President-elect Joe Biden has indicated that his administration will reembrace multilateralism. Many Biden supporters suspect he will reengage with international organizations with which President Trump severed ties. Biden has already said he will rejoin the World Health Organization. Many liberals demand he also return to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, United Nations Human Rights Council, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (commonly known as UNESCO).
To reembrace UNESCO might be the most difficult: U.S. law dictates that the United States cannot fund any international organization that recognizes Palestine as a full member or gives the Palestine Liberation Organization equivalent status. While UNESCO says it has depoliticized its operations, its partisanship in the Arab-Israel conflict was not the only area that cast doubt on the organization’s commitment to place technocratic merit above politics in the protection of cultural and religious sites.
Consider Nagorno-Karabakh: Whether an observer is partisan to the narratives of Azerbaijan, Armenia, or draws an equivalence between the claims of both, there are several indisputable facts: Trust between Armenians and Azeris is low. The region and nearby areas such as the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan have been subject to waves of ethnic cleansing compounded by the cynicism of past Soviet rulers.
The most recent war has only compounded the problem. Azeri forces, aided by Turkish Special Forces, conquered the mountaintop city of Shushi or, as the Azerbaijanis call it, Shusha. The town was home to major churches, many of which Azeri forces damaged or vandalized, as well as Christian cemeteries, which Azeri troops videotaped themselves desecrating. That Azeris root their destruction of Christian heritage in supposed Armenian neglect of Muslim sites simply suggests a purposefulness to Baku’s efforts to cleanse the region not only of Armenians, but also of their cultural heritage in the region.
Such moves appear state-sponsored: While Russian peacekeepers stopped Azeri forces from entering the ninth century Dadivank monastery, Azerbaijan then sent a delegation from the Christian Udi sect, a move reminiscent of the Islamic Republic of Iran using the Neturei Karta Jewish sect in order to bestow religious legitimacy to its own anti-Semitic positions. That Baku subsequently appointed its own Udi preacher to claim ownership of the monastery complex appears a further move in an anti-Armenian jihad as the move would end more than a millennium of Armenian title. Azerbaijani Udi should not allow themselves to be used in such a way, though they may fear the consequences should they object to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s actions.
It is in such a situation that UNESCO could be most valuable had its leadership not appointed Mehriban Aliyeva, Aliyev’s wife and now Aliyev’s vice president and presumed successor, to be a goodwill ambassador. While UNESCO praised Mehriban’s role in “international cultural exchanges,” she sat aside Turkish first lady Emine Erdogan as Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised “The Islamic Army of the Caucasus” and Aliyev laid claim not only to Nagorno-Karabakh but also to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
UNESCO employs many uniquely qualified goodwill ambassadors. Forest Whitaker, Herbie Hancock, and Nadia Nadim are each accomplished in their fields and have dedicated their careers to the promotion of culture. With Mehriban Aliyeva’s appointment, UNESCO equates lifelong cultural achievement and the overcoming of adversity with the accomplishment of marrying a dictator.
If UNESCO seeks support from the United States, it needs reform. It needs officials who stand against ethnic cleansing, rather than those who applaud it. Until such a time as UNESCO recognizes this, further funding can be detrimental as autocrats and bigots recognize that they can use the body to legitimize and provide cover for their efforts to eradicate culture and wage religious warfare.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
