US Led Loot Of Art And Culture: SAHMAT

HISTORIANS, artists and cultural activists have condemned the heinous crimes against the world’s cultural heritage in Baghdad by US led forces. They included  historian D N Jha, archaeological expert M C Joshi, culture analyst and expert Kapila Vatsyayan and well known painter Vivan Sunderam.

Conducting the press conference held at V P House, New Delhi, on April 17, well known photographer Ram Rehman called for organised  action against such vandalism, while archaeologist M C Joshi expressed anguish at the fact  that the intellectual community has not yet really protested.

Many charged at the press conference organised by Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) that the US-led forces have destroyed what even Euro-centric historians have traced to Iraq, that is the cultural genealogy of Europe to what was Mesopotamia. At the same time, the Aligarh Historians Society and Indian History Congress too have come out sharply against this cultural attack, as protests gather momentum.

Vivan Sunderam recalled his earlier visits to Iraq and the museum and said that barbarism must be met by humanism.

The SAHMAT said it is significant that a powerful art dealers lobby was at work demanding that US law  banning sale of  such pieces of art be lifted. Iraq has often been called the cradle of civilisation, it said, and India too has had its history entwined in various ways with that of Iraq --- a country which gave India its first ever known name, “Meluhha”, some 4,500 years ago.  Not only does Iraq contain the world’s earliest cities, but has vast collections of books on clay tablets in cuneiform characters, some going back to 2000 BC, including the world’s earliest inscribed codes of law.  It has preserved incredibly fine works of arts in metal, stone, brick and terracotta, dating back to 2000 BC and much beyond. These have been diligently recovered from hundreds of sites in the last two centuries by archaeologists from all over the world, and by Iraqi archaeologists themselves. Many of the most valuable of these finds were put in the National Museum of Antiquities, Baghdad, which became a repository not only of very ancient artifacts, but also of the works from the dazzling periods of Islam, notably that of the Great Abbasids (9th and 10th centuries) and the Ottoman empire. The museum was deservedly reckoned as one of the seven richest centres of historical artifacts in the world.

But no longer now. The “coalition forces” led by the US have wilfully ensured its destruction. The policy of encouraging the loot of civil and public property with a view to securing an element of support from hooligans and criminals has been a marked element in the final stages of the US-British war against Iraq.

US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to the news of the National Museum’s destruction, put his philosophy pithily in one sentence: “bad things happen in life, and people do loot.” Ominously, a powerful dealers lobby in the USA is already demanding that the much trumpeted US law against sale of stolen cultural artifacts in US be waived with regard to Iraq, so as to enable the dealers to make profit out of the artifacts looted from the National Museum as well as other museums and libraries in Iraq.

The SAHMAT said the US-British imperialists now campaign to subjugate Iraq once it became clear that no section of Iraq’s population was prepared to greet the invaders as “liberators.” Even western correspondents have reported that private houses and public buildings, warehouses, libraries and hospitals have been looted bare and burnt down in Basra and then Baghdad and other Iraqi cities in full view of the occupying forces and with their full connivance. Even the UN agencies have described the situation as “anarchy” and a plain violation of the Geneva convention by the occupying forces. The theme was elaborated by severeal speakers.

The ransacking of the National Museum at Baghdad by armed looters began on April 10, soon after the Iraqi forces had been driven out of the area of Baghdad where the museum is located. Despite the presence of US tanks in the vicinity, the looting continued for two days unchecked, till it was reported.

Condemning the attack on the historic museum in particular, the speakers at the press conference said it was a crime against the world heritage, and called for worldwide protests. The SAHMAT further urged upon the UNESCO and other cultural organisations to speak up against the barbarism. (INN)