In a message dated 5/5/2003 8:30:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< These artifacts are certainly rich sources for our understandihg of the
Iraqi cultures, history, spiritual beliefs and folklife...and there has to be
a great effort to rescue these artifacts from the wrong hands...but can they
provide medication for the injured, food for the hungry, running water for
those without, an actual spiritual leader to talk to and hear about ones own
realization of their mortality or a community coming together to support one
another.....no they can not. These artifacts can be of help in motivating
cultures to keep going and staying strong by reminding one of the richness of
history and cultures, but they can not provide the things that only human
beings, spiritual relationships, and basic needs of food, water, shelter
(unless we are talking about artifacts in relation to buildings) can provide.
  >>

No, indeed, museum artifacts cannot provide food, water, or medication to the
suffering--unless of course you sell them to purchase such supplies.  When
they're destroyed or stolen, you don't even have that option.  It's not just
a question of perspective, it's two different issues.  Caring for the
suffering is a monumental task.  It appears, by contrast, that taking
positive steps to maintain order, prevent destruction and looting, and
protect the surviving infrastructure after the smoke cleared would have been
a simpler task--if there had just been a plan to minimize the civil disorder
that anyone with half a brain could have predicted would occur after the
shooting and bombing stopped.  It wasn't just museums that were looted and
vandalized--so were hospitals, where badly needed supplies and equipment were
stolen and destroyed.  And key offices and facilities which are vital to
helping the country get back on its collective feet were similarly ravaged.
What good does it do to rely on precision bombing to avoid hitting cultural
sites and important infrastructure facilities if you're going to allow mobs
to destroy them afterward?

Returning to the museum artifacts--they had more than symbolic or emotive
cultural value--they often contained untapped historical information.  But
their psychological, historical, and cultural values were not of concern only
to scholars, intellectuals, and elitists.  According to the news reports,
some of the same ordinary people on the streets who were devastated by
injuries and deaths of family and friends were also distressed and
disoriented by the loss of substantial parts of their cultural heritage.

Incidentally, for what it's worth, awhile back someone asserted that the
Iraqi Museum had been closed for five years, implying that a closed museum is
of little value to the citizens.  According to one news report I read, the
museum had been closed after the 1991 war, but that it had reopened in 2000.
Not having done any further research, I don't know if this is accurate.
Based on my own "perspective" that collections of historic
artifacts--especially those of high research value--are more important than
exhibits per se, however, I think this is beside the point.

David Haberstich

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