How do disasters and violent conflict affect culture and cultural heritage? How can policymakers and practitioners seek to protect and preserve culture during humanitarian emergencies? This conference report published by the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development argues that any humanitarian emergency is a cultural emergency and any cultural emergency is a humanitarian emergency. Yet, the role of culture and the protection and preservation of culture are largely neglected in humanitarian assistance, emergency preparedness, and post-disaster and post-conflict recovery. There needs to be greater awareness among policymakers and those working in relief and recovery organisations of the imperative of saving culture and greater advocacy and training by international heritage workers to make these issues prominent and well understood.
Culture is the cement that holds a society together. Cultural heritage comprises physical constructions (tangible culture) as well as all the traditions, customs, values and ways to ensure the survival and continuity of a community (intangible culture). They reflect rules of existence, survival, development and progress. Culture is thus a basic need – and must be a normal part of humanitarian emergency relief and reconstruction processes.
Natural disasters and violent conflict destroy not only tangible culture but also directly impact on intangible culture. The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage as a result of armed conflict is an assault on a society’s way of life and all its forms of creative expression. The loss of cultural heritage through natural catastrophe or climate change also profoundly influences the way in which people relate either to themselves or to the world at large.
The erosion of cultural norms and values also impact on humanitarian disasters. In many societies a loss of cultural heritage implies a humanitarian emergency. In addition, although violent conflicts rarely start for cultural reasons, they can come to be defined as clashes between differing cultures.
The paper provides several recommendations on how to address the shortfall in attention to culture and cultural heritage, and how to engage in cultural protection and preservation. They include:
- Increase political support for cultural emergency relief.
- Strengthen and extend the awareness of the need to save tangible and intangible culture amongst humanitarian emergency relief organisations and other involved parties.
- Promote capacity building programmes that reinforce the awareness and improvement of cultural emergency relief. Raising political and military awareness is needed for the implementation of international laws on cultural protection during armed conflict.
- Promote co-operation between cultural, humanitarian, military, social and legal agencies. This is essential to creating a more effective approach to emergency aid.
- Involve the local community. During the reconstruction process a greater awareness is needed of the identity of the affected community and of its collective memory. The local community’s involvement is thus important for the provision of effective emergency aid that reflects its traditions and way of life.
- Develop preventative measures and focus on aftercare following emergency relief. It is essential to chart cultural property and to draw up risk preparedness plans. Along with precautions, aftercare must also be taken into account so as to optimise the emergency aid’s effectiveness.
- Ensure that more money is made available for cultural emergency relief. This is crucial not only for saving more items of cultural heritage from disasters but also for reinforcing the level of support for cultural emergency aid.
