Urbicide in Bosnia, Martin C.
Martin C.(2008), Urbicide in Bosnia, http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/mpc20/pubs/urbicide.html, p.20
Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as ‘coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79). The 1948 Genocide convention defines genocide as ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’ (Andreopoulos, 1994, Appendix 1 pp.229-233). ‘Ethnic cleansing’ is characterised by this genocidal logic insofar as it represents an attempt to erase from a given territory national/ethnical /racial/religious groups that, through their existence contest the claims of ethno-nationalists to territorial self-determination on the basis of ethnic/national homogeneity. That is, insofar as ethno-nationalists can erase plural identities from territory they can claim it as their own. The Bosnian war was thus constituted by a genocidal violence - (euphemistically) defined by those who intervened in, or observed, the conflict as ‘ethnic cleansing’ - that comprised the removal or erasure of all heterogeneous identities.
p.1
It was perhaps because these regions constituted living disproof of [ethno]nationalist ideologies that [they] have been the major theatres of...war (Hayden, 1996, p.788).
p.2
Ethno-nationalism works specifically then, to destroy (and thus deny) heterogeneity in order to advance a claim for national self-determination predicated on ethnic homogeneity. The dynamic of ethno-nationalism is threefold: political discourses legitimate the notion that heterogeneity is both threatening and unnatural, elaborate grievances felt by an ethnic group purportedly as a consequence of this heterogeneity, and deny a history of heterogeneous coexistence; political violence is mobilised to destroy heterogeneity and legitimate claims to territorial self-determination; ethnic homogeneity is consolidated and the notion of ethnic separateness is thus naturalised. (Hayden, 1996, p.788-790).
p.2
This plural/heterogeneous culture was not just represented in mixed marriages, neighbours of different ethnic origin, or those who declared themselves Yugoslavs rather than Bosnian-Serb/Croat/Muslim. It was represented in the material cultures within which everyday lives were lived.
p.2
However, it is not only symbolic buildings or significant elements of Bosnian cultural heritage that were targeted for destruction. The urban fabric of Bosnia came under a relentless assault. As Nicholas Adams notes, along with ‘mosques, churches [and] synagogues’, ‘markets, museums, libraries, cafes, in short, the places where people gather to live out their collective life, have been the focus of...attacks’. Whilst the destruction of prominent cultural symbols immediately captured the attention of observers of the conflict this more widespread destruction of the urban environment was not so quickly identified.
p.3
Early in the conflict a number of architects had noted the widespread, and yet intentional, destruction of the urban environment. They referred to this destruction as ‘urbicide’.
The urban fabric of Bosnia was targeted deliberately, a fact attested to by the manner in which the violence against the architecture of Bosnia was disproportionate to the task of killing the people of Bosnia.
p.3
‘It is the expected thing to say that people come first,’ notes Adams. ‘And they do, but the survival of architecture and urban life are important to the survival of people’ (Adams, 1993, p.390). The widespread destruction of urban fabric is the destruction of a common, shared space. Insofar as the dynamic of ethnic cleansing is that of the carving out of separate, ethnically homogeneous and self-determining territorial entities, it comprises a denial of common space through a destruction of that which attests to a record of sharing spaces – the heterogeneity of cultural heritage and the intermingling of civilian bodies.
p.3
According to these interpretations urban destruction can be understood as either (a) collateral damage, (b) the destruction of cultural heritage, and (c) a metaphor for certain concepts or values.
p.4
-Collateral damage
Collateral damage ‘occurs when attacks targeted at military objectives cause civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects’ (Fischer, 1999).
p.4
it could be argued that certain buildings were lawfully destroyed in order to achieve certain military ends. That is, the argument could be used that the buildings destroyed represented elements in logistical networks, and, hence, militarily legitimate targets.
p.5
-Destruction of cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is protected under the 1956 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. During the 1992-95 Bosnian war many buildings that would fall under the protection of the Hague Convention were destroyed. Accounts of the destruction of cultural heritage invariably see it as an element of ethnic cleansing, or the attempt to remake ‘Bosnia-Herzegovina as a series of small, pure ethnic states’ (Council of Europe, 1994). Cultural heritage is destroyed because it represents heterogeneous identities and thus what must be destroyed in order to achieve the aim of ethnic purity in a particular territory.
p.7
Interpretations of the destruction of cultural heritage argue, therefore, that certain buildings are destroyed because they represent ethnic/cultural heterogeneity.
