dalrymple on destruction of culture
Secular co existence with minorities is under severe threat in Syria. The Wahhabi Salafis backed by Saudi Arabia and its Western partners make sure of that. Divide and rule - that old colonial game is being played out at huge cost to people and their cultures . The Wahhabi safafis , we have to remember, were a creation of old British colonialism. Colonialiss that was about controlling oil rich lands. They did it through a proxy "king' who used the oil riches to promote the wahabbi fundamentalism that is today destroying the world hand in hand with the same old colonial powers that began it all.
Today, as Syria faces the desperate prospect of an open-ended civil conflict, traumatised by its 20,000 dead and 250,000 refugees – the human cost of the war – it may seem trivial to mourn the speed with which its astonishing archaeological and architectural heritage is disappearing. But while the human pain inflicted by torture and killing is immeasurable, the destruction of a people's heritage is irretrievable: once a monument is destroyed, it can never be replaced. With modern weaponry it only takes a few months of concerted shelling for the history of an entire people to be reduced to rubble.
As in Afghanistan, there is evidence the looting is highly organised. A Lebanese antiquities dealer recently told Time magazine that he was making a fortune from would-be Syrian freedom fighters who were selling him priceless Syrian antiquities for very low prices and buying arms at inflated rates. But an even more irretrievable loss than the antiquities (which potentially can be bought back) or monuments (which can sometimes be restored) is likely to be the ripping apart of Syria's closely woven sectarian patchwork. Until two years ago, Syria was the last country in the Middle East to retain its richly mixed Ottoman inheritance. Now, as happened before in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Balkans, civil war is leading to a consolidation of the majority community and the exile or expulsion of the minorities.
Things are very bad among the Sufis too. Aleppo's most celebrated Sufi singer was Sheikh Habboush, who used to hold his spectacular zikrevery Wednesday evening. He was also a prominent member of the leading classical Arabic music group, al-Kindi ensemble: "No one has heard from Sheikh Habboush for the past three months," al-Kindi's director, Julien Jâlal Eddine Weiss, told me over the phone from Istanbul, where he has taken shelter. "He has disappeared and may well be dead. His [teke] received a direct hit from a bomb and the top floor was destroyed. No one knows if it was a stray shell or a hit by the Salafis: they hate the Sufis and want to close down the brotherhoods just as they did in Timbuktu. Their black flags are now seen all over Aleppo. Most of our musicians are homeless, and our principal whirling dervish now has shrapnel riddling his legs."
Some of the damaged architectural sites can still be saved. But more irreversible damage is being inflicted every day on Syria's living traditions, many of which now look likely to disappear from its soil forever.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/syria-future-ruins-heritage
Today, as Syria faces the desperate prospect of an open-ended civil conflict, traumatised by its 20,000 dead and 250,000 refugees – the human cost of the war – it may seem trivial to mourn the speed with which its astonishing archaeological and architectural heritage is disappearing. But while the human pain inflicted by torture and killing is immeasurable, the destruction of a people's heritage is irretrievable: once a monument is destroyed, it can never be replaced. With modern weaponry it only takes a few months of concerted shelling for the history of an entire people to be reduced to rubble.
As in Afghanistan, there is evidence the looting is highly organised. A Lebanese antiquities dealer recently told Time magazine that he was making a fortune from would-be Syrian freedom fighters who were selling him priceless Syrian antiquities for very low prices and buying arms at inflated rates. But an even more irretrievable loss than the antiquities (which potentially can be bought back) or monuments (which can sometimes be restored) is likely to be the ripping apart of Syria's closely woven sectarian patchwork. Until two years ago, Syria was the last country in the Middle East to retain its richly mixed Ottoman inheritance. Now, as happened before in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Balkans, civil war is leading to a consolidation of the majority community and the exile or expulsion of the minorities.
Things are very bad among the Sufis too. Aleppo's most celebrated Sufi singer was Sheikh Habboush, who used to hold his spectacular zikrevery Wednesday evening. He was also a prominent member of the leading classical Arabic music group, al-Kindi ensemble: "No one has heard from Sheikh Habboush for the past three months," al-Kindi's director, Julien Jâlal Eddine Weiss, told me over the phone from Istanbul, where he has taken shelter. "He has disappeared and may well be dead. His [teke] received a direct hit from a bomb and the top floor was destroyed. No one knows if it was a stray shell or a hit by the Salafis: they hate the Sufis and want to close down the brotherhoods just as they did in Timbuktu. Their black flags are now seen all over Aleppo. Most of our musicians are homeless, and our principal whirling dervish now has shrapnel riddling his legs."
Some of the damaged architectural sites can still be saved. But more irreversible damage is being inflicted every day on Syria's living traditions, many of which now look likely to disappear from its soil forever.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/syria-future-ruins-heritage
posted by Satish Sharma at
20:59
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