Ethics of War : What is Urbicide?

URBICIDE by Peter Park

So what is Urbicide? It is a combination of words 'Urban' and '-cide' and it was after the war in Bosnia that the term was first begun to be used by scholars.

The official definitions are;

1. Deliberate wrecking or killing of the city,

2.Destruction of built environment.

As you may have noticed, the term '-cide' is a human-centric term as it means 'to kill or cut a human being'. i.e.. homicide: to kill a person by another person. Suidcide: to kill oneself. etc.

The scholars who first began to use this term obviously meant to portray buildings or man made structures as victim, not as dispensable objects.

According to Martin Coward, a senior lecturer at New Castle University, Urbicide is a distinct form of political violence.

He explains his definition as follows;

1. Built environments are not merely back drops of human lives but represent relationships between you and your surroundings. When you walk out the door, you'll see various different built structures such as the house next door, a church across the street, dairy store down a block, bus stop 200m to the left of your house, etc. You form your life based on that physical relationship between you and your surrounding structures as a guide.

2. Built structures represent how, when, where, with whom we interact and conduct our daily lives. As you structure your life guided by your direct relationship with your surrounding structures, you construct your relationship with other human beings within that geographical frame. For example, first thing you do since moving into that neighbourhood is to drop by the local dairy to buy news paper. You developed that habit because the dairy happens to be very close to your home and the store owner strikes pleasant conversations every morning. What a good way to start the day!

3. Built structures are gathering spaces through which communities ( polis) are formed based on such interactions.

Ok. brief extra definition or rather, a history of a word polis here would be extra helpful.

The word comes from the Greek word from which the title of Aristotle's books Politics (politika) derives: "affairs of the cities", a dissertation on governing and governments, which was rendered in English in the mid-15th century as Latinized "Polettiques". Thus it became "politics" in Middle English . The singular politic first attested in English 1430 and comes from Middle French politique, in turn from Latin politicus,^[2] which is the Latinization of the Greek πολιτικός (politikos), meaning amongst others "of, for, or relating to citizens", "civil", "civic", "belonging to the state",^[3] in turn from πολίτης (polites), "citizen"^[4] and that from πόλις (polis), "city

So, the attack on buildings are attack on communal political culture, thus urbicide is a political violence on the whole community.

Furthermore, in my personal view, the building are materialisation of our ideals. Of course we build to make our lives convenient, but at very fundamental level we imagine our lives before we build certain structures, imagine the specific venues where we dream of enriching our lives interacting with others there, conduct businesses here and even just resting there. Destruction of built environment is attack on very personal level that impacts on every member of the society.

Slaveneka Drakulic

Slaveneka Drakulic is a Croatian writer and she described this sentiment (that of building being the expression of collective human ideals) through her memoir of Bosnian War, especially the destruction of Stari Most bridge, in which she expressed feeling more sorrow at seeing the collapsed bridge than a woman whose throat has been slit. Because the bridge represented every one of the society.

Below is a short video clip of the Stari Most (Old Bridge) being deliberately targeted and destroyed by artillery fire. You can see the bridge is already in horrible state due to continued battle there but it was kept as best by the locals. Tires, wood sticks, boards, and wires are used to hold them together (and to offer some cover from sniper fire)

Top is a beautiful photo of the original bridge before the war. (Digitally enhanced of course!)

You can almost feel the pain when looking at the video clip.

Max Weber,( a German renaissance man, as he was a economist, Sociologist, Historian, Jurist, Philosopher, and Political Scientist)

said “City is a place of civility and other formation of urban culture”

- If I correctly interpreted his definition of a city, the destruction of a city structure means a destruction of civility and culture and violence against it is an introduction of something very foreign, anti-culture, and anti-civilization. - I can not agree more especially after seeing above photo & video.

Stephen Graham in his article, ‘Lessons in Urbicide’ points out that Urbicide usually requires planning, whereas ‘urban-destruction’ merely states destruction of inorganic representation of materials which form the shape of city.

His example of IDF action against Palestinian in Operation Defensive Shield perfectly demonstrates scope of Urbicide and how it is very deliberate.

Below is the brief description of the IDF's Operation Defensive Shield.

Operation Defensive Shield:

- Primary Weapon: Armoured C9 CAT Bulldozer

- 40,000 Sq metre destroyed
- 52 Palestinians killed
- 140 multi-family housing blocks demolished
- 1500 damaged
- 4,000 residents displaced (as their house no longer exists)
- Cultural and administrative facilities destroyed

The picture below demonstrates how the bulldozer did the damage. As you can see, the operation is designed to make life difficult for Palestinians. Destroying the road and sidewalk... what for?

Purpose was to destroy urban foundation of a proto-Palestinian state, and to improve IDF monitoring of Palestinians, to create buffer zone around Jewish settlements.
Israel govt intended to strangle all forms of civic life by destroying any modern facilities that are essential to contemporary livelihood - de-modernisation of Palestinian area followed by Modernisation of Jewish settlements adjacent to it. - creating stark contrast between the Palestinians and Israelis.
Also, method of 'strangulation' of civic life and immobility followed in the form of curfew, random raid, random arrests, check points, walls, road blocks, and surveillance. .. and destruction of the road networks.

Motivations for Urbicide - Israeli case

1. Demographic Anxieties: dwindling Jewish population growth rate vs. exponential Palestinian birth rate which would overtake Jewish population by 2020. Extensive walls built to stop expanding urban areas and to separate Jewish area and Palestinian area. - division, a separation from previous relationships within the city.
2. Medical imagery : Israeli officials saw the urbanisation of Palestinian area as ‘cancer’ which needs to be wiped out before causing bigger trouble for Israel.
3. Unclean Spaces: dense unplanned urbanisation rendered Israeli monitoring of the Palestinian population highly ineffective. Increasing urban warfare means Palestinians may have upper-hand in future urban battles. Ease of attack and ease of surveillance required for Israel.

** Operation Defensive Shield not only destroyed housing blocks, but also electronic communications, water tanks, computers in businesses and houses, financial or operational records of small businesses also confiscated and burned. Hospitals were also bombed and some ambulance crew were shot and killed as they attempted to cross the operational zone to help the wounded Palestinians.

Key Characteristics of many Urbicide

Systematic Planning & involvement of large number of participants
Rationalisation of actions - they always argue for military necessity or for better living spaces, etc etc.
Always targets densely populated area - to maximise damage and to make the effect longer lasting.
Dehumanizes the population - often the victims are called rats, cockroaches, or cancer.
Targets most symbolic cultural structures

Some notable cases

New York City - Urban Renewal (1951) which destroyed predominantly African-American neighbourhood so white businessmen could develop and make profit