Treasure in the Pantry
The American invasion of Iraq was a superb exercise from the military point of view. The "shock and awe" tactics of the First Gulf War proved just as effective the second time around and the world chuckled at the sight of Chemical Ali - or was it Tariq Aziz - insisting that there were no American tanks in Baghdad while American tanks rumbled down the street behind him.
From the long-term point of view, of course, it was a disaster - and in large part that was because George Bush and his advisers appeared not to realise that there is a difference between Europeans and Arabs. When American forces occupied Germany after the Second World War and set up a civil administration, the Germans behaved in a relatively civilised way. Apart from the minority criminal population, everyone behaved in a law-abiding way; those with jobs went to them, those without looked for work, people were grateful for whatever help was offered and where there was no help, got on with helping themselves and their neighbours. No doubt Bush and Co. thought that the Iraqis would behave in roughly the same way.
They were wrong.
There is a reason why democracy is not a success among Arabs in particular and Muslims in general and it stems from the fact that in those cultures loyalty is always to the family and clan and those outside the family are seen as enemies at worst and targets for exploitation at best. (Islam is a sort of super-family, so anyone outside the faith is hardly worthy of consideration.) In this world view, "Me" comes top of the list with "Mine" a close second and everyone else a distant third. The only way to have law and order in a Muslim country is to impose it with an iron hand because the only law recognised by the population is the law of self-interest.
When Saddam Hussein's iron hand was removed from Iraq the entire nation rose in a spontaneous orgy of looting that left Western observers open-mouthed with disbelief. People ripped up water pipes and electricity cables, smashed water pumps and destroyed generators, simply so that they could sell the bits for scrap metal. The fact that those things were essential for their neighbour's well-being counted not at all - but by the time they got home with their ill-gotten gains their neighbours had been in and stolen the infrastructure which served their own homes. Astounded at such barbarity - and ignoring their own barbarity in doing the same to those very neighbours - everyone blamed the Americans for a) not protecting them, and b) not instantly replacing the stolen equipment.
People in one part of Baghdad (or Basra or Fallujah or anywhere) regarded the people in the next door suburb as "not us" and fought, looted and killed each other. Sunni attacked the Shia, the Shia attacked the Sunni, the Kurds attacked both and everyone attacked the Christians. The idea that the man across the road or who woshipped in a different mosque might be just as human as yourself, with just as many rights as yourself, never even crossed their minds - any of their minds - and I regret to say that I rather doubt it has appeared on their mental horizons even now.
Among those places attacked and looted was the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad. Americans are justly condemned for refusing to interfere with this looting and for being more concerned with the oil ministry than with the museum, but the real guilt and blame for this, as for the rest of the problems in Iraq, lies squarely with the Iraqis themselves.
According to the best estimates, some 20,000 artefacts were looted from the museum in Baghdad alone - if we consider other museums and archaeological sites, the amount of treasure that has been lost is incalculable. Of the Baghdad artefacts, only some 5,000 have been recovered. A few were taken by responsible citizens (or citizens who discovered a belated sense of responsibilty when they thought they might be found out) to preserve them for the nation and if they were genuine, the world owes such people a debt of gratitude. The majority, however, have been recovered from antiquities dealers in Iraq or elsewhere, showing what the fate of the majority of items has been (or will be once the heat is off).
Among these recovered items are 638 bronze figurines, pieces of jewellery and an assortment of cylinder seals, which were tracked down and recovered by the Americans during their anti-insurgency operations. An official announcement was made in 2008 that the objects were to be handed back to the Iraqis and a score of cardboard boxes stuffed with priceless antiquities were dispatched to the prime minister's office.
That might have been that except for the fact that some bright young spark in the Antiquities Ministry got the idea of mounting an exhibition of recovered artefacts, perhaps in hopes of inspiring other looters, whose illegal gains have not so far been detected, to return what they have buried in the back garden. In the course of setting up this exhibition the aforesaid spark came across newspaper reports of the 638 objects and decided that they should form the core of his display. The trouble was, no one could find them!
Exactly what pressure the spark was able to bring to bear, I do not know. It seems unlikely that Mr al-Maliki, whose time is fully taken up in wrangling with his fellow politicians in an effort to make them accept that he and his family - er, party - are the natural rulers of Iraq, would voluntarily take the time to look for something so unimportant as his nation's heritage. Nonetheless the fact remains that someone was moved to actually leave his air-conditioned office and start poking around the presidential palace.
Exactly what moved this unnamed individual to investigate the president's pantry, I do not know. Personally I suspect it was information from a disgruntled individual who resented his superior (a member of another family altogether, no doubt) getting away with something. The point is that the hero of our tale started to pry among the tins of baked beans, bags of frozen peas, and slabs of halal goat, and there, still in the cardboard boxes that the Americans had used, were the 638 artefacts, all safe and sound (and, probably, awaiting the ideal moment to be smuggled out to a waiting antiquities dealer).
Unfortunately in these enlightened times (and with the Americans still far too close for comfort), such nosey individuals cannot be quietly shot and their inconvenient discoveries hushed up. Tourism and Antiquities Minister Qahtan al-Jabouri tried to save everyone's face by blaming the discovery on "inappropriate handover procedures" (unspecified) and "poor coordination" between government ministries (that at least rings true).
Personally, I would want to investigate the cook and the rest of the kitchen staff, but as they are proably all second-cousins twice removed of some pretty high-up government officials, I doubt the investigation would get anywhere. I wouldn't give much for the spark's career prospects, though.
Meanwhile photographs show the exhibition, long lines of tables crammed with priceless Sumerian and Akkadian artefacts, still in the cardboard boxes and mostly without labels or identification. American visitors - if they can tear themselves away from the oil ministry - will doubtless browse happily among these objects and attribute them all to the Greeks and Romans (the only ancient peoples the Americans seem to know about), but their complacency is likely to be jolted rather severely when they come to one of the prize objects on display, resting in its own padded aluminium case: Saddam Hussein's chromium-plated AK-47.
Now there's a cultural artefact worth preserving!
© Kendall K. Down 2010