p.7
Ethno-nationalism seeks to naturalise the idea that the so-called ‘ethnic’ groups in Bosnia are fated to live separate existences. The myth of ‘ancient hatreds’ installs the idea that ethnic groups were always distinct and in antagonistic relationships. Ethno-nationalist ideas of separation and ethnic purity are the logical outcome of the acceptance of this idea. However, such ideas are simply the myths on which the ethno-nationalist edifice is built. Indeed, as I have noted, Bosnia has a long history of pluralism and co-existence between these supposedly distinct and incompatible ethnic groups (Hayden, 1996, pp.788-790). The urban environment in cities such as Sarajevo and Mostar are testament to the pluralism/heterogeneity of Bosnia.
The co-existence of Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and vernacular buildings is a constant reminder that the nationalist project of ethnic separateness is a present day fiction belied by the past. Thus, to paraphrase Riedlmayer, ethno-nationalists sought to destroy evidence of a successfully shared past in order to legitimise a contemporary goal of ethnic separateness.
p.7
However, the destruction of the urban environment is more widespread than these symbolic buildings. Indeed it encompasses buildings that have no distinctive cultural value, or are of indistinct cultural provenance (the bland modernism of the ‘Unis Co.’ tower blocks in Sarajevo as an example). These buildings could not really be said to represent the cultural heritage of Bosnia. And thus the interpretation of urban destruction as an attack on cultural heritage provides only a partial (though striking) account of the destruction of the urban environment in Bosnia.
p.8
-Signs of Balkanisation
‘[b]alkanisation is generally understood to be the break up of larger political units into smaller, mutually hostile states which are exploited or manipulated by more powerful neighbours’ (Der Derian, 1992, pp.146-150).
p.8
The destruction of the Stari Most gave such an idea exemplary form. That is, the destruction of the last remaining bridge between the two halves of Mostar was performed by a group manipulated by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and effectively sealed the creation of two mutually hostile entities (east and west Mostar)
p.8
The problem with this interpretation of the rubble of Bosnia is that the destruction is not treated as an event worthy of attention in its own right. Rather the rubble is appropriated as a sign connotative of a more general concept. Whilst urban destruction may serve as the sign for several concepts, noting this does not get us any closer to understanding the meaning of the destruction of urban fabric.
p.9
-Urbanity and Urbicide
It is necessary, therefore, to inquire into the meaning of the term ‘urbicide’ (the Anglicisation of the Serbo- Croat ‘Urbicid’). Urbicide derives its meaning from the collocation of ‘urban’with the epithet ‘-cide’. Taken literally, urbicide refers to the ‘killing, slaughter’ or ‘slaying’ of that which is subsumed under the term ‘urban’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, Vol.III, pp.213-214).
p.9
According to the opposition urban/rural, the city represents modern progress, whilst rural life is taken to exemplify the constraints of tradition that modernity is supposed to sweep away.
p.10
Tönnie’s concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, for example, exemplify this opposition (Karp, Stone, & Yoels, 1991, pp.8-12). Where Gemeinschaft represents pre-modern social order, Gesellschaft represents the modern, specifically capitalist, social order. Gemeinschaft
represents a homogeneous feudal order ‘bound by shared values and...traditions’, Gesellschaft refers to a social order characterised by ‘heterogeneity of values and traditions’(Karp, Stone, & Yoels, 1991, pp.9).
p.10
This idea of heterogeneity is also at stake in the concept of the urban, or urbanity. In ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’, Louis Wirth argues that it is the size, density and heterogeneity of the populations of cities that constitute ‘those elements of urbanism which mark it as a distinctive mode of life’ (Wirth, 1996, p.190). Despite naming three factors that characterise urbanity, it is heterogeneity that is its principle aspect according to Wirth.
p.10
Thus if we identify urbanity as entailing, principally, heterogeneous existence, we can say that the destruction of urban life is the destruction of heterogeneity. The destruction of urban fabric, is, therefore, the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity. What is at stake in urbicide, the destruction of the buildings which establish common/shared spaces in which plural communities live their lives, is thus the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity.
p.10
- the kinship between urbicide and genocide
Genocide consisting of two distinct phases. Firstly, the ‘destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group’ and secondly, ‘imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79).
p.10-11
This defining feature led Lemkin to conclude that in genocide, violence ‘is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79).
