A/76/178 favourite hallucination of the far right. 30 Such political discourses seek to base selfdefinition on the drawing of fictional “clear” lines. 28. Sectarianism, de facto segregation and assaults on plurality have been on the rise in the context of the current global ethno-nationalist moment, contributing to a larger assault on the core of what it means to be human. Imperialist and ethnonationalist nostalgia has made the complexity of cultural histories inconvenient. 31 Taken together, all this has promoted attacks on diverse human beings and widespread violations of their universal human rights, including cultural rights. 32 29. In other contexts, and at times in human rights discourse itself, while a notion of diversity is recognized, it takes the form of a thin multiculturalism in which humanity is divided into separate, internally coherent baskets. This is what Amartya Sen labelled “plural mono-culturalism”. 33 Such approaches likewise eclipse cultural hybridity and mixed cultural identities. 30. There have been deliberate attempts to erase histories of fusion and syncretism. The defence of cultural rights requires an intertemporal approach that preserves the histories of these mingling practices and plural identities in the past, and their resp ect and promotion in the present, and also imagines and constructs futures where they flourish in rights-respecting ways. 31. For example, it is essential to work against the erasure of hybridity in the restoration of cultural heritage sites, in keeping with the Québec Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which recognizes sites as having a plural and dynamic character, capable of possessing multiple meanings and singularities, of changin g through time, and of belonging to different groups, and emphasizes that a place can have several spirits and be shared. 34 Similarly, it is vital to recognize the nuances and syncretic nature of intangible heritage. 35 Mono-restorations can be used to support irredentist claims or monolithic fundamentalist narratives about religion, culture and history, or to undercut the cultural rights of minorities and cultural dissenters in the majority. An example has been Saudi-funded reconstruction of Bosnian mosques, which allegedly failed to respect Bosnian Muslim aesthetics and transformed the character of places of worship. 36 32. “Authenticity” in historic preservation may have a stultifying and negative impact on living cultures, if the fact that “cultural heritage diversity exists in time and space” is not recognized. “Authenticity must be understood in a manner respectful of heritage diversity.” 37 __________________ 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 21-10019 Fintan O’Toole, “In the Trump era, artists need to do more than make protest speeches”, The Irish Times, 3 March 2017. Available at www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/in-the-trump-eraartists-need-to-do-more-than-make-protest-speeches-1.2992500. One person responded to Bannon: “Without the “s” in cultures, I do not recognize this country.” See www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/give-the-country-back-stephen-bannon-decoded.html. Note, e.g., the difficulties faced by the United Kingdom National Trust in seeking to address links between heritage and “colonialism and historic slavery.” See www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ %20features/addressing-the-histories-of-slavery-and-colonialism-at-the-national-trust. For example, the destruction of cultural heritage in Mosul by Daesh was a way of “smash[ing] apart ancient bonds of coexistence.” Omar Mohammed, speech at an intersessional workshop on cultural rights and the protection of cultural heritage, 15 June 2021. Amartya Sen, “The uses and abuses of multiculturalism”, The New Republic, 27 February 2006. See www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Charters/GA16_Quebec_ Declaration_Final_EN.pdf. See https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1548 -1425.2012.01393.x. See www.files.ethz.ch/isn/50179/2008_March_Wahabism.pdf, pages 5–6. See www.icomos.org/charters/nara-e.pdf. 9/22