Limitation of Urbicide

                                                             Limitation of Urbicide

Urbicide is explained as the destruction of infrastructural, cultural and heritage sites, affecting the mundane components of built environment. As importance it is to know the definition of this term, it has never been a more contested political, social and geopolitical issue.

Hiroshima.

Atomic Bomb in Tokyo

Martin Coward asserts that the concept of urbanity should be understood by widening its existential quality, which is not limited within the boundaries of the city. He explains that the destruction of buildings is not confined to “urban” context only. There has been instance of destructions of villages and farms in 1992-95 Bosnia war or in Israel-Palestine conflict. Ignorance of such rural destruction restricts the analysis of urbicide. Coward explains, that confining urbicide to only cities reflects a stereotypical definition of rural-urban continuum, which only focuses on the urban destruction thereby giving less importance to rural counterparts. 

He further asserts urbicide, as a concept with a distinct form of political violence, which is not limited to the ‘revenge of countryside’ but spreads to its material environment. He asserts that the whole point of destroying a built environment is not limited to terminating culture confrontation but targets the spaces such cultures represents. Politics of exclusion is also related to the concept of urbicide. It is manifested in such a manner that it is responsible for ethnic nationalism. Coward explains that the limitation of urbicide by targeting a particular ethnicity is no different than genocide as ethnicity is closely linked with a territory (making the former drawing upon notions of historical attachments).

David Campbell andStephen Graham have explained urbicide by comparing the concept with other inter-disciplines like sociology, political theory, geography, international politics etc. They described urbicide as a combination of violent politics and metropolitan existence. They assert that urbicide is responsible for destroying a network of identity or a difference a particular community enacts on a terrain, and rebuilding houses on the very terrain of the community, develops an antagonistic attitude towards governments.

Urbicide is closely related to the destruction of identity or a symbolic representation of such identities. The cultural heritage sites falls into such category. One such example is the destruction of Stari Most, a 16^th century Ottoman bridge.

Stari Most Bride 

Destruction of Stari Most

The bride is in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it connected the two parts of the river Nereteva. The bridge was an important cultural site, which stood there for 427 years and was destroyed in 1993 during the Bosnian war. The Stari Most, not only connected the two sides of the river but made people communicate and connect with each other. It was a symbol of cultural acceptance, and showcased harmony between the two cities.  It was the most remarkable landmark and one of the exemplary pieces of Islamic architecture. Urbicide against Stari Most illustrated violence against the Bosnians and their heritage.  Urbicide therefore is not limited only to the destruction of built environment but targets connective thread between people and their cultural spaces.  

Ariel photo of Jenin Camp

One can understand the limitation of urbicide by considering the recent example of destruction of Jenin refugee camp by Israel in April 2002. Israel claimed that the invasion was purely targeted towards the terrorist organisation behind the Palestinian suicide attacks. But when looked at the use of bulldozer by the Israel government on the Jenin camp, the story seemed different. Instead, the whole purpose was to destroy the urban, civil and infrastructure foundations of the proto-Palestinian state. And clearly, the strategy used was “Urbicide”. Stephen Graham asserts that urbicide does not just inflict destruction of a city but aims at denying people their collective, individual and cultural rights to the destroyed city, where they have enjoyed and cherished memories.

Urbicide can also be called as “infrastructure warfare” alternatively. Infrastructure warfare is destruction in a broader context of systematic infrastructural planning thereby preventing resettlement of people through the tool of fear. Clearly, urbicide was used as a tool to undermine the Palestinian people from the hope of building their territory or infrastructure again.

There are various limitation of urbicide, which explains the increasing role of cities in our globalized world and the reason of them becoming the dominant sites of destruction, terrorism, insurgency and violence.

The World Trade Centre 

Recently, the concept of urbicide was re-invoked, when the World Trade Centre in New York were attacked on September 11^th 2001. Michael Rafier regards the “destruction of these buildings as a deliberate attempt to erase a structure that represents a certain kind of identity or way of life”. Scholar like Jane Jacobs asserts cities of capitalism (New York) are easily vulnerable to the attack on their architecture as they represent a distinct form of violence against urbanity. Destruction of the two towers was an attack on the identity of the New York City. It terrified people and the empty space is a reminder of that horrifying day. The aftermath of urbicide is the constant reminder of the unfortunate event that took place, forcing people to go back in time and re-live the moment.

Urbicide destroys the cities, identities and the courage of rebuilding. As a tool of warfare, urbicide is one of the most destructive one. Previously, battles were fought in open grounds, where houses and market places were not affected. The day-to-day life was not interrupted. But today wars are fought in living rooms, schools and supermarkets. Marshall Berman asserts that as long as people have lived in the cities, they have been haunted by the fears of urban ruins.

Graham andCampbell have explained concept of urbicide with three folded impacts. Firstly, the development of war with urban impacts, results into a production of spatial distribution of population hence showcasing politics of exclusion by urbicide. Secondly, common examples of urban wars, conducted within a specific theatre. Thirdly, they explain that urbanity has a symbolic purpose of violence i.e. by population transfer, ethnic cleansing, symbolic destruction of material culture, exceeding the conventional understanding of what purposive and strategic war was. City, urbanity and war need to be understood as processes than just fixed terms. Urbicide is an emerging conflict responsible for refiguring geopolitics and requires to be considered as an operating concept responsible for destructions deeper than buildings.

                                                         Recent example of Urbicide.

 by- Ritika Rajoura.