p.11
It is integral to our understanding of ‘genocide’ that we recognise what ‘it’ is that is destroyed, and the meaning of the destruction. In genocide ‘it’ is a member of a national or ethnic group and the destruction has the meaning of the eradication of this group.
p.11
the destruction of urban fabric derived its meaning from the relationship between the destruction and what ‘it’ is that is destroyed. At the same time, they noted that what ‘it’ is that is destroyed is distinct from that destroyed in genocide.
p.11
Put simply, urbicide entails the destruction of buildings and urban fabric as elements of urbanity. Buildings are destroyed because they are the condition of possibility of urbanity. Since urbanity is constituted by heterogeneity, urbicide comprises the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity. Moreover, this destruction is, like, genocide a two phase affair. Firstly the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity are destroyed, followed by the imposition of homogeneity.
p.11
-From agonism to antagonism
The common, shared spaces of urban environments are the condition of possibility for the agonistic co-existence of identities.
p.12
The concept of agonism is developed by William Connolly in his discussion of ‘agonistic democracy’ (Connolly, 1991, p.x). ‘Agonistic democracy’, according to Connolly, ‘affirms the indispensability of identity to life, disturbs the dogmatization of identity, and folds care for...diversity...into the strife and interdependence of identity\difference’(Connolly, 1991, p.x).
p.12
For Connolly agonism refers to the manner in which existence is a network of relations between identity and difference. Identities never exist in isolation from a constitutive otherness, or alterity, against which identity is defined. Self, according to Connolly is constituted in relation to the non-self by constituting limits at which the self ends and the other begins. In this sense, however, such identity is constantly contested by alterity. Difference, threatens to undo efforts at self-identity or presence, by contesting the boundaries of the self, the points at which self is differentiated from its other(s). This contestation constitutes existence as a continual performance of identity in relations to its other(s). Insofar as this performance takes place in the context of difference (many performances of self in relations to many others), existence is heterogeneous.
p.12
That is, alterity provokes identity into defining its boundaries as it is only through the definition of the borders of identity\difference that identity can perform itself. Moreover, these borders are constantly contested by alterity and must be re-performed in order to maintain the presence of identity.
p.12
It is this provocation that ethno-nationalism seeks to eradicate. Ethno-nationalism seeks to establish identities free of any relation to difference: ethnically pure, homogenous identities that do not have to exist in a relationship of provocation with their others. Indeed, ethno-nationalism denies the existence of a relationship between itself and others. This denial is the basis on which ethno-nationalism exists, since to admit of such a relationship would be to admit to a heterogeneity (or plurality) that would radically contest the program of ethnic separateness and purity that ethno-nationalism represents.
p.13
Urbicide thus comprises a denial of the agonistic heterogeneity that characterises urbanity. It is this denial that comprises the principle political aim of ethno-nationalism. The destruction of urban fabric transforms agonistic heterogeneity into the antagonism of separate ethnicities. That is, urban destruction transforms the agonistic provocation (and interdependence between identity and difference) into the stalemate of antagonism.
p.13
Urbicide carves out the urban environment into enclaves in order to deny the agonism of urbanity. In so doing, urbicide creates antagonistic enclaves.
p.13
Urbicide is thus a crucial element in the self-justifying logic of ethno-nationalism. According to this circular logic, the product of urbicide (antagonistic enclaves), is the justification for the act of urbicide (the creation of ethnically homogeneous territorial entities). The antagonistic enclaves, that give ethnic separateness the appearance of being natural, are the ‘mystical foundation of authority’, or justification, for the ethnic homogenisations of ethno-nationalism of which urbicide is a central aspect.[15] The event of urbicide (the denial of agonism) is thus founded on its result (antagonistically separate enclaves) in a self-referring cycle.
p.13
The two phase of urbicide :Firstly, there is the razing of cities and towns (or areas within those urban environments) such that (the possibility of) alterity is eliminated. Secondly there is the division of cities and towns such that agonism can be transformed into antagonism.
p.13
Urbicide is thus responsible for the emergence of either dead zones or zones of separation
p.13
Urbanicide in Israel
The logics of urbicide can be seen in the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian houses (in both the West Bank, and Gaza). Israel has implemented a dual program of destroying the houses of Palestinians (Ginbar, 1997). On the one hand it has deployed its defense forces to destroy those houses that are thought to harbour terrorists (Burke, 2001, p.21; Reeves, 200, p.17). On the other hand Israel has utilised stringent planning regulations to ensure that Palestinians cannot build on land adjacent to Jewish settlements (that are themselves built on occupied territory and deemed illegal in light of UN resolutions) or in contested areas such as East Jerusalem. These planning regulations have been reinforced by an aggressive policy of demolition where houses are found to have been built without the requisite permission.
