International law, at whose origin is the “Roerich Pact” promoted in the 1930s by Russian painter Nicholas Roerich, protects the inviolability of religious buildings and lands.
by Massimo Introvigne*
*Conclusions of the webinar “No Peace Without Real Justice for Tai Ji Men,” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers on 20 September 2024, on the eve of the UN International Day of Peace.
An article already published in Bitter Winter on September 27th, 2024.
Because of the fabricated Tai Ji Men tax case, in 2020 land in Miaoli, Taiwan, that Tai Ji Men considers as sacred and was intended for a self-cultivation center was seized, unsuccessfully auctioned off, and nationalized, generating widespread domestic and international protests. Recently, on August 2, the High Administrative Court of Taichung wrote a new chapter in this tragic history by refusing once again to rectify the injustice.
There are several violations of human rights and of the highest principles of international law in the Tai Ji Men case. One that I want to emphasize today, on the eve of the International Day of Peace, is the violation of the principle that sacred religious land should be protected and not subject to seizure for administrative reasons. This principle is strictly connected to peace.
Scholars have emphasized the importance, among other documents, of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/254 adopted on May 31, 2001. The Resolution “condemns all acts or threats of violence, destruction, damage or endangerment, directed against religious sites as such, that continue to occur in the world; calls upon all States to exert their utmost efforts to ensure that religious sites are fully respected and protected in conformity with international standards.”
As scholars, again, have noted, this Resolution went beyond previous documents on the protection of religious sites in times of war, as it stated that they should also be protected in times of peace. As we know, in United Nations document the adjective “religious” is broadly defined and includes forms of belief, such as Tai Ji Men’s, that their practitioners prefer to call “spiritual” rather than “religious.”
In this sense, international law asserting the inviolability of spiritual sites owns its founding principles to the great Russian painter Nicholas Roerich, whose work was discussed by Karolina Maria Kotkowska in one of our previous webinars. Roerich was more than an artist. With his wife Helena, he promoted Agni Yoga, a splinter group from the Theosophical Society, based on revelations they claimed to receive from mysterious Masters.
In the field of international law, however, Roerich is mostly remembered for the “Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments,” in short the Roerich Pact,” that he promoted for decades until it was signed in 1935. At that time it was, and remains, an inter-American treaty, signed by twenty-one states in the Americas and ratified by ten of them. Although the League of Nations had expressed support, World War II halted the process to making it a treaty for all continents. Yet, its principles inspired subsequent United Nations and UNESCO statements and efforts.
Roerich’s motto for the Pact was “Pax Cultura,” “Peace through Culture,” meaning that there is no peace without protection of culture. What he meant by “culture” is shown by the “Banner of Peace” that Roerich created. His idea was that this banner should be displayed on certain buildings and lands, signaling their inviolability. The banner has three red dots in a circle. While Roerich was an esoteric master and the three dots also represent the three levels of existence, in the Roerich Pact they indicate three kinds of properties to be protected, respectively in the name of art, science, and spirituality. The circle represents time, meaning that these properties should remain inviolable in all times, in peace and in war, in the present and in the future—and that their protection is essential for peace.
Tai Ji Men’s land in Miaoli is a sacred land. It was designated as such by Tai Ji Men’s Shifu (Grand Master) and is perceived as such by his dizi (disciples). As social scientists know, “sacredness” is a culturally negotiated attribute. A land or a building becomes sacred when a community invests it with a shared sacred meaning. The spirit and the letter of the Roerich Pact, and of United Nations statements on protecting spiritual sites, is that a land is not sacred because a government acknowledges it as such. It is not the government that confers sacredness; it can and should only acknowledge it.
Since the Miaoli land is a sacred land, seizing or nationalizing it and making it impossible to use the land for spiritual purposes is a violation of the international law principle of the inviolability of sacred sites. This is another reason why the Tai Ji Men case should be solved. It is also another reason to condemn the August 2 Taichung High Administrative Court decision as a lost opportunity to rectify a serious violation of both international and domestic law.