A/76/178 33. The destruction of cultural heritage 38 has a deleterious effect on preserving histories of cultural diversity and mixing. Conversely, its preservation in accordance with international standards, in all its hybridity and employing a human rights approach, can help guarantee cultural rights. The Special Rapporteur welcomes new participatory museum and heritage initiatives across the Africa region to this end. 39 D. Obstacles, challenges and ways forward 34. Factors that may undermine possibilities for cultural fusions include puritanical and fundamentalist approaches to diverse religions (A/HRC/34/56; and A/72/155), and refusals to allow ideological diversity in contexts of political repression. They include simplistic approaches that fail to take into consideration or d ocument diverse cultural elements, including oral traditions, in a way that reflects the granularity of cultures. Discrimination and refusal to accept the existence of and traces of different identities are a major obstacle. 40 Past histories of violence, discrimination and repression may render these topics taboo. Narrow authenticity discourses – sometimes advanced ostensibly to protect cultural rights – that are based on static ideas about culture, identities and homogenous pasts are also problematic. Many experts stressed the need to transcend multiculturalism and the segregation it sometimes implies in favour of interculturalism 41 or transculturalism. 42 The latter concepts evoke sharing and cosmopolitan outlooks. All such paradigms must be embedded in a framework of equality and human rights. 35. Refusal to respect cultural mixing or mixed cultural identities leads to many human rights violations, including some the Special Rapporteur has previously documented. For example, the 2012 destructions of mausoleums by fundamentalist groups in northern Mali were understood by Malian experts to have been carried out because this heritage – which is vital for local religious and cultural practice – represents a mixing of cultures from Africa and the M iddle East. 43 Rejections of syncretism and mixing has also led to attacks on religious sites and relics important for some Afro-Brazilians, such as the destruction of terreiros from Umbanda and Candomblé. 44 Numerous terror attacks in Afghanistan, such as at a Sikh temple in March 2020, in which 25 people were killed, or at the American University of Afghanistan, reflect similar opposition to mixing. 45 36. At the same time, the international community must recognize and respond to histories of and ongoing realities of cultural hegemony, cultural assimilation and cultural genocide (A/71/317, paras. 28–29), as well as the commercialization and homogenization of cultures and their impacts, in particular, o n indigenous and colonized peoples, and some minorities. Syncretism may be challenged by those who argue that it has not been voluntary in some settings and is hence violative of cultural rights. Corporatized projects of traversing or “borrowing” cultures for commercial purposes, or globalization from above and its cultural effects, can lead to the __________________ 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 10/22 See www.files.ethz.ch/isn/50179/2008_March_Wahabism.pdf, pages 5–6. See www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/a-new-kind-of-museum-with-narratives-on-equal-terms. See www.theartnewspaper.com/news/national-trust-report-colonial-slavery-history-charity-la. “From conflict to conviviality”, Luísa Santos and Ana Fabíola Maurício, Art and Human Rights Conference, Gulbenkian Foundation (20 May 2021). In transcultural approaches, acknowledgment of cultural variation is accepted a nd perceived as the normative state. See www.eera-ecer.de/ecer-programmes/conference/22/contribution/39868/. See www.icc-cpi.int/RelatedRecords/CR2017_05022.pdf. See, e.g., https://direito.mppr.mp.br/arquivos/File/RelatorioIntoleranciaViolenciaReligiosaBrasil. pdf. See www.aihrc.org.af/home/press_release/8810. 21-10019