p.14
This destruction establishes zones of separation which naturalise the perception that Arabs and Jews are distinct and separate. This consolidates Israel as a homogeneous entity predicated on a claim to an origin distinct from that of the Arabs. These zones of separation thus naturalise the exclusion of Arabs who are regarded as both heterogeneous to, and thus not welcome within, the Israeli state.
p.14
Seen as urbicide, the demolition of Palestinian houses is exposed as a denial of agonism through the destruction of its conditions of possibility (urban fabric). Moreover, if this destruction is seen as urbicide, it becomes clear that it is precisely these zones of separation that must be contested, lest the antagonistic denial of heterogeneity that they represent become naturalised.
p.14
-Urbicide
Urbicide is the destruction of urban fabric insofar as it comprises the conditions of possibility of urbanity. Urbanity is characterised by an agonistic heterogeneity in which identity is constituted in relation to difference. Urbicide, in destroying the conditions of possibility of urbanity denies such heterogeneity. This denial is accomplished by transforming agonism into antagonism and thus giving the impression of having dissipated the relationship of identity to difference. Only in this way can the ethno-nationalists who practice urbicide create the fiction of ethnic separateness/purity on which their statelets are founded.
p.14-15
Reference
Lemkin R. (1994) Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation; Analysis of Government; Proposals for Redress, Washington, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, p.
Andreopoulos G. J, ed.(1994), Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, p.
Hayden R. M.(1996), ‘Imagined Communities and Real Victims: Self Determination and Ethnic-Cleansing in Yugoslavia’, American Ethnologist, Vol.23, No. 4, pp.783-801
Adams N. 1(993), ‘Architecture as the Target’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 52, pp.389-390.
Der Derian J. (1992), Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War, Oxford, Blackwell, p.
Karp D. A, Stone, Gregory P. & Yoels W. C (1991), Being Urban: A Sociology of City Life, Second Edition, London, Praeger, 1991
Wirth L. (1996), ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’ in LeGates, Richard T & Stout, Frederic, eds., The City Reader, London, Routledge, 1996, pp.189-197
Connolly W. E. (1991), Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, p.x
Ginbar Y. (1997), ‘Demolishing Peace: Israel’s policy of mass demolition of Palestinian houses in the West Bank’, B’Tselem Information Sheet, September
Burke J ; (2001), ‘Homes Razed in New Israeli Attack’, The Observer, 15th April, p.21.
Fischer H. (1999), ‘Collateral Damage’, Crimes of War :What the Public Should Know, New York, Norton, p.
Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as ‘coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79). The 1948 Genocide convention defines genocide as ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’ (Andreopoulos, 1994, Appendix 1 pp.229-233). ‘Ethnic cleansing’ is characterised by this genocidal logic insofar as it represents an attempt to erase from a given territory national/ethnical /racial/religious groups that, through their existence contest the claims of ethno-nationalists to territorial self-determination on the basis of ethnic/national homogeneity. That is, insofar as ethno-nationalists can erase plural identities from territory they can claim it as their own. The Bosnian war was thus constituted by a genocidal violence - (euphemistically) defined by those who intervened in, or observed, the conflict as ‘ethnic cleansing’ - that comprised the removal or erasure of all heterogeneous identities.
p.1
It was perhaps because these regions constituted living disproof of [ethno]nationalist ideologies that [they] have been the major theatres of...war (Hayden, 1996, p.788).
p.2
Ethno-nationalism works specifically then, to destroy (and thus deny) heterogeneity in order to advance a claim for national self-determination predicated on ethnic homogeneity. The dynamic of ethno-nationalism is threefold: political discourses legitimate the notion that heterogeneity is both threatening and unnatural, elaborate grievances felt by an ethnic group purportedly as a consequence of this heterogeneity, and deny a history of heterogeneous coexistence; political violence is mobilised to destroy heterogeneity and legitimate claims to territorial self-determination; ethnic homogeneity is consolidated and the notion of ethnic separateness is thus naturalised. (Hayden, 1996, p.788-790).
