The NGO World Heritage Watch has become the latest entity to question the Master Plan of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, drawn up by the Bishopric and which establishes the guidelines for the protection and sustainability of this space declared a World Heritage Site. by Unesco in 1984, after the Andalusian Ombudsman, renowned historians, scientists and intellectuals, the Mosque-Cathedral citizen platform and the Andalusian Government – although veiled – had criticized and raised objections to its content.
In its annual report, published in June and which includes a chapter by a Spanish specialist on the Córdoba monument, this world organization, which reports on spaces in danger to UNESCO, warns that the Cabildo gives absolute preeminence to the Catholic condition of the monument. building, “denying the artistic, historical and cultural values”, which are those that were recognized by the United Nations entity. It also draws attention to the fact that the Master Plan has been drafted exclusively by the ecclesiastical entity, without the participation of other local entities, contrary to what is stipulated in the World Heritage Convention. For all these reasons, it appeals to the World Heritage Committee to urge the Spanish Government to design an alternative Master Plan or modify the current one, since it is Spain, as a Member State, “that is responsible for responding for the damage that is being done to the intangible heritage of the Mosque-cathedral”.
“The Master Plan leaves aside the basic principles of the World Heritage Convention. Barely any mention is made of the Andalusian character of the monument,” the WHW report emphasizes. “The document pays very little attention to the cultural and tourist use of the Mosque-cathedral, which two million people visit each year, and yet gives prevalence to its liturgical use, which accounts for 10% of the total time it is open to the public. public. “This plan links the authenticity of the Mosque-Cathedral to its function as a Catholic church and not to the original values that determined its inclusion on the World Heritage list,” the report adds.
This statement follows the path of criticism of the Master Plan expressed by the scientific community, the citizen platform and the Andalusian Ombudsman – which in the recommendations issued in February 2024 asks the Cabildo to “adapt the contents of the Plan to the integrative understanding of the cultural values of the monumental site”―, with the difference that this time it is an international organization that questions the adaptation to the Convention of the document that must ensure the protection of the enclave in the next 10 years.
The organization concludes that the Cabildo “cannot guarantee the protection of the exceptional universal value of the Mosque-Cathedral” and asks the World Heritage Committee to demand that the Spanish State “comply with its obligations”, the first of which is to require a management plan. independent for the Mosque-cathedral or that modifies the current one, and that “urges the Bishopric to respect, promote and protect the Islamic elements.” If it does not take measures, Spain “will have to respond for the damage to the intangible elements” of the monument, its analysis adds.
“The report denounces practices in fact “which represent an unjustified occupation of the Islamic space, which endanger the authenticity of the monument and distort the heritage experience that a visitor may have when contemplating it,” explains the author of the chapter of the report dedicated to the Mosque-Cathedral, Vanesa Menéndez, doctor in Public International Law from the Autonomous University of Madrid, in a telephone conversation from Berlin. “The Master Plan, which should prevent these practices, legitimizes this discourse of the Church, without taking into account other complementary discourses,” he adds, alluding to the manifestos of experts who have warned about the manipulation of history and heritage value that The Bishopric of Córdoba has been doing in recent decades.
Menéndez’s work includes some examples of this display of Catholic iconography, such as a lectern obstructing the view of the qibla, the wall that houses the mihrab, the Islamic heart of the monument. Or the more than forty brother thrones exhibited in 2019 in the forest of columns, the most emblematic visual element of the monument, during an exhibition. Recently, the Cabildo itself has stated in the project to expand the diocesan museum of “the need to stop the cultural reduction” of the city of Córdoba, which “revolves almost exclusively around one axis: the old mosque.”
Although the NGO states in its report that the authors’ positions do not “necessarily” represent the opinion of the entity, its president, Stephan Doempke, states by email that he hopes that UNESCO and Icomos – to whom the report has been sent report― “investigate” the matter and decide whether “action” is necessary. The Master Plan is a document that must be approved by the Junta de Andalucía, competent in matters of protection of the community’s heritage, which last December gave its approval with observations – which the Cabildo promised to incorporate, although it has not yet been incorporated. has done―.
