Islamic Library Burned to the Ground [Fisk ALERT]

ArabNews - Saudi Arabia ^ | 4-15-03 | Robert Fisk

[Major_Risktaker]

The poor and uneducated people in American cities would destroy Government buildings if they could get away with it.

I live is Washington DC and was wondering if the museums on the mall would be pass up by thieves (Ali-Baba's) if all events were the same.

Well, I don’t think so! The Hope Diamond would be the first item to go.

I believe evil people are the same all over the world now because of air travel and communications.

Good Luck...Hmmmmm...I wonder....

45.52 carats The Hope Diamond--the world's largest deep blue diamond--is more than a billion years old. It formed deep within the Earth and was carried by a volcanic eruption to the surface in what is now India. Since the Hope Diamond was found in the early 1600s, it has crossed oceans and continents and passed from kings to commoners.

It has been stolen and recovered, sold and resold, cut and recut. Through it all, the diamond's value increased. In 1958, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Museum, and it now belongs to the people of the United States.

Visit the Museum to learn more about the dramatic interactions between people and this diamond, and about its natural history. Visit the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals which opened in September, 1997.

[thatcher]

As with the National Antiquities Museum, this library looting and burning, may also be the work of old regime Iraqi officials. No one saw anybody ‘looting’ the museum, as they did with everyother place that was looted, it was found looted. I doubt that any of the average Iraqi people did it, but rather those who were aware of the value contained there in, and wanted to make it look like common looting.

[stop_fascism]

No one saw anybody ‘looting’ the museum

I was wondering if the staff decided it was a good time to make a few bucks in the antiquities market. As someone pointed out, the staff had months to pack up the valuables and put them in a safe place. Curious they didn't do it.

In "normal" wars the victors burn down the losers' towns, steal their valuables and rape their women. When it's an American war the loser's do all of the above, and the victors catch hell for not stopping them. If it wan't so sad, it would be funny.

[Hoppean]

Fisk may have his political biases, but the identity of the author aside, it's quite sad news to read that these materials and relics have been destroyed. Things like this do happen in war, and it's a prime example of why war is horrible. The other posters are right--it's not the US's fault, or anyone else's, really--the books got caught in the crossfire, and when war is being fought all around, cultural relics aren't foremost on the combatants' minds. It's a fact of life that relics are often lost in wars; it's happened before.

If anything good is to come out of this, I hope that events like this inspire curators and scholars and librarians the world over to review the events and try to draw up some more effective procedures to follow when war seems to be on the horizon to get these kinds of materials to safe shelter.

[ladyjane]

I thought all of the American soldiers had been informed that Saddam had plastic surgery and now looks exactly like Robert Fisk. They should shoot on sight. Didn't every one get the memo?

LOL

[stripes1776]

You mean that 1400 years of the records of one oppresive, murderous regime after another has gone up in smoke? That sounds liberating to me as if the burden of centuries of repression is lifted from one's shoulders. Too bad it couldn't have been done symbolically, but maybe this is the only way to do it.

[dennisw]

That's great!

[fire_eye]

You know... I didn't think there was anything in the world that could cause me to rationalize the burning of a library.

But the image of Fisk silhouetted against the flames, howling dismally like a kicked dog over the loss of the sacred written treasures of his beloved Islam, is delectable enough to make me think it *might* be something for which it *would* be worth burning a library...

[ambrose]

Islamic Library Burned to the Ground

Waste of good toilet paper.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Bump #14.

[LauraJean]

The American Library Association is really going to be ticked off. I will have to lurk over at the leftier leaning library blogs to see will be said.

[Hoppean]

You mean that 1400 years of the records of one oppresive, murderous regime after another has gone up in smoke? That sounds liberating to me as if the burden of centuries of repression is lifted from one's shoulders. Too bad it couldn't have been done symbolically, but maybe this is the only way to do it.

If you really mean that, now I know what Fisk meant when he made reference to "Year Zero." Most of the regimes in human history have been "oppressive and murderous," by American standards. Yet, if we burned all the records and writings from all those regimes, there really would be no written history or museums at all. It'd be as if there had been no earth, no men, no events prior to 1776 (Year Zero). Isn't that like Orwell's "memory hole" in his book _1984_?

I don't mean to come down on you, since I think you didn't really strenuously mean it, but I'm not sure I'd feel free if I knew that I wouldn't even be taught in school about "unfree" regimes of the past, or if I wanted to be a scholar or historian, I wouldn't be able to go to some archives and read those old documents for my research.

[stripes1776]

I don't mean to come down on you, since I think you didn't really strenuously mean it, but I'm not sure I'd feel free

Yes, you're right that I didn't mean it strenuously. I wasn't advocating the destruction of libraries with ancient texts in them. As I said it's too bad this couldn't be done symbolically, like toppling statues and portraits of a brutal tyrrant.

But the slums of Baghdad are worse than Haiti and Calcutta. I was trying to get inside the head of one of these slum dwellers who might have had a friend whose tongue was cut out of his mouth and then the body dropped off in the neighborhood to bleed to death in a pool of blood. It was probably a liberating moment in their minds when they set fire to a library.

I am not condoning it. But I think the rage is understandable. I don't think some one from the slums is interested in sitting down to tea and discussing the niceties of culture. For them it is a moment of rage and revenge through destruction. Not nice, but history is full of things that are not nice.

[Hoppean]

But the slums of Baghdad are worse than Haiti and Calcutta. I was trying to get inside the head of one of these slum dwellers who might have had a friend whose tongue was cut out of his mouth and then the body dropped off in the neighborhood to bleed to death in a pool of blood. It was probably a liberating moment in their minds when they set fire to a library.

That's true--that sort of rebellion happens in a lot of places. I didn't know about the comparison to Haiti and Calcutta--was it always that way, or just worsened by the sanctions over the last decade? I'd heard that before Gulf War I broke out a decade ago, the Iraqis were modernizing and on the path to breaking out of Third World status.

One of the things that surprised me watching these news reports from Iraq was how many of the Iraqis speak English, and someone told me when I asked about it that Saddam had invested a lot of money in education for the Iraqis (free college, etc.). Again, that probably changed after the sanctions started and services started dropping off in quality over the years.

[stripes1776]

I'd heard that before Gulf War I broke out a decade ago, the Iraqis were modernizing and on the path to breaking out of Third World status.

If you were an Arab Sunni Muslim and supported the Ba'ath socialist party, you did well in Saddam's regime and had acces to education. The slums are composed mostly of Shiite Muslims.

Most of the money went into Saddam's pocket, hence 43 palaces around the country. The elaborate ones with 15-ft chandeliers, marble floors, and gold toilets. He stashed billions outside the country in foreign bank accounts. I have seen estimates of $30 billion. Anyway, there is an attempt to track down this money and return it to Iraq to rebuild the country.

[Prince Hal]

Agree with comment 12! I use to work in a rare book library and hate to see such destruction, but if people care so little about their own heritage, why should we?

[Marie]

I agree with you. This is a terrible, horrible loss. These were the first writings of MANKIND, for the love of God!

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Note: this topic is from 2003. Blast from the Past. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·