As we saw in the two last lessons, the contemporary world rightly considers that the destruction of sites, monuments, artifacts of the cultural heritage of any place and time is a crime against humankind, because these sites, monuments, artifacts are a universal heritage of humankind, as they are the production of human civilizations on the planet. Sites, monuments or artifacts must not be damaged for economic interests of individual persons or individual groups, as happens with illicit diggings, nor must they arbitrarily destroyed for political, ideological, and religious reasons of groups holding power for some time in the places where those parts of the heritage are physically to be found. Every site, monument, artifact of the cultural heritage, precisely because it is humankind's universal heritage, must be rescued by the abuses, revolutions, and storms of history. The universal heritage has already lost too many of humankind's cultural possessions during the unending storms of History, and we can no more endure to assist powerless to new dramatic losses in the name of a political ideology, or of a religious belief. The commitment of International Organizations, UNESCO first and foremost, is to establish conventions and declarations which, as concerns the safeguard of the cultural heritage, contain general principles, accepted by all the Countries in the world, as well as special procedures for protection in times of crisis, for which there is an agreement at least among the largest part of the Countries member of UNESCO. As already maintained, the basic principles are three: First, all the artifacts of culture, from whichever civilization, place, and time, made on our planet, as humankind's universal cultural heritage, must not be damaged or destroyed. Second, all the artifacts of culture, from whichever civilization, place, and time made on our planet, are equal, as men are equal: they have the same dignity and they deserve the same respect. Third, all the artifacts of culture, from whichever civilization, place, and time, made on our planet without distinction, have to be safeguarded and protected against any damage and destruction, by the Authorities of the Counties where they are located. In particular, UNESCO issued, by means of its official documents, which should be respected by all member Countries, precise rules concerning the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflicts, but these rules concern traditional wars, which, as is known, are, so to say, governed by conventions, respected until a few decade ago, concerning, for instance, prisoners in occupied territories. These rules are still very important, but, generally speaking, we should say they were respected even before they were issued by UNESCO, when, for instance, Anglo-American Liberation Army occupied Italy at the end of the Second World War between 1944 and 1945, whereas they were only belatedly respected by the United States of America, during the 2003 war in Iraq. In the first instance, the cooperation among British, American, and Italian scholars and soldiers was exemplary, and the cultural heritage of Italy suffered damages from shelling only previous to the creation of a committee for the safeguard of Italian heritage during military occupation. In the second instance, the cooperation among American and Iraqi scholars and soldiers was late, and took place only after the devastation of the Iraqi Museum, and of the National Library of Baghdad, which took place without prevention, or repression by the American military forces present there. Why were such different behaviors assumed in two military interventions, in Italy, and in Iraq, only nearly 60 years apart, by more or less, the same protagonists, namely the Liberation Armed Forces of the United States of America and the United Kingdom? An apparent simplistic answer, but probably imbued with truth is that, as concerned Italy, Anglo-American perceived its heritage as a part of their own historical heritage, and therefore they wished to protect it, because they felt it as their own. On the contrary, as concerned Iraq, its cultural heritage was felt to be alien to the tradition of Anglo-American culture. Even more, it was felt as the foundation of the Islamic world, a profoundly hostile and radically inimical world, which had to be destroyed. We should start precisely from this consideration, in order to impose a new, and revolutionary way of thinking of the contemporary world facing the cultural heritage. The foundation for this revolution, leading to the triumph of a feeling of deep respect and to actions of strong protection of the cultural heritage is the following: the cultural heritage we have to respect, to revere, and to protect in every place of our planet is not only our own cultural heritage, of which we are, in a direct, or indirect way, the objective heirs, or we subjectively feel we are, but it is also the cultural heritage foreign to us, and with which we do not have or we feel we do not have any relation. This behavior, which cannot know exceptions, will be asserted only if all people of every Country, of every culture, of every religion will strongly convince themselves of the two UNESCO principles mentioned above: the cultural heritage is universal because it belongs to everyone, and all the artifacts of the heritage are equal, because they have to be respected by everyone. Many of us might believe that this is a paradox, but we all have to acknowledge that these two principles must be fully accepted, without reserve, in the depth of our consciences. Only if this will be the common attitude of the future humankind facing the cultural heritage of the past, whichever is our culture and wherever, rightly or wrongly, we acknowledge the roots of our culture, the present of everyone in our planet will be everywhere less obscure than today. The terrible hatred which, still in our days, rouses local, regional, and intra-state conflicts, with unprecedented sufferings for hundreds of thousands of human beings, often has more or less hidden economic reasons, but they are also often cloaked by ideological, political, or religious reasons. These last reasons are based on a merciless intolerance against the culture of the “other”, on a complete refusal of the culture of the “other”, on the wish to annihilate the “other” and his culture. The arrogant pride for one's own culture and the disdainful humiliation of the culture of the “other” must be rejected, and the recognition of the value of the “other” cultures, without repudiating the values of one's own culture in which one has faith, must be asserted. If the people of our time will really succeed in accomplishing, with a complete sincerity, this extraordinary ideological revolution, made of respect, and understanding, towards which already several ideologies, and religions of our times are oriented, the universal cultural heritage will become a treasure of values for the whole humankind. These values are different, but for this even more fascinating, as they are the product of human history through the centuries. In this perspective, humankind’s cultural heritage will naturally, and objectively become a spur, and a support for dialogue among different cultures, and the irreplaceable foundation for a just, and durable piece.
