Here's the problem I have with the state of the discussions in America and among museum professionals.  I think Deb is fabulous, but my thinking leans toward Pamela's in this regard (who is also fabulous).
 
Assume today that I have a bicycle.  Someone steals it.  It's stolen, correct?
 
So I go to this list.  I'm really upset and tell you that my bike was stolen. Now some of you like me and report, "Poor Indy (as Deb calls me) got her bike stolen.  Isn't that awful? Maybe we should help her get a bike.  Poor thing."
 
Assume tomorrow the thief has remorse (or is afraid he's not going to get nooky if he doesn't return it as happened with some of the artifacts).  So, now I have my bike, right?
 
Now I go back to the list and say, "Guess what.  I got my bike back."
 
Was I a liar when I told you that my bike was stolen just because today I have the bike that was taken from me and it upset me enough to tell you about it?
 
Now, let's add to that a bit.  Let's assume that, not only is my bike stolen, but my whole world (house, block, neighborhood, state, country) has been invaded by a third party, and bullets and bombs are flying everywhere.  Things are being destroyed around me, and I'm pretty stressed in the first place.  I'm responsible for a bunch of things, but I'm awfully concerned about the collective survival of me, those I love, my country, and my things.  Along comes the SOB who steals my bike, and I go to tell you about it.
 
How impartial do you think I'm going to be?  How dogmatic is my thinking going to be about museum protocols?
 
Just because some of the artifacts have been found, others have been returned, and some were never missing in the first place doesn't negate the fact that 33 priceless antiquities that have survived for thousands of years have been lost and/or destroyed and may never be replaced.  Thirty-three.  I didn't want to lose 1 or even half of 1.
 
Now, let's talk about those reporters.  I've read and concur with a lot of the spin that has to do with media needing to make money and spinning the tales. 
 
How much of the material that has come through the news from American and British sources can be considered 100% reliable largely because the media is embedded, meaning the government picks and chooses what they can see and can't see and whom they talk to?  Of the remaining reporters (foreign to Americans and Brits), they were shelled (or worse) in the hotels in which they resided.  Not all of them can counted upon to give the real deal.  Consider the stress.
 
Finally, there's the whole Jaysonian style of reporting to factor in.  Which ones are telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but (as in absolute truth)?  Which ones are telling the subjective truth?  You see my truth may be entirely different from your truth just as it is in the art world. 
 
Two people can paint the same bowl of fruit in the same room and have two completely different pictures based on their perspective and their skew.  The same can be said of reporting.  The problem with reporting, especially as it relates to the crisis area, is that you are only getting the words of a few chosen reporters, and you get the same media event published a thousand times over under cover of differing newspapers.
 
Don't believe me?  Pick a topic, any topic.  Search it on http://news.google.com.  Sort the results by date, and start reading.  You'll see the same article, almost verbatim.  Now, if you're lucky, you'll find an article from someone whose national identity is different than your own.  Read what they have to say.  It's probably different.
 
History may do no better when it comes to accuracy of reporting.  Look at all the countless myths that have been perpetuated because they have been repeated time and time and time again when the sifted facts show differently.
 
Artifacts WERE stolen, and we Americans and those people who want to be reelected soon and have already started campaigning what to spin this such that the poo comes off the episode and they come out smelling clean.  Remember Rumsfeld's it's the same vase over and over again?
 
It's one thing to be an armchair jockey about these things, but if it's your house being shelled, and your treasures being ripped off and forever lost, you might lose your objectivity, too.
 
As far as I'm concerned, they were all of our treasures. 
 
And now they may be forever lost.
 


Pamela Sezgin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Deb,

I don't see where you get the idea that "museum officials in Baghdad deliberately lied about stolen artifacts" when Donny George, who is in charge of all the museums in Iraq was very clear right at the beginning that some artifacts had been put in bank vaults by museum staff.   Buy these were a small percentage of the total.  There are still thousands of artifacts stolen, missing, and vandalized thoughout Iraq;  not just from the National Museum in Baghdad.



Indigo Nights
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