Human Terrain System

Human Terrain System

On the first of July 2002 Uruzgan in Afghanistan, the United States military dropped bombs on two unsuspecting happy families who were celebrating a recent wedding.

An Afghan man with his children who were killed during the attacks. 

The wedding party had fired two shots into the air, a custom common to Pashtun wedding ceremonies. Interpreting this as a hostile attack, the US military sent a plane to shoot and pursue villagers resulting in 89 deaths and 200 wounded.

Incidents such as this highlight the need for local knowledge and supports counterinsurgency programs such as the Human Terrain System. For so many lives to be damaged on the basis of a misinterpretation seems astounding. It raises the question; if the military had been aware of local customs and known there was a chance that shots could be fired unrelated to acts of aggression, could this incident have been prevented?

What is the HTS?

In recent years, there has been a shift in military strategy from large scale assaults to a more people centred approach, focusing on the human terrain as much as the physical terrain. The Human Terrain Strategy is motivated by the idea that by understanding the society the military is engaged with, the need for lethal force will be minimised. Their task is to provide for the military’s ‘cultural knowledge needs’ by conducting social science research. This social research is aimed ac development programs

The HTS has claimed that “they were reducing the need for “kinetic” (violent) operations that arose from “cultural misunderstandings” on the part of U.S. forces while simultaneously providing aid and services to local communities, helping to win “hearts and minds” and thus again reduce the need for lethal operations” . 

The HTS' aims are to:

• To prevent culutral misunderstandings by exercising tact, empathy and cross cultural dialogue 
• Reduce civilian casualties
• Provide research to commanders enabling them to consider the possible consequences of their  decisions for the local populations 
• Reduce structural violence  through reconstruction and basic development programs

While the first three are the most contested, the last aim of aiding reconstruction is one in which the HTS has been the most successful. The HTS, by aiding the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, has been able to help restore basic services to areas of conflict– such as rubbish collection, schools, provision of clean water and electricity. 

 PRT work with locals to build schools.

The following video highlights how the HTS is able to increase interactions with local people in Afghanistan. By asking their opinions of the problems the village faces and by presenting interactions with the military in an unaggressive context, HTS aids the tasks of the reconstruction teams.

Critics

It is important to note,  in this video the questions the HTS team asked the villagers included the ethnic make up of the village, the general feeling and who the key leaders were. These might serve as proxies to address grievances but could also be used to understand the likelihood of insurgents gaining support and who the key leaders the communities would turn to.

From this it can be seen how criticisms arise that question HTS’ claim that it is not an intelligence gathering mission. Indeed there have been a few cases which spying occurred

within the program itself through the acquisition of information from the private field notes of civilian members of the Human Terrain Teams. However, this was not intentional on behalf of the HTS programme itself. More worrying than the accidental release of information, is the HTS contribution to the overall strategy. Individual pieces of information gained can be controlled, but there is no way to assess how this information contributes to the collective knowledge which enables a commander to target an enemy.

The type of questions asked in the above video also illustrate the emphasis placed on judging the general feelings of people. No doubt this is related to anticipating frustrations that are likely to gain insurgents support. One of the biggest criticisms of the HTS is that it claims to be “population focused” and genuinely caring about the local populations but the real purpose is focused on the military strategy of knowing the enemy. Jonathan Gilmore argues that while HTS emphasises the importance of local engagement and is contrasted to the aggressive military strategy, it is not actually replacing military techniques.  Rather the war fighting is included in the wider counterinsurgency approach and is instead concealed by a human security agenda. According to Maja Zehfuss, HTS is representing the ‘human dimension’ as a knowable, objective backdrop to military operations to be manipulated in pursuit of military objectives.  However, it is important when assessing the HTS to remember that it is an army organisation. The army’s primary goal is to achieve a victory in the war it is conducting. To criticise the motivations of the HTS as using local knowledge to improve strategy seems redundant.

The criticism that holds most value is one that focuses on representing problems experienced in Afghanistan as cultural miscommunication. HTS views culture through a lens that has already assumed insurgency is the result of clashing values. It presents the problem as if only the locals understood how the foreign values would benefit them; their acceptance of the US forces would be much greater. This condenses the grievances that drive insurgencies into a straightforward miscommunication problem.

Critics have questioned the HTS’s claim that a population centric focus can help save lives. They claim that the reduced death toll is based on military opinion rather than fact. Pentagon officials have failed to answer requests for data to back up the claim. 

By the end of 2003, the US government had changed its approach from large-scale assaults to a more population centric approach. Whilst, there might not be concrete data to substantiate how HTS has decreased casualties, the below graph shows a significant decrease in the number of casualties that occurred between 2002 and 2006. Around this time, domestic support for the war in Iraq has waned and so the military was rushed to reach a decisive victory. It has been argued, that this shows that when a population focus was taken, it reduced the number of casualties. Which then increased once the military strategy changed. 

Changing the counterinsurgency approach to be more population focused did seem to reduce casualties. Even if the evidence is not explicitly linked to the HTS, it still is an organisation that helps promote the people focused approach.

These criticisms of the HTS can be addressed with one over arching question of what would be the alternative? While promoting cultural dialogue does run the risk of framing insurgency as cultural miscommunication, having no engagement with the local individuals whose lives are most affected by war would lead to more events such as the wedding ‘accident’ of 2002. The above video demonstrated the simplistic manner in which the army are trained to understand local culture, underestimates how many values are universal. However, as the FM 3-24 has stated there are many customs especially regarding religion and gender, which are not common to the US. To have troops present in a country, which have no knowledge of the customs they could be breaking, seems unethical.