Muslims need to be sensitised to their own material past [ op-ed ]

The Art Newspaper ^ | Thursday, November 2, 2006 | Alastair Northedge

[SunkenCiv]

At the end of August, The Art Newspaper revealed the stunning news that Donny George, president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq, had been forced to flee the country in fear of his life and take refuge in Damascus. In recent months, Dr George sealed up the treasures of the National Museum in Baghdad behind concrete walls, as it was too dangerous to leave them exposed. He was replaced by a relation of the Minister of Tourism, who comes from the party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric and leader of the resistance movement... Dr George has worked tirelessly since the invasion in 2003, to protect and recover the antiquities then pillaged from the museum. I have the highest admiration for what he has done. He was and is the right person to interface with Western archaeologists, for the recovery of smuggled artefacts and getting help from Western institutions. I suspect that relations with his own government were by no means so warm. The problem is not that he is a Christian, or that he was a Ba’th party official. In my experience, he did not have a great interest in the Islamic heritage, and no doubt this communicated itself to superiors, whose main interest is indeed Islam.

[SunkenCiv]

Well, duuuu-uhhh.

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[SunkenCiv]

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[blam]

Infidels.

[arthurus]

For starters, all traces of non-Islamic religion must be obliterated and the pre Mohammed past, characterized by non-Islamic religion should also be erased. The only legitimate history or culture is Islamic. That is why Mohos feel they have to raze churches and temples no matter the provenance or convert them into mosques. Where they reside in another society and cannot simply pull down churches and such they strive to build their mosques bigger than any churches or temples and preferably right next to important ones so as to overshadow them.