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Libricide
Libricide, or the act of destruction of books and other written literary matter, is a term that has had limited use. Libricide refers to destruction of a body of material specific to a particular culture as an act of political repression or warfare. It is the non-accidental destruction of libraries and books by actors with political or moral intention. Like genocide, such actions transgress civilized boundaries and constitute crimes against humanity. Acts of libricide go back over two thousand years. ..

"We have come to realize that we cannot understand ancient Mesopotamia, Ptolemaic Egypt, Moorish Spain, the French Revolution, or Sinclair Lewis's America unless we know which books were up there on the shelves, and who was allowed to read them..." (Rose, 2003).).



"To destroy a library is to deny a people's claim to civilization"

University of Washington Libraries - The September Project 2004

See also Cultural genocide

Symptoms of cultural pathology in figurative language
"It is no coincidence that the terms genocide and libricide were coined in the twentieth century.  Rebecca Knuth (2003) and Andras Riedlmayer (1995) have chronicled instances in which libricide facilitated genocide. To exterminate races or tribes, so as to leave no trace, you must obliterate all material expressions of their cultures. While libricide has accompanied genocide for centuries, Knuth points out that "modern communication systems now convey images and texts that give unflinching testimony to violence that might otherwise be hidden from the world" (Knuth, 2003, p. 6) . In the nineteenth century "the concept of cultural, historic and architectural heritage, viewed as the common heritage of a group or community came into existence" (Lopez, 2002, p. 6),'" though as far back as the Crusades jurists were already considering the obligation to protect cultural monuments in times of war (Boylan, 2001). Andras Riedlmayer, an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia wrote a comment to American Libraries, a 100 year old peer-reviewed journal, about getting the facts of his testimony misquoted. "Your September article "Monumental Preservation" (p. 34-38) mentions my work documenting the destruction of libraries and other cultural heritage in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. It makes reference to my July 8, 2003, testimony as an expert witness in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This was a historic moment; the first time that the deliberate destruction of libraries was prosecuted as a war crime in a court of international law. Unfortunately, the passage as published seriously distorts the meaning of my Hague testimony. As a result, a vicious untruth concerning the real responsibility for the burning of the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina has been inadvertently enshrined as the statement of record on this infamous incident for AL's many thousands of readers. According to documentation I presented in court, the National and University Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina was shelled and burned with incendiary munitions by Bosnian Serb forces August 25-26. 1992, with the loss of 90% of its collections. The library was deliberately targeted; surrounding buildings were not hit by the shelling. For my full testimony and expert report, see http://hague.bard.edu/past_video/07-2003.html. The false claim that the Sarajevo library had been destroyed from within has been used as the standard alibi line by the Serb nationalist leaders who were responsible for ordering the shelling of the library with incendiary munitions from Bosnian Serb artillery positions on the surrounding hills.".

"While international accords prohibit the targeting of cultural artifacts during warfare, this legal protection implies that war is not waged over questions of culture and thus, that cultural artifacts can unproblematically be distinguished from legitimate military targets. The 1998-1999 conflict in Kosovo, however, was sanctioned by recourse to little else than culture; competing versions of Kosovo’s cultural identity were staged as the bases for competing claims for sovereignty over the province, and cultural artifacts were presented as precise evidence of those claims. The entanglement of the cultural and the political that led to the widescale destruction of historic architecture in Kosovo, then, has constituent elements. As such, the war in Kosovo is characteristic of a new form of conflict that is produced not out of geopolitical or ideological disputes, but out of the politics of particularist identities."

Book burning is not the product of healthy free societies but is the product of rampant extremism. Book burners use this language to control those who might otherwise read the books and become part of the exchange of ideas between author and reader. Genocide, ethnocide, and libricide are pre-figured in the use of aggressive public accusations and proclamations. Words like pestilence, poison, vermin, cancer, devil, thugs and virus are used out of context to achieve persuasive ends. According to G. Nunberg, a modern example of this is U.S. President Bush describing the Iraqi insurgents as "thugs and assassins." He's used the phrase a number of times, including his remarks at his Thanksgiving drop-in in Baghdad and in his State of the Union address.

