"When They Come For Your Identity: The Ongoing Destruction of Living and Historical Heritage in the Uyghur Region, China"

Since 2017, a cultural genocide is unfolding in Western China. This illustrated lecture reveals the staggering scope: The living, historical, and archaeological heritage of the Uyghurs, the Kazakhs and other indigenous peoples is being systematically demolished. Pilgrimage sites and houses of worship are razed, historical cemeteries obliterated (one dating to 960AD), indigenous architecture destroyed -- even home interior decoration is forcibly torn down. Native cultural and religious practices are forbidden; hundreds of native artists, poets, musicians, and academics have been disappeared into concentration camps, alongside hundreds of thousands of other innocent people. This presentation focuses on the material destruction, and places it in the context of the unfolding genocide.

I also discuss how the campaign relates to the legal constraints of the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention (from which cultural genocide was dropped, due to objections from the former colonial powers), and to China's current commitments to cultural heritage protection as a human right, as defined in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2018 -- the closest we have to a legal writ against cultural genocide. I also look briefly at how the new Chinese state program of accelerated, forced cultural assimilation is being expanded to Tibetans and other non-Chinese peoples ruled by China.

About the speaker:

Magnus Fiskesjö is an associate professor of anthropology and core faculty member of the Cornell Institute of Archaeology & Material Studies (CIAMS). Professor Fiskesjö's research concerns ethnic relations and political anthropology in China and Southeast Asia. He is affiliated with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies as a steering committee and/or core faculty member of the Judith Reppy Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, the East Asia Program and the Southeast Asia Program.