The barbaric destruction of Iraq’s ancient artefacts is a war crime

Haifa Zangana

The Guardian

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The destruction of Iraqi culture continues apace. Islamic State (Isis) in Mosul, in the north of Iraq, has released footage showing a group of zealous men smashing with sledgehammers what seem to be ancient artefacts (the Assyrian protective deity in the form of a winged bull is genuine while the rest are thought to be replicas).

“These ruins behind me are idols and statues that people used to worship in the past instead of Allah,” a man in the video says. “God created us to worship him, him only – not some stones.” Earlier attacks on Mosul’s heritage by Isis targeted the tomb of Nabi Yunus (the prophet Jonah), and the grave of Abu al-Hassan al-Jazari, a 12th- and 13th-century historiographer known as ibn al-Athir.

Isis fighters destroy ancient artefacts at Mosul museum

 

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The destruction of Mosul’s history is a crime against people who are proud of their education and heritage, and fully aware of the value, for example, of the library of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria (668-627BC), with its 22,000 cuneiform tablets. Destruction of monuments that have been preserved through 14 centuries of Islam in Iraq is widely abhorred. These actions can be likened to the barbarism of an extreme sect in early Islam that demolished the shrine in Mecca.

But it is a crime that also has to be seen as part of the trajectory of cultural destruction since the invasion of 2003. This is a destruction that aims to erase memory and, above all, collective identity. Those who are responsible for historical destruction, no matter what rhetoric they adopt, must be held to account as war criminals.

Among the crimes Iraqis have witnessed in more than a decade of chaos are the use of ancient heritage sites as US bases. According to Zainab Bahrani, professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, “These sites include Ur, the legendary birthplace of Abraham; Babylon, the famed capital of Mesopotamian antiquity; and Samara, the Abbasid Islamic imperial city. The digging, bulldozing, filling of sand bags and blast-barricade containers, the building of barracks and digging of trenches into the ancient sites have destroyed thousands of years of archaeological materials, stratiography and historical data.”

Archaeological sites have been left without protection and have become easy prey to looting. In October 2010, before the rise of Isis, the Global Heritage Fund listed Nineveh among the top 12 sites in the world most threatened by irreparable loss. Historical artefacts are now sold in international markets: political corruption has swallowed most of the Iraqi budget, leaving nothing for cultural protection and development.The Geneva convention, which states that an occupying army should use all means within its power to protect the cultural heritage of an occupied country, has been defied. This behaviour has given the green light to Iraqi governments, before and after the withdrawal of US forces in 2011, to carry on what seems to many Iraqis to be a mission of destruction.

To end the process of human and cultural destruction a twofold solution is needed. First, only a national government representing all Iraqis will be able to protect national heritage. Second, world condemnation is not enough and international laws regarding human rights and protection of cultural heritage should be implemented. If not, we must simply prepare ourselves to witness further acts of madness.