The scope and political nature of libricide
The systematic and willful destruction of books, libraries, museums, and government records is seen by some as a function of social and political problem-solving. Libricide is committed by neglect as well. The head of President George W. Bush's Cultural Advisory Committee, stepped down in protest over the US failure to stop the libricide in 2003 in Iraq, adding to international calls for action to protect Iraq's heritage. The effect is, as Rebecca Knuth(2006) has described, one of "biblioclasm", a signal that social discord has progressed to a critical point and that the foundations of modern civilization are at risk. According to Ray Edmondson, writing on the Association of Moving Image Archivists Mailing List Archives [AMIA-L] "There are a number UNESCO protocols concerning the protection of cultural materials in the case of armed conflicts, perhaps the most important being the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Under international law the "belligerent countries" - i.e. USA, UK and Australia - who now constitute the "legitimate authorities" in Iraq have a responsibility,inter alia, for the protection of cultural heritage. However, neither the UK nor USA are signatories to the Hague Convention and Australia has not signed or ratified the second protocol.[]

Other recent examples of heritage destruction - such as in Afghanistan, Kuwait, East Timor and ex-Yugoslavia - were a deliberate act of the then-ruling authorities. In the case of Iraq, the destruction happened because of the failure of the legitimate authorities to take the proper preventative measures. According to Human Rights Watch, failing to protect Iraqi security archives could contribute to retaliatory violence and vengeance killings, since the archives could identify tens of thousands of security agents and collaborators by name.

Selected historical aspects of libricide
Bosmajian, H. (2006), and Knuth, R. (2003, 2006) each give a more comprehensive account. Bosmajian refers to the actual fiery destruction of books, while Knuth frames these actions from the 19th to 21st centuries.


 * [Vandals] (5th century)


 * During the Islamic conquest of Persia and the Fall of Sassanid dynasty in 651, many works were lost, burnt by the invaders. The destruction of the Imperial Library at Ctesphion is one of these. Ctesiphon in Iraq (651).


 * The destruction of the Buddhist Library and University in Nalanda, 1193.
 * The destruction of the House of Wisdom


 * The United States destruction of documents and artifacts in the Indian Wars (1775-1917)


 * Burning of books in the French Revolution (1789-1799)


 * Pillaging of culture during the Napoleonic War (1804-1815)


 * The burning by the British of Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812 (1814)

Selected acts of libricide in the Twentieth Century

 * Cultural and bibliographic destruction by academics and librarians in Nazi Germany, led by Adolph Hitler and Joseph Goebbels


 * Cultural artifacts and library destruction by Nazi plunder (1933-1945).


 * Cultural targets of Nazi bombing in the Baedeker Blitz (1942).

(Knuth has noted, "The cultural losses that resulted from the Allies’ strategic bombing of almost every city center in Germany and Japan during World War II were one of the biggest conceptual hurdles I faced in my first book as I sought clarity on the issue of responsibility. Having chosen not to label the case libricide, mainly on the premise that the bombers did not intentionally target libraries, I wrestled nevertheless with a sense of the culpability of the nations who attained victory as a result of these egregious attacks." http://hnn.us/articles/29272.html )
 * Cultural targets by the U.S. bombing of Dresden in World War II (1945).


 * The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (1945). (although libraries were not specifically targeted, the destruction of infrastructure and cultural records was intended.


 * The 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the damage to the National Museum of Iraq, antiquities in Sumer, the Ishtar Gate during the Iraq War (2003).


 * The Siege of Sarajevo led by Slobodan Milošević, (1992-1996).


 * The destruction of books and cultural artifacts by the Taliban (1996-2001) including the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan
 * The burning of books and destruction of religious and other buildings and artifacts by the Red Guards(China) (1966-1976)


 * The burning of the Hindu Tamil Jaffna Library by the Sinhalese Police (1981)


 * The destruction of cultural artifacts and libraries by the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-1989)


 * The destruction of Tibetan culture by the Chinese (1976-2000).

The psychological and moral aspects of libricide
A recent report in Nature shows how brain injury is linked to moral decisions. Morality may be a switch in our brain that can be turned off. One must wonder what can be turned on? In film footage of Nazi gatherings, the crowds seem as if to be in a trance. Are there dark impulses in us, beasts that lurk within our complex emotions that cause in each one of us a desire to act on our violent impulses? Books, libraries and museums are not just sanctuaries of thought; they are battlefields upon which bloody wars continue to be fought. People burn books, and loot museums, and commit genocide with a glee and atavism that reminds us of the pre-historic ape (man?) in “The Dawn of Man” [] section of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) (1968), who has discovered the adrenaline-rush of revenge by murdering his own kind. Libricide and genocide are thought of by the perpetrators as dutiful acts. Genocidal Bosnian Serbs followed orders, so did the Pol Pot, the U.S. Cavalry, the Nazis; all absolved themselves of individual complicity. No one is ever responsible. There are accounts of Hutus in Rwanda killing their neighbors and children and then saying, in interviews conducted by historians, “it was as if I was in a trance”. Even Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) who was a former United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality, burned books professionally as a civil servant.

