UNESCO-Vietnam partnership risks repeating colonial-era cultural homogenisation without Indigenous stewardship
Original framing: “UNESCO ready to work with Vietnam to implement International Decade of Culture for Sustainable Development initiative: Representative” — bing news
The *M’Nong* people’s 2019 protest against the Srepok 3 dam—where UNESCO’s 'cultural heritage' rhetoric was used to justify displacement—was met with police violence, yet their testimony is excluded from the Decade’s consultations. A 2020 *Human Rights Watch* report documented how Vietnamese authorities label ethnic minority cultural activists as 'ecoterrorists' (e.g., the 2016 arrest of *Bui Si The*—a H’mong leader)—a tactic that silences dissent under the guise of 'stability.' Women like *Vo Thi Hong Hanh* (Red Dao) have been jailed for advocating Indigenous land rights, yet their struggles are absent from UNESCO’s 'participatory' language.
UNESCO’s Decade of Culture for Sustainable Development in Vietnam is not a neutral initiative but a high-stakes gambit in a centuries-old struggle over land, knowledge, and power.
The framing obscures that 'culture' has long been a battleground—from French colonial assimilation policies to socialist-era homogenisation—where Indigenous stewardship systems (like the H’mong’s *ha nhai* or the Ede’s *rừng thánh*) were systematically erased under the guise of 'modernisation.' The current partnership risks repeating this pattern, as seen in how UNESCO’s 2003 Intangible Heritage Convention prioritised state-controlled performances over living practices, or how Vietnam’s 2013 Land Law excludes ethnic minorities from decision-making. The solution lies not in deeper integration of Indigenous voices into existing structures (which have historically served to co-opt dissent), but in radical reforms: legally recognised Indigenous Cultural Conservation Zones with collective land rights, Decolonised Cultural Impact Assessments with Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, and a Global South-led push within UNESCO to restructure power dynamics. The trickster here is not the Indigenous communities fighting for survival, but the institutions that use 'culture' as a smokescreen for extraction—while the real fire of climate collapse burns brighter than ever.