Here's what I have been wondering:
As these museum staffers were employees of the state (I'm guessing) perhaps
the missing artifact story was a piece of propaganda, either organized by
the government or by the staff themselves? Just as many museum employees
here are fiercely loyal to their national governments, perhaps it was the
same of the Iraqi museum staff?




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deb Fuller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 9:08 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: All is not lost in Baghdad Museums... - not a
> political issue
>
>
> --- Indigo Nights <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Deb, I don't want to get into the politics of it all here,
> but we, as
> > Americans, have no room to talk about deception.
>
> Indy, this isn't about America, WMD or the war in general.
> It's about museum professionals deliberately lying about
> stolen artifacts. It's outside of the realm of America or
> Iraq. It affects the international museum community as a whole.
>
> It's one thing to protect artifacts in a crisis situation. I
> fully applaud the Baghdad museum for going to the measures it
> did to protect its collection. I think it also served as a
> wake-up call for everyone to think about disaster plans and
> how museum collections can be protected.
>
> But it is an entirely different issue to continue to lie
> about stolen artifacts when you know that International
> resources are being used to find them. These stolen artifact
> lists have been circulated to law enforcement agencies around
> the world. The museum and its staff have gotten international
> attention and sympathy over their lost treasures.
>
> How does it look when the list of hundreds of thousands of
> "stolen" artifacts turns out to be a fraction of that amount?
> How much worse is it when the museum's own people lied about
> the whereabouts of said artifacts which weren't stolen after
> all? Not only does it damage the credibility of the museum,
> but it will hurt other museums down the road.
>
> Instead of the international community jumping to help a
> museum that has been robbed or looted, I'm sure the next
> response will be "Are you sure you didn't hide them and
> forget where you put them?" I'm sure international agencies
> won't be as quick to put their resources and manpower to work
> until it is clear that the artifacts were indeed stolen. This
> kind of delay can loose objects forever or make them much
> harder to find.
>
> Again, if a museum professional falsified research or
> misrepresented facts in an exhibit, we'd be livid and that
> person would probably never work in the museum field again.
> But I find it hypocritical that museum professionals are not
> responding to the Baghdad museum incident or willing to
> excuse the staff for what they did because of the politics of
> the war in general.
>
> Deb
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to
> Outlook(TM). http://calendar.yahoo.com
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . > You may obtain
> detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a
> one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The
> body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line
> e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of
> the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).