Everything we do, create and produce such as intellectual and artistic works, performances, etc. can be defined as culture. We own a very rich cultural heritage of the past. Yet, the common cultural heritage that belongs to the humanity continues to be looted and destroyed due to negligence, armed conflicts and wars. Even though destroying cultural heritage is a crime according to international law, common cultural heritage has been harmed to a great extent during the 20th century. The main reason for this has been the ongoing process of building “nation-states” taking place around the world since the beginning of the last century. The cultural heritage of the “other” gets neglected, to say the least, during the building stages of nation-states. But the destruction of cultural heritage that belongs to the “other” is not, if we are to use the concepts of game theory, a “zero-sum game” in which one party wins while the other loses. In fact, it is not even a lose-lose game in which both parties lose. In such conflicts the humanity loses part of its very precious and irreplaceable common cultural heritage forever. In this paper the causes of the destruction of cultural heritage and the question of to whom the neglected cultural heritage belongs are discussed and the economic and social values of cultural heritage are examined by means of the game theory. It is stressed that the future of cultural heritage along with its preservation, sharing and transmission to next generations is the common concern and responsibility of all countries and humanity.

1. The Future of Cultural Heritage
Yaşar Tonta
Hacettepe University
Department of Information Management
Ankara, Turkey
yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/tonta.html
yasartonta@gmail.com
@yasartonta
1st International Conference DIM 2015, Valletta, Malta

5. (Balta, 2014, p. 196)

6. What is Cultural Heritage?
“the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible
attributes of a group or society that are inherited
from past generations, maintained in the present
and bestowed for the benefit of future
generations”
• Monuments
• Group of structures
• Sites
Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/

7. Why is Cultural Heritage Neglected?
• Definition of “citizenship” of
nation-states
• New nationalism
• Intentional collective amnesia or
denial contributes to nation-
building efforts . . .
(Van der Auwera, 2012)

8. Although we are Rums, we don’t know Greek and we speak Turkish
We don’t write and we don’t read Turkish, and we don’t speak Greek either.
We are a mixture. Our alphabet is Greek and we speak Turkish
(Balta, 2012, p. 117)

9. (Balta, 2012, p. 76, 78)

10. It was mandatory to speak
Greek during local election
campaigns to address
newly migrated Muslim
population after the
population exchange in
1923-1924
(Belli, 2004, p.
29)

11. Birth in one place,
growing old in
another place.
And feeling a stranger
in two places.
Ayşe Lahur Kırtunç
Twice a Stranger

15. Destruction of cultural works, places of
worship, and memory institutions of
libraries, archives and museums in
wars and armed conflicts is a “war
crime”. (1949 Geneva Convention,
Article 53)

16. “the Balkan Alzheimer’s
disease”
Photo: Y. Tonta, CC-BY

18. The Neglected Culture
Whose culture is it?
Why are we “selective” about
our cultural heritage?

19. Kaynak: http://www.kenney-mencher.com/pic_old/fertile_crescent_egypt/lesson_5_historic_era_fertile_crescent.htm

24. Genetic Legacy of Anatolia
Less than 9% of the genes (Y-
chromosome) of Turkish people
inherited from the Turkic speaking
people of Central Asia. . .

25. States that existed in Anatolia

26. 1.7

27. 1.07-2.26

28. 3

29. 5

30. Preservation of cultural
heritage and game theory

31. The payoff matrix
The game tree

32. Would this game scenario work in
real life?

33. Is it possible to preserve
cultural heritage
collaboratively?

34. “rights relating to cultural heritage are
inherent in the right to participate in
cultural life”.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights , Article 27

35. Homo culturalis
(Güvenç, 1995, p. 196)

36. Sources for Slides
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37. Sources for Slides (cont’d)
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38. The Future of Cultural Heritage
Yaşar Tonta
Hacettepe University
Department of Information Management
Ankara, Turkey
yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/tonta.html
yasartonta@gmail.com
@yasartonta
1st International Conference DIM 2015, Valletta, Malta
Full-text: http://bit.ly/1I8dFwn
Presentation slides: http://bit.ly/1Nc02M2