By René Wadlow

War and armed violence are highly destructive of the lives of persons, but also of works of art and elements of cultural heritage. Knowledge and understanding of people’s past can help current inhabitants to develop their identity and to appreciate the value of their culture and heritage. Such knowledge and understanding enriches their lives and enables them to manage contemporary problems more successfully.

Since September 23, 2024, the armed conflict between the Israeli armed forces and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has led to increased air attacks by Israeli forces on different parts of Lebanon, resulting in deaths and the uprooting of a large number of people. Hezbollah had begun hostilities on October 8, 2023 by shelling Israeli positions in support of Hamas.

The Association of World Citizens (AWC) had called for a reduction of Israeli-Hezbollah tensions and has since called for a ceasefire and for the return of persons displaced in the areas on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon frontier. (See our Appeal of September 2024).

This AWC Appeal concerns the protection of cultural heritage as Israeli attacks have already harmed cultural heritage sites in Baalbek and Tyr as well as other culutral sites. Lebanon has a rich past going back to Biblical and Roman times.

After the Second World War, UNESCO had developed international conventions on the protection of cultural and educational bodies in time of armed conflict. The most important of these is the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague Convention has been signed by a large number of States.

The 1954 Hague Convention builds on the Roerich Peace Pact first proposed by the Russian painter and champion of Asian culture, Nicholas Roerich. The Roerich Peace Pact was signed on April 15, 1935 by 21 States in a Pan American Union ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C.

At the signing, Henry A. Wallace, then United States (U.S.) Secretary of Agriculture and later Vice-President, said, “At no time has such an ideal been more needed. It is high time for the idealists who make the reality of tomorrow, to rally around such a symbol of international cultural unity. It is time that we appeal to that appreciation of beauty, science, education which runs across all national boundaries to strengthen all that we hold dear in our particular governments and customs. Its acceptance signifies the approach of a time when those who truly love their own nation will appreciate in addition the unique contributions of other nations and also do reverence to that common spiritual enterprise which draws together in one fellowship all artists, scientists, educators and truly religious of whatever faith. Thus we build a world civilization which places that which is fine in humanity above that which is low, sordid and mean, that which is hateful and grabbing.”

We still have efforts to make so that what is fine in humanity is above what is hateful and grabbing. The AWC strives so that a start will begin in Lebanon and spread to the wider Middle East.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.