p.2
This plural/heterogeneous culture was not just represented in mixed marriages, neighbours of different ethnic origin, or those who declared themselves Yugoslavs rather than Bosnian-Serb/Croat/Muslim. It was represented in the material cultures within which everyday lives were lived.
p.2
However, it is not only symbolic buildings or significant elements of Bosnian cultural heritage that were targeted for destruction. The urban fabric of Bosnia came under a relentless assault. As Nicholas Adams notes, along with ‘mosques, churches [and] synagogues’, ‘markets, museums, libraries, cafes, in short, the places where people gather to live out their collective life, have been the focus of...attacks’. Whilst the destruction of prominent cultural symbols immediately captured the attention of observers of the conflict this more widespread destruction of the urban environment was not so quickly identified.
p.3
Early in the conflict a number of architects had noted the widespread, and yet intentional, destruction of the urban environment. They referred to this destruction as ‘urbicide’.
The urban fabric of Bosnia was targeted deliberately, a fact attested to by the manner in which the violence against the architecture of Bosnia was disproportionate to the task of killing the people of Bosnia.
p.3
‘It is the expected thing to say that people come first,’ notes Adams. ‘And they do, but the survival of architecture and urban life are important to the survival of people’ (Adams, 1993, p.390). The widespread destruction of urban fabric is the destruction of a common, shared space. Insofar as the dynamic of ethnic cleansing is that of the carving out of separate, ethnically homogeneous and self-determining territorial entities, it comprises a denial of common space through a destruction of that which attests to a record of sharing spaces – the heterogeneity of cultural heritage and the intermingling of civilian bodies.
p.3
According to these interpretations urban destruction can be understood as either (a) collateral damage, (b) the destruction of cultural heritage, and (c) a metaphor for certain concepts or values.
p.4
-Collateral damage
Collateral damage ‘occurs when attacks targeted at military objectives cause civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects’ (Fischer, 1999).
p.4
it could be argued that certain buildings were lawfully destroyed in order to achieve certain military ends. That is, the argument could be used that the buildings destroyed represented elements in logistical networks, and, hence, militarily legitimate targets.
p.5
-Destruction of cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is protected under the 1956 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. During the 1992-95 Bosnian war many buildings that would fall under the protection of the Hague Convention were destroyed. Accounts of the destruction of cultural heritage invariably see it as an element of ethnic cleansing, or the attempt to remake ‘Bosnia-Herzegovina as a series of small, pure ethnic states’ (Council of Europe, 1994). Cultural heritage is destroyed because it represents heterogeneous identities and thus what must be destroyed in order to achieve the aim of ethnic purity in a particular territory.
p.7
Interpretations of the destruction of cultural heritage argue, therefore, that certain buildings are destroyed because they represent ethnic/cultural heterogeneity.
p.7
Ethno-nationalism seeks to naturalise the idea that the so-called ‘ethnic’ groups in Bosnia are fated to live separate existences. The myth of ‘ancient hatreds’ installs the idea that ethnic groups were always distinct and in antagonistic relationships. Ethno-nationalist ideas of separation and ethnic purity are the logical outcome of the acceptance of this idea. However, such ideas are simply the myths on which the ethno-nationalist edifice is built. Indeed, as I have noted, Bosnia has a long history of pluralism and co-existence between these supposedly distinct and incompatible ethnic groups (Hayden, 1996, pp.788-790). The urban environment in cities such as Sarajevo and Mostar are testament to the pluralism/heterogeneity of Bosnia.
The co-existence of Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and vernacular buildings is a constant reminder that the nationalist project of ethnic separateness is a present day fiction belied by the past. Thus, to paraphrase Riedlmayer, ethno-nationalists sought to destroy evidence of a successfully shared past in order to legitimise a contemporary goal of ethnic separateness.
p.7
However, the destruction of the urban environment is more widespread than these symbolic buildings. Indeed it encompasses buildings that have no distinctive cultural value, or are of indistinct cultural provenance (the bland modernism of the ‘Unis Co.’ tower blocks in Sarajevo as an example). These buildings could not really be said to represent the cultural heritage of Bosnia. And thus the interpretation of urban destruction as an attack on cultural heritage provides only a partial (though striking) account of the destruction of the urban environment in Bosnia.
p.8
-Signs of Balkanisation
‘[b]alkanisation is generally understood to be the break up of larger political units into smaller, mutually hostile states which are exploited or manipulated by more powerful neighbours’ (Der Derian, 1992, pp.146-150).
