Cultural genocide

Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept that lawyer Raphael Lemkin distinguished in 1944 as a component to genocide. The term was considered in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples juxtaposed next to the term "ethnocide," but it was removed in the final document, replaced with simply "genocide." The precise definition of "cultural genocide" remains unclear. Some ethnologists, such as Robert Jaulin, use the term "ethnocide" for "cultural genocide", although this usage has been criticized as engendering a risk of confusion between ethnicity and culture.

Usage

As early as 1944, lawyer Raphael Lemkin distinguished a cultural component to genocide, which since then has become known as "cultural genocide". The term has since acquired rhetorical value as a phrase that is used to protest against the destruction of cultural heritage. It is also often misused as a catchphrase to condemn any destruction the speaker disapproves of, without regard for the criterion of intent to destroy an affected group as such.