Isis destroys Iraqis’ heritage, but it can’t erase their identity

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/06/isis-destroy-iraqi-artefacts

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“You understand that you cannot write about Iraq without knowing the people and the history also?” my friend Ahmad asked me when we first met, on the eve of the war in 2003. He added, with matter-of-fact pride: “This is where civilisation began.”

While Egyptians might disagree, my friend had a point. Within 60 miles of where we were speaking were the ruins of the great cities of the Assyrian empire, Nineveh and Nimrud. Down near Kirkuk was Baba Gurgur, a place where the earth burst forth in fire. Today it is an oil field but locals think it is the site of the fiery furnace into which Daniel was cast. Others say it was a site of pre-historic fire worship, the wellspring for Zoroastrianism and Yazidism. Follow the Tigris and Euphrates all the way down to the Persian gulf and you will find remnants of the Mesopotamian civilisations: Babylon has been excavated. A ziggurat at Ur marks the place where Abraham became the first idol smasher and founded monotheism.

This rich history is known to Iraqis, or if you are a cynic and think Iraq is a colonial creation, call them Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis, Shias – no matter, they are proud of it. To have been born in the cradle of civilisation is as much a part of their identity as Islam or any of the other faiths that survive in the country – or have survived until recently.

Now Islamic State (Isis) is trying to destroy the visible remains of this history: last month at the Mosul museum; and now at Nimrud. In an Isis propaganda video showing the assault on the museum, a man says: “These artefacts behind me are idols for people from ancient times who worshipped them instead of God. The prophet removed and buried the idols in Mecca with his blessed hands.”

The distinction between idols being worshipped and these artefacts of human history is lost on Isis. Violence is what it does, the more murderous and bizarre the better.

And Iraqis can only lament. Dr Lamia al-Gailani, an Iraqi archaeologist, was close to tears on the BBC World Service earlier today. “I wish it is a nightmare, so I [can] wake up in the morning and it will not be true.”

She added: “I don’t know what they are doing. They are erasing our history.”

The history of a people is everything. In war, aggressors can butcher individuals in a thousand grotesque ways but it is time consuming. Destroy the symbols of a people’s history and you can more easily conquer a whole society.

Isis, in its perverted way, understands this, so it is trying to destroy the history of the region it dominates. (It hasn’t conquered it. It can clear an area but can’t hold it and administer it.)

Syncretism is the true religion of northern Iraq. Long before Islam, the fertile plains between Nineveh and Nimrud all the way up into the foothills of Kurdistan were home to an astonishing array of faiths: Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Yazidism and various Christian sects. In some villages fertility rites that predate all these are still practiced when a new season’s crops are sown.

When Isis swept into the area last spring, its first assault on history was to try and eradicate these groups. It succeeded in driving most away. Now it is assaulting the physical remains of the area’s history. Bulldozers are at work in Nimrud. According to Gailani, much is still standing, including a few of the giant winged bulls that are a symbol of the long-vanished hegemony of the Assyrian empire.

Nimrud is a big site, so it will take a while to totally destroy it. That is a small mercy and so is this thought: Isis is a morbid symptom. It is neither Islamic, nor is it a state. The destruction of a nation’s history is a tactic to pacify its people. But too many Iraqis are like Ahmad and Ghailani. They know their history, they breathe it, they embody it. Their knowledge, their identity will not be erased by these murderers.