ABSTRACT
“Culturecide” is an abbreviation for “Cultural Genocide”, a new and not yet well-established term. The term “genocide” means murderous aggression against groups whose unity has ethnic, religious, political and potentially also cultural roots. The extermination of cultural self-expression violates the identity and integrity of individuals and groups. It negates not only human dignity but also culture as such, because every expression of human culture forms a part of the cultural heritage of humankind. This holds true for all culture and not only for what UNESCO acknowledges as world cultural heritage.
Huber claims that what we experience is not a clash of civilizations or cultures, but a struggle over what culture is; one which enquiries into cultural sustainability must take into account. There is no reason to assume that cultural sustainability, compared with the seemingly classical elements of the “Brundtland-sustainability”, namely economic stability, ecological balance and social security, is only of secondary relevance. Cultural sustainability needs to be grounded in moral universalism but moral universalism is only taken seriously if it opens the way to cultural diversity. We are reminded that humans are cultural beings when their cultural world is destroyed or they become alienated from the symbolic means of their possible self-interpretations. Huber’s contribution focuses on “cultural genocide” from historical to current occurrences and maps theoretical discussions from Hannah Arendt to Seyla Benhabib.
