Saving Antiquities and Cultural Patrimony: Double Standards When There Are No Americans to Blame?

Antiquities, cultures, protection of patrimony, and the value of the past are some of the topics covered in a thought-provoking editorial written by Dennis Sevakis last week in The American Thinker.

Sevakis argues that the media demonized the US military for not doing enough to protect the Iraqi Museum from looting, even though what looting occurred was not as substantial as the initial press reports and that the looting was largely done by Iraqi citizens themselves.  He contrasts this to the collections of the British Museum and the Louvre which in no small part were fed by war spoils of the past empires of Britain and France. 

He contrasts the outcry over the Iraqi Museum controversy with the silence that largely surrounds the daily destruction of ancient European sites in the name of modern progress. "A hazard that is characteristic of our modern world is the destruction of our own historical heritage. Destruction, that is, of the bits that get in our way, ancient or recent, buried or otherwise. Artifacts that happen to be inconveniently placed and which frustrate government initiatives," he writes.

Sevakis cites a variety of examples ... the destruction of an important Augustan-era site in Spain to make way for a municipal car park, and the loss of an important Roman road in Paris among others.

"Where’s the outrage?" he comments.  "Where are the talking heads decrying this abomination? The video depicting the destruction of ancient treasures? The pillaging of history? Where are the Americans? Nowhere to be found? Whoops! Can’t blame them. And there seems little likelihood that the Spaniards, like the Iraqis before them and the French after, will blame themselves."

Sevakis posits the destruction of western heritage to be the beginning of a long-term trend that is exacerbated by the statistical Muslim-ization of Europe, particularly to the extent it is fueled by Wahhabi-inspired which call for the aggressive destruction of "offensive" cultural and religious artifacts outside Islam.

Click for the full article. 

Comments

[sieneng]

Daniel and Mikael did see two guys in the park yesterday on mopdes, they did chase them away, but they didn't get their license plate numbers. We should come up with some idea's so no one can get their mopdes/off-roads into the park.