Since its first writing in 2020, and in response to requests for intervention from the scientific community and the platform, both the Government of Spain and UNESCO have insisted that they do not have the capacity to act. But Menéndez considers that UNESCO “could draw Spain’s attention” because the Basic Guidelines for the application of the World Heritage Convention stipulate the need for local entities and NGOs and interested individuals to participate in the drafting. “The Master Plan has been monopolized by the Council without citizen participation. Spain is ultimately responsible for the conservation of the heritage of humanity in international law,” he points out.
The Master Plan exalts the Catholic imprint of the monument at the cost of minimizing the Andalusian legacy. “We are faced with a cultural asset, but above all it is a cultural asset (cult). Thanks to the community of Catholic faithful, it is a heritage that remains in use (…) For all these reasons, we reiterate the definition of the building as a Cathedral,” the document states. But it not only exalts the religious activities that the temple houses – the ringing of bells, Holy Week, Corpus Christi – but also assigns the management of all cultural activity to the Osio Foundation, dependent on the Bishopric, and emphasizes that “The cult has been the reason for its origin (Mosque-Cathedral) and the cause of its maintenance throughout the centuries.”
The dean defends that the Master Plan does not ignore the Andalusian past because among the restoration projects it includes Islamic areas, and considers it a “contradiction” that it is stated that religious use is prioritized and at the same time it is pointed out that it receives two million visitors annually .
In this response, the 2014 UNESCO declaration is continually referred to, citing paragraphs that defend the importance of protecting the religious legacy in the conservation of humanity’s heritage, but it is a report prior to the numerous colonizations. of Catholic iconography – including the dismantling in 2017 of the wooden lattice, and which has not yet been replaced as ordered by the Supreme Court in 2021 – that have been denounced in recent years by scientists and intellectuals, the civil platform or the Ombudsman himself Andalusian. In relation to the Master Plan, the letter also refers to a report from the Culture Department of the Junta from 2018, which in turn includes some recommendations from the Andalusian Ombudsman of that same date and questions that “they have not noticed that iconographic expansion.”
Precisions from the Board and the Andalusian Ombudsman
The Bishopric ignores the report of the Ombudsman of 2024 in which it is stated that “there are precedents that contradict the manifestation of the Andalusian values of the complex”, and lists the installation of a lectern in the mihrab, school exhibitions little compatible with “respect for the chosen location” or the elimination, corrected, of the term “mosque” in the name and signage of the monument. “They are all actions that do not reflect an intelligent understanding of the rich and plural history in all the historical splendor of the venue.”
Even in the report favorable to the Master Plan issued by the Junta de Andalucía in December 2023, a good part of the objections are related to the need to delimit the use of the Mosque-cathedral and to give greater prominence to the Caliphal era. “The plan should define more precisely the conditions of use of the monument for sociocultural use, in a manner compatible with its conservation and its values; exhibitions, concerts, conferences (…) It is recommended that, along with the maintenance of traditional uses, the introduction of new uses and functions be controlled, limiting recreational uses that are incompatible with the heritage values of the property,” the Ministry’s report states. of Culture, after emphasizing the importance that “heritage sustainability” is not only linked to religious use, but “to others, as a cultural and tourist resource, that can be understood compatible with the memory and values of the monument.”
Menéndez responded to the Cabildo’s letter in a letter signed on September 20 in which he stressed that UNESCO recognized the “exceptional universal value” of the Mosque-cathedral for “its historical, architectural and cultural elements linked to Islam, and not for their religious affiliation to the Catholic Church since the 13th century.”
In this sense, the latest recommendations of the Ombudsman of 2024 draw attention to how the Master Plan lacks sufficient guarantees to ensure that the Junta de Andalucía can ensure that the management and use made of the premises comply with the historical, cultural and artistic values recognized by UNESCO.
UNESCO can report on the management plan that the Córdoba City Council is finalizing, and which includes as an inseparable whole the Mosque-cathedral and the historic center of the city, declared a World Heritage Site in 1994. Regarding that document, the The WHW report also expresses its misgivings about the possibility that this report – which the City Council has commissioned from a private entity and which should be approved this month – “dilutes the protection” of the Mosque-Cathedral.