p.8
The destruction of the Stari Most gave such an idea exemplary form. That is, the destruction of the last remaining bridge between the two halves of Mostar was performed by a group manipulated by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and effectively sealed the creation of two mutually hostile entities (east and west Mostar)
p.8
The problem with this interpretation of the rubble of Bosnia is that the destruction is not treated as an event worthy of attention in its own right. Rather the rubble is appropriated as a sign connotative of a more general concept. Whilst urban destruction may serve as the sign for several concepts, noting this does not get us any closer to understanding the meaning of the destruction of urban fabric.
p.9
-Urbanity and Urbicide
It is necessary, therefore, to inquire into the meaning of the term ‘urbicide’ (the Anglicisation of the Serbo- Croat ‘Urbicid’). Urbicide derives its meaning from the collocation of ‘urban’with the epithet ‘-cide’. Taken literally, urbicide refers to the ‘killing, slaughter’ or ‘slaying’ of that which is subsumed under the term ‘urban’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, Vol.III, pp.213-214).
p.9
According to the opposition urban/rural, the city represents modern progress, whilst rural life is taken to exemplify the constraints of tradition that modernity is supposed to sweep away.
p.10
Tönnie’s concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, for example, exemplify this opposition (Karp, Stone, & Yoels, 1991, pp.8-12). Where Gemeinschaft represents pre-modern social order, Gesellschaft represents the modern, specifically capitalist, social order. Gemeinschaft
represents a homogeneous feudal order ‘bound by shared values and...traditions’, Gesellschaft refers to a social order characterised by ‘heterogeneity of values and traditions’(Karp, Stone, & Yoels, 1991, pp.9).
p.10
This idea of heterogeneity is also at stake in the concept of the urban, or urbanity. In ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’, Louis Wirth argues that it is the size, density and heterogeneity of the populations of cities that constitute ‘those elements of urbanism which mark it as a distinctive mode of life’ (Wirth, 1996, p.190). Despite naming three factors that characterise urbanity, it is heterogeneity that is its principle aspect according to Wirth.
p.10
Thus if we identify urbanity as entailing, principally, heterogeneous existence, we can say that the destruction of urban life is the destruction of heterogeneity. The destruction of urban fabric, is, therefore, the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity. What is at stake in urbicide, the destruction of the buildings which establish common/shared spaces in which plural communities live their lives, is thus the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity.
p.10
- the kinship between urbicide and genocide
Genocide consisting of two distinct phases. Firstly, the ‘destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group’ and secondly, ‘imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79).
p.10-11
This defining feature led Lemkin to conclude that in genocide, violence ‘is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group’ (Lemkin, 1944, p.79).
p.11
It is integral to our understanding of ‘genocide’ that we recognise what ‘it’ is that is destroyed, and the meaning of the destruction. In genocide ‘it’ is a member of a national or ethnic group and the destruction has the meaning of the eradication of this group.
p.11
the destruction of urban fabric derived its meaning from the relationship between the destruction and what ‘it’ is that is destroyed. At the same time, they noted that what ‘it’ is that is destroyed is distinct from that destroyed in genocide.
p.11
Put simply, urbicide entails the destruction of buildings and urban fabric as elements of urbanity. Buildings are destroyed because they are the condition of possibility of urbanity. Since urbanity is constituted by heterogeneity, urbicide comprises the destruction of the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity. Moreover, this destruction is, like, genocide a two phase affair. Firstly the conditions of possibility of heterogeneity are destroyed, followed by the imposition of homogeneity.
p.11
-From agonism to antagonism
The common, shared spaces of urban environments are the condition of possibility for the agonistic co-existence of identities.
p.12
The concept of agonism is developed by William Connolly in his discussion of ‘agonistic democracy’ (Connolly, 1991, p.x). ‘Agonistic democracy’, according to Connolly, ‘affirms the indispensability of identity to life, disturbs the dogmatization of identity, and folds care for...diversity...into the strife and interdependence of identity\difference’(Connolly, 1991, p.x).
