existed in the first place. (Official historiography in Azerbaijan
claims that Armenians did not live in the South Caucasus region until
the 19th century.) To protect its case, Azerbaijan subsequently
banned European observers (and years later, a wavering
U.S. ambassador) from visiting the cemetery site, thereby compelling
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to
document the crime with satellite data. The AAAS joined the European
Parliament and ICOMOS, an organization for cultural preservation, as
one of a few international institutions to document or condemn
Djulfa’s destruction.
Washington’s public reaction to Djulfa’s destruction, however, came
months after the devastation in the form of a written response to a
question posed by California Senator Barbara Boxer (D). In their
response, the State Department `urg[ed] the relevant Azerbaijani
authorities to investigate the allegations of desecration of cultural
monuments in Nakhichevan,’ essentially downplaying an entire culture’s
obliteration by irresolutely calling it `desecration,’ an oft-used
description for gravestone graffiti vandalism. In private, however,
the State Department was aggravated – not with Azerbaijan’s wanton
destruction, as suggested by a leaked cable, but with Armenia’s
`strongly worded press release’ condemning it.
The international organization charged with protecting our global
heritage, UNESCO, followed suit, Washington style. UNESCO’s only
public reaction to Djulfa’s destruction was a response to my 2010
petition, wherein the organization expressed its readiness to dispatch
an investigative mission, contingent on the consent of the
perpetrator, Azerbaijan, and otherwise failed to condemn the
destruction. In other words, UNESCO has effectively committed itself
to indefinite silence by asking Azerbaijan to willingly work against
its perceived political interests, a near certain impossibility. As
expected, Azerbaijan did not react to UNESCO’s proposal.
While Azerbaijan’s destruction of Djulfa failed to elicit any
meaningful response from UNESCO, the organization did spring into
action after the word `Djulfa’ was mentioned in a 2011 exhibit of
Armenian cross-stones. Even after censoring the word, UNESCO
boycotted its own exhibit, because a photo of the cemetery was still
included in the exhibition, albeit without a caption.
The impetus behind the cemetery’s destruction and ensuing political
machinations is the territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia
over the region of Nagorno-Karabagh, but the obliteration of Djulfa took
place in an undisputed region – Nakhichevan. And while the United States, as
a mediator in the Karabagh conflict, is expected to remain impartial, a
muted response to the well-documented destruction of a major cultural site
cannot be equated with evenhandedness; it is, in fact, counterproductive as
it reinforces a primary cause of the conflict: the Armenian perception that
Azerbaijan has intentionally been wiping out all traces of their indigenous
identity without accountability.
Washington’s response to Djulfa’s destruction has likely been muted, in
part, by Azerbaijan’s vast energy resources, which Baku sells to Western
markets via Turkey. Azerbaijan’s arms purchases from Israel, as well as its
speculated status as secret staging ground for a possible attack against
Iran, may also play a part in the silence over Djulfa’s destruction.
While Washington’s mealy-mouthed response may be predictable given its
energy and security interests in Azerbaijan, UNESCO’s inaction is
unacceptable, as is the silence of much of the international media
(with a few exceptions. It is troubling that Washington’s selective
condemnation of cultural rights violations, which are apparently based
on perceived self-interests, is mimicked in international media
coverage as well as in the actions of an international organization
ostensibly created to stand up for all vulnerable and threatened
heritage.
In the meantime, UNESCO Secretary General Irina Bokova has the time to
pen a CNN opinion piece on Timbuktu’s destruction, but she acts as if
she has not even heard about Djulfa, even though a 2011 document
prepared for Bokova, and once posted on unesco.org, suggests
otherwise. Its summary of a speech by the Armenian foreign minister’s
contains the following statement:
`[The minister] further explains that, with Azerbaijan, efforts to do away
with Armenian heritage go on unabated despite the continuous alarm rang
[sic] by Armenia. He refers to the annihilation of the centuries-old Jugha
(Julfa) Cemetery in Nakhichevan [previously resided by Armenians, now
territory of Azerbaijan; *comment by UNESCO*] with its thousands of carved
cross-stones being knocked over, piled and carted away between 1998 and
2005, and its transformation into a military training ground in 2005.’
In what appears to be appeasement for failing to take a stand on
Djulfa’s destruction, UNESCO indirectly acknowledged the value and
vulnerability of Armenian *khatchkars* by declaring their
craftsmanship and symbolism Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010,
without any mention of what until five years earlier was the largest
collection of * khatchkars* on earth.
Djulfa’s destruction, like that of the Bamiyan Buddhas and Timbuktu
shrines, merits widespread coverage, unwavering condemnation, and
international liability, no matter who the perpetrator is.