According to Slavoj Zizek, a professor at the Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana and at the European Graduate School, Michel Foucault was fascinated by Islamic political martyrdom. In it, he discerned the contours of what he called a new “regime of truth” radically different from our Western one, a regime based not on factual accuracy or the consistency of reasoning, but the readiness to die. Suicide assassins kill and destroy cultural property. Assassins of books commit libricide.

The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.

The murder/assassination of Theo Van Gogh (film director) demonstrates how moral convictions seek to justify destructive acts against cultural correspondents.

Differences and similarities to book-burning and vandalism
All cultures have much to lose in warfare, declared or undeclared; and vandalism. Vandalism is the conspicuous defacement or destruction of a structure, a symbol or anything else that goes against the will of the owner/governing body. It is more of a crime committed by an individual or group though it often contains political and/or moral intention.

Book burning and libricide is the purposeful product of utopian extremism in a society that is characterized by psychopathology (in its edicts, laws, militarism, nationalism, sectarianism, and racism) and takes actions which to their belief, promotes the greater good. It is usually enforced as part of the institutionalization of totalitarianism. The results of this cultural destruction remain misunderstood and have been met with tribunals seeking to define these acts as crimes against humanity. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict seeks to require its signatories from damaging significant cultural sites and materials during wartime. The outcome of these tribunals remains unclear.

World Community Action, preservation efforts and awareness
It is impossible to predict the impact that the loss of humanity’s cultural heritage will have on future generations. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee is an international community that has begun to combat ethnocide (including libricide).

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity is a list maintained by UNESCO with pieces of intangible culture considered relevant by that organization. It was started in 2001 with 19 items and a further 28 were added in 2003. On November 25, 2005 another list was issued.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a specific site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that has been nominated and confirmed for inclusion on the list maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 State Parties (countries) which are elected by the General Assembly of States Parties for a fixed term. (This is similar to the United Nations Security Council.)

The program aims to catalogue, name, and conserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind. Under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972. Since then, over 180 State Parties have ratified the convention.

Other resources
114-125. []
 * Art works may self-destruct, in a form of art called "auto-destructive art". Franz Kafka wished to see his books burned after his death but they were rescued by his friend, Max Brod.
 * Bataille, G. "Kafka:Should kafka be burnt?". [electronic resource]. Retrieved 4/20/07 from, []
 * Battles, M. (2003).  Library: An unquiet history.New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. []
 * Bolte, C.G. "Security through book burning."  Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 300, Internal Security and Civil Rights. (Jul., 1955), pp. 87-93. []
 * Boylan, P. (2001). The concept of cultural protection in times of armed conflict: from the Crusades to the new millennium in Neil Brodie (Ed.), Illicit antiquities: the theft of culture.(pp. 43-107). Florence, KY: Routledge. []
 * Chancellor. A. (April 26, 2003). "Barbarians at the gates". London: The Guardian.Guardian Weekend Pages, Pg. 7.
 * Forbes, C. "Books for the burning." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 67. (1936), pp.
 * Goswami, R. (April 25, 2003). "Culture: global effort on to rebuild shattered iraqui heritage." Mumbai: IPS-Inter Press Service/Global Information Network. IPS-Inter Press Service.
 * Guttman, Cynthia; Riedlmayer, Andras. "Kosovo: burned books and blasted shrines." UNESCO Courier, 00415278, Sep2000, Vol. 53, Issue 9.
 * Knox, R. (March 21, 2006). "The horror of cultural destruction". London: The Independent. News, p.5.
 * Lopez, J. (2002). Tell me about: World heritage. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
 * Maiello, M., Noer, M. ed. "Special Report: Are books in danger?" New York: Forbes [electronic resource]. 12.01.06 []
 * Maass, P. Love Thy Neighbor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1996. []
 * Ritchie, J.M. "The Nazi Book-Burning". The Modern Language Review, Vol. 83, No. 3. (Jul., 1988), pp. 627-643. []
 * Sieyes, E.J. [](1789), What is the third estate?" Reprinted in J, W, Boyer et al, (Eds,), The old regime and the French Revolution: University of Chicago readings in Western Civilization, Vol, 7,Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.