p.12
For Connolly agonism refers to the manner in which existence is a network of relations between identity and difference. Identities never exist in isolation from a constitutive otherness, or alterity, against which identity is defined. Self, according to Connolly is constituted in relation to the non-self by constituting limits at which the self ends and the other begins. In this sense, however, such identity is constantly contested by alterity. Difference, threatens to undo efforts at self-identity or presence, by contesting the boundaries of the self, the points at which self is differentiated from its other(s). This contestation constitutes existence as a continual performance of identity in relations to its other(s). Insofar as this performance takes place in the context of difference (many performances of self in relations to many others), existence is heterogeneous.
p.12
That is, alterity provokes identity into defining its boundaries as it is only through the definition of the borders of identity\difference that identity can perform itself. Moreover, these borders are constantly contested by alterity and must be re-performed in order to maintain the presence of identity.
p.12
It is this provocation that ethno-nationalism seeks to eradicate. Ethno-nationalism seeks to establish identities free of any relation to difference: ethnically pure, homogenous identities that do not have to exist in a relationship of provocation with their others. Indeed, ethno-nationalism denies the existence of a relationship between itself and others. This denial is the basis on which ethno-nationalism exists, since to admit of such a relationship would be to admit to a heterogeneity (or plurality) that would radically contest the program of ethnic separateness and purity that ethno-nationalism represents.
p.13
Urbicide thus comprises a denial of the agonistic heterogeneity that characterises urbanity. It is this denial that comprises the principle political aim of ethno-nationalism. The destruction of urban fabric transforms agonistic heterogeneity into the antagonism of separate ethnicities. That is, urban destruction transforms the agonistic provocation (and interdependence between identity and difference) into the stalemate of antagonism.
p.13
Urbicide carves out the urban environment into enclaves in order to deny the agonism of urbanity. In so doing, urbicide creates antagonistic enclaves.
p.13
Urbicide is thus a crucial element in the self-justifying logic of ethno-nationalism. According to this circular logic, the product of urbicide (antagonistic enclaves), is the justification for the act of urbicide (the creation of ethnically homogeneous territorial entities). The antagonistic enclaves, that give ethnic separateness the appearance of being natural, are the ‘mystical foundation of authority’, or justification, for the ethnic homogenisations of ethno-nationalism of which urbicide is a central aspect.[15] The event of urbicide (the denial of agonism) is thus founded on its result (antagonistically separate enclaves) in a self-referring cycle.
p.13
The two phase of urbicide :Firstly, there is the razing of cities and towns (or areas within those urban environments) such that (the possibility of) alterity is eliminated. Secondly there is the division of cities and towns such that agonism can be transformed into antagonism.
p.13
Urbicide is thus responsible for the emergence of either dead zones or zones of separation
p.13
Urbanicide in Israel
The logics of urbicide can be seen in the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian houses (in both the West Bank, and Gaza). Israel has implemented a dual program of destroying the houses of Palestinians (Ginbar, 1997). On the one hand it has deployed its defense forces to destroy those houses that are thought to harbour terrorists (Burke, 2001, p.21; Reeves, 200, p.17). On the other hand Israel has utilised stringent planning regulations to ensure that Palestinians cannot build on land adjacent to Jewish settlements (that are themselves built on occupied territory and deemed illegal in light of UN resolutions) or in contested areas such as East Jerusalem. These planning regulations have been reinforced by an aggressive policy of demolition where houses are found to have been built without the requisite permission.
p.14
This destruction establishes zones of separation which naturalise the perception that Arabs and Jews are distinct and separate. This consolidates Israel as a homogeneous entity predicated on a claim to an origin distinct from that of the Arabs. These zones of separation thus naturalise the exclusion of Arabs who are regarded as both heterogeneous to, and thus not welcome within, the Israeli state.
p.14
Seen as urbicide, the demolition of Palestinian houses is exposed as a denial of agonism through the destruction of its conditions of possibility (urban fabric). Moreover, if this destruction is seen as urbicide, it becomes clear that it is precisely these zones of separation that must be contested, lest the antagonistic denial of heterogeneity that they represent become naturalised.
p.14
-Urbicide
Urbicide is the destruction of urban fabric insofar as it comprises the conditions of possibility of urbanity. Urbanity is characterised by an agonistic heterogeneity in which identity is constituted in relation to difference. Urbicide, in destroying the conditions of possibility of urbanity denies such heterogeneity. This denial is accomplished by transforming agonism into antagonism and thus giving the impression of having dissipated the relationship of identity to difference. Only in this way can the ethno-nationalists who practice urbicide create the fiction of ethnic separateness/purity on which their statelets are founded.
p.14-15
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