Coalition
air strikes should defend Palmyra – it belongs to the whole world
Rowan Moore / Sunday
17 May 2015 /
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/17/destruction-palmyra-history-worst-cultural-atrocity
The
rich heritage of Syria’s cradle of civilisation is threatened by
Isis. We must not stand by and do nothing
The guide shook with
anger. A tourist, ignoring the notices, had taken a flash photograph
of an ancient wall painting in a 3rd-century tomb in Palmyra, Syria.
For this, he was given a brief, fierce lecture on the importance and
fragility of the work and on respect for it.
I wonder about and
fear for the guide, as I do about other people I met in Syria,
especially in those areas now controlled by Islamic State – a pair
of hopeful teachers in Deir ez-Zor; a cafe owner near Raqqa who
displayed large pictures of the Assad family. This was probably not
due to any love for the president, but because he would have been
given little choice in the matter. The guide will have lost his
livelihood, but it is hard to imagine his horror now, as Isis
threaten to capture his home town of Palmyra.
A camera flash,
understandably upsetting to the guide, would be as nothing compared
with the destruction that Isis would do there. As they have to Nimrud
in Iraq, and to many of Mosul’s monuments, they will try to
obliterate it: smash its carvings, deface its paintings, topple its
columns with bulldozers, atomise its masonry with explosives.
Palmyra is an
ancient Roman site whose significance and value is exceeded by very
few others: those in Rome itself, Pompeii, possibly Petra in Jordan.
Its temples, colonnades and tombs, its theatre and streets are
extensive, exquisite, distinctive, rich. The loss of Palmyra would be
a cultural atrocity greater than the destruction of the Buddhas in
Bamiyan. It is hard to think of deliberate vandalism to equal it,
despite the grim examples offered by the last hundred years.
I first went to
Palmyra and Syria as a student, in 1982, on an impulsive detour from
a trip round Turkey. I was blissfully unaware of the fighting earlier
that year between the current president’s father and the Muslim
Brotherhood that left many thousands dead, but which now looks like a
minor squabble compared with the current civil war. Other tourists
must have been better informed, as my travelling companion and I had
the ruins to ourselves.
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I toured the country
again in 2009. By then, the place was more popular, with fat tourist
buses winding up to its overlooking Mamluk castle, which, reports
suggest, Isis forces have now reached, to catch the sunset view.
The country was
astonishing, not just for the splendour and beauty of its treasures,
but for the range and richness of cultures they represented – Roman
and Byzantine cities, Arab souks and palaces, Ottoman hammam, Norman
castles, synagogues, churches, mosques and shrines, Sunni and Shia.
Also, Hittite and Assyrian remains, going back five millennia. One of
the ghastly ironies of the current violence is that the places where
civilisation started are now the world’s most barbarous.
Although they were
often built under the influence of foreign powers, these places were
also Syrian and helped shape Syria’s identity before the war.
Palmyra exemplifies this: although described as Roman, most of what
is there now was the creation of an essentially self-governing state
that grew rich and powerful through its position on trade routes. Its
temples served local gods and its Roman architectural style is
combined with regional variations. Its inscriptions are in a dialect
of Aramaic as well as Latin and Greek. It was made by Syrian people
whose faces are, for now, vividly recorded in its paintings and
carvings.
I remember vividly
the wonderful city of Aleppo, sometimes described as the oldest
continually inhabited city in the world, with its courtyarded houses
and a sequence of contrasts that ran from its citadel through its
souk to its mosque, which is 8th century in origin.
The citadel was like
a fortification from legend, a huge walled rock reached up a steep
bridge and through massive gates. The souk was a fabric of human
activity, its spaces made by actions and produce (spices, soaps,
meat, medicines, hardware) more than by stone, but in which churning
of the here and now was relieved by shrines and other moments of
calm, and by ornaments or domes that would connect the present with
the past. The mosque’s courtyard was the opposite of the souk –
an orderly, ample rectangle of peace, paved in clean and shining
stone, in which people would sit at perfect ease, as if it were their
living room.
As the war has
progressed, there has been a miserable drip of dreadful news about
these places, caused not only by Isis but also by the violence of the
government forces and other players. The Aleppo souk has been
devastated, the mosque’s minaret destroyed. The Seleucid city of
Dura Europos, founded in 303 BC on a site overlooking the Euphrates,
has been violently dug up in the search for antiquities that can be
sold to help finance Isis. Palmyra itself had already been plundered
and damaged before the latest threat emerged.
There have been more
modest losses: Deir ez-Zor, which is not otherwise greatly blessed,
had a nice footbridge over its river, which made for delightful
evening strolls for its citizens. There will be other places of which
I don’t have news – a desert palace seen in a storm of red dust;
a lonely and vulnerable monastery in a cleft in a cliff; a ruined
city.
If Isis raze
Palmyra, it would be a new demonstration of the evil and stupidity
they have already abundantly displayed in their slaughters and
enslavements, and in their videos of beheadings and burnings. It
would also confirm Isis’s littleness: how could anyone be so
threatened by ancient ruins, unless they lacked belief in their
ability to create something themselves? It would make manifest Isis’s
nihilism, their vision of the world as a desert populated only by
themselves and their slaves. It is, of course, precisely the
diversity of Syria’s heritage that Isis hate.
It would kill a
piece of the soul of Syria and of hope for its future when the war
finally ends. It would also destroy something that belongs to the
whole world. For this reason, surely, there is a case for the
American-led coalition to defend it with air strikes, as they have
defended threatened civilians in Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan. It would
mean a temporary alliance with the forces of the country’s
obnoxious government, who are defending Palmyra, but the protection
of something this exceptional and precious overrides almost any other
consideration.
Estado
Islâmico assume controlo de parte da cidade histórica de Palmira
MIGUEL SANTOS
/16/5/2015, OBSERVADOR
Estado Islâmico já
conquistou parte do norte da cidade histórica de Palmira. Durante o
avanço dos jihadistas, 49 civis foram executados. Património da
Humanidade pode ser destruído.
O exército sírio
não está a conseguir travar o avanço do Estado Islâmico (EI).
Depois de intensos confrontos entre as duas forças, o grupo
terrorista conseguiu controlar grande parte do norte da cidade
histórica de Palmira (ou Tadmur), cujas ruínas são classificadas
como Património da Humanidade pela Unesco. Um dos marcos
arquitetónicos mais relevantes da história romana pode, assim,
estar próximo da destruição.
Na quinta-feira, o
responsável de antiguidades do Governo sírio, Maamoun Abdulkari, em
declarações à agência Reuters, já tinha deixado o alerta: se
organização terrorista chegasse à cidade, destruirá “tudo o que
ali há”. As piores perspetivas parecessem estar prestes a
confirmar-se à medida que os jihadistas vão ganhando terreno.
A informação foi
avançada por Rami Abdel Rahman, diretor do Observatório Sírio dos
Direitos Humanos (OSDH). À France Presse, Rahman revelou que existem
ainda “confrontos intensos em curso”, numa altura em que o Estado
Islâmico já tomou o controlo da maior parte do norte de Palmira”.
Até ao momento,
morreram pelo menos 13 militantes do EI, mas as baixas do lado do
exército sírio não são conhecidas. Ainda de acordo com o diretor
do OSDH, durante a ofensiva, os jhiadististas executaram pelo menos
49 civis. Além dos combates a norte de Palmira, estão também a
decorrer confrontos perto da cidadela islâmica, no oeste da cidade.
A maior parte das ruínas monumentais, com colunas romanas torcidas,
templos e torres funerárias, estão localizadas no sudoeste da
cidade.
Palmira constitui-se
como uma cidade muito importante para o regime de Bashar al-Assad:
tem depósitos de armas, um aeroporto e uma prisão militar. É
também a primeira linha defensiva contra ataques do Estado Islâmico
a partir do leste da Síria, por onde o grupo terrorista costuma
atacar. Palmira é também um ponto defensivo para os campos de gás
e petróleo, incluindo o de Shaer, a principal fonte de gás do
regime.
Para o Estado
Islâmico, a conquista da cidade reveste-se de grande importância
estratégica para o EI, porque se abre sobre o grande deserto sírio,
junto à província iraquiana de Al-Anbar, em grande parte controlada
pelo grupo ultrarradical sunita.
A 25 de fevereiro, o
Estado Islâmico destruiu cerca de 8.000 livros da biblioteca pública
da cidade iraquiana de Mosul, entre os quais vários manuscritos que
constavam na lista de raridades da UNESCO. No dia seguinte, o grupo
terrorista entrou no museu da mesma cidade acabando por destruir
várias estátuas milenares, com origem entre os séculos VII e VIII
a.C.
Em março, os
jihadistas destruíram com bulldozers ruínas e vestígios
arqueológicos da Assíria, um reino que existiu na antiga
Mesopotâmia, e de Hatra, desta vez utilizando bombas de gás. Mais
recentemente, destruiram os vestígios de Dur Sharrukin na cidade de
Jorsabad, que servira de capital da Assíria durante parte do século
VIII a.c.
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