Lesson 3: Cultural heritage and respect for diversity
Plurality and Internal Dynamics
The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002) stresses that “culture takes diverse forms across time and space” and that diversity “is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind” (art.1).
As a consequence, the importance of World Heritage sites should be determined by the uniqueness and plurality of cultural expressions and the number of changes and interactions between groups and ocieties that it shows.
Negative example: The tentative list of the world heritage cites lists Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia as “permanent capital of the Christian Georgian state from the days of its foundation up to present, "grand city" of the historical Silk Road in the course of centuries, centre of the whole Caucasus from the 19th c. onwards.”
Nothing is said about the roots and the presence of different religious and ethnic diversity. In fact, it was the diversity of its people that molded the face of Tbilisi over centuries and a proof of it, is a melting pot, in entire city, with the exclusion of Soviet-era and current transformations.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ 2021 Framework Programme of the European Union
