海角大神

Why is ISIS destroying ancient artifacts in Iraq?

The destruction of ancient Iraqi artifacts 鈥� a tactic employed in cultural genocide 鈥� is part of the Islamic State militants' efforts to reform the region into a single, homogenous Muslim caliphate under its control. 

The Islamic State 鈥� aka ISIS 鈥� continues its campaign of violence, this time attacking history itself.

础听 that surfaced Thursday purportedly shows members of the radical group taking sledgehammers, pickaxes, and even jackhammers to the ancient artifacts housed within the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq.

鈥淭he Prophet Muhammad commanded us to shatter and destroy statues,鈥� a bearded man in a white shirt and black kufi says in Arabic at the beginning of the video. 鈥淭his is what his companions did later on, when they conquered lands.鈥�

鈥淪ince Allah commanded us to shatter and destroy these statues, idols and remains, it is easy for us to obey鈥� even if this costs billions of dollars,鈥� the man says.

The camera then cuts to a series of scenes showing statues 鈥� some reportedly more than 3,000 years old 鈥� being reduced to rubble. Militants can be seen knocking down icons and destroying idols that date back to the Assyrian Empire, which ruled a large chunk of what is now the Middle East from 2500 BC to about 600 BC.

The destruction at the Mosul Museum is only the latest of the Islamic State鈥檚 efforts to eradicate any hint of of Iraq鈥檚 non-Muslim culture, as the militant group strives to reform the region into a single, homogenous caliphate under its control.

Part of that effort requires a rewriting of history: Earlier this week, news outlets reported that , destroying more than 8,000 ancient and rare books and manuscripts.

鈥淭his destruction marks a new phase in the cultural cleansing perpetrated in regions controlled by armed extremists in Iraq,鈥� Irina Bokova, director-general of the UN鈥檚 Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, . 鈥淚t adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.鈥�

The tactic is unofficially called 鈥渃ultural genocide,鈥� a term that David Nersessian, assistant dean of global programs at Boston University School of Management, 鈥� including its languages, traditional practices and ways, religious institutions and objects, and clergy members, academics, and intellectuals.

The UN鈥檚 鈥溾�� validates the rights of any group to maintain, observe, and protect its culture and traditions. But any human rights treaty depends on the goodwill of the participating states, and those 鈥渕ost likely to commit cultural genocide are least likely to participate in any voluntary human rights scheme,鈥� according to Mr. Nersessian.

Regrettably, the destruction and looting of art during times of war goes back to Greek and Roman times. More recently, during World War II, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin each envisioned a 鈥渟uper museum鈥� that would showcase all of Europe鈥檚 great works of art, Matthew Steen wrote in an article titled, 鈥�.鈥�

The result, Mr. Steen wrote, was that the two sides spent the war 鈥渓ooting, plundering, and destroying each other鈥檚 cultural property from private and public collections.鈥�

The same could be said of the warring sides of the brutal conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, according to Andr谩s Riedlmayer, a Harvard University expert on the region鈥檚 cultural heritage. , Mr. Riedlmayer wrote that while three years of war in Bosnia resulted in more than 4 million refugees and 200,000 dead, "[t]he cultural casualties were no less staggering."

He continued:

More than one thousand of Bosnia鈥檚 mosques, hundreds of Catholic churches and scores of Orthodox churches, monasteries, private and public libraries, archives, and museums were shelled, burned, and dynamited, and in many cases even the ruins were removed by nationalist extremists in order to complete the cultural and religious 鈥渃leansing鈥� of the land they had seized.

It happened again in Afghanistan in 2001, when the Taliban set about destroying thousands of ancient Buddhist statues across the country; Al-Qaeda militants also torched a library full of historic manuscripts as they fled Timbuktu, Mali, in 2013.

Attacking a people鈥檚 cultural works can be tantamount to attacking its very identity. As 海角大神 reported after the destruction of the Mosul library Sunday:

The pain felt by Iraqis at the destruction