“We collectively appeal to the international community to preserve our identity, protect our rich culture disappearing from the world map, preserve our identity,” Mounir Bouchenaki, Director, Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), Bahrain tells members of the diplomatic corps on Tuesday during a presentation on the subject held at the IPI MENA HQs at the BFH.
Mounir, who is also a former UNESCO Assistant Director General For Culture Former Director-General of ICCROM Former Special Advisor to UNESCO Director-General for Culture, was joined by Nejib Friji, Director, The International Peace Institute, Middle East and North Africa (IPI MENA), Bahrain said that destruction of the UNSECO’s sites across the Middle East currently being ruined by ongoing conflicts would leave this region without identity.
“Cultural heritage is our DNA and keeping a blind eye towards this heinous crime happening around us will leave our heritage in a disarray,” Nejib Friji, Director, The International Peace Institute, Middle East and North Africa (IPI MENA), Bahrain in a brief introduction said, adding that collective efforts are needed to fight this menace.
The presentation by Mounir Bouchenaki titled “cultural heritage during armed conflicts: international community’s duty and right to protect it” gave a glimpse of unfathomable sea of destruction and elimination of world’s cultural heritage on different pretexts.
Mounir believes the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East starting from the civil war in Lebanon, Israeli shelling of Lebanese cultural sites, destruction of Museums in Iraq, elimination of city after city in Syria and bombing of Buddha statue in Afghanistan, names a few, are deliberate attempts to wipe out the identity of the Middle East from the global heritage map.
“These criminals have been destroying the rare cultural heritage sites even those on the UNESCO list in the name of Islam can’t be condoned by the global community. A quick action plan is needed to first stop the destruction and also to preserve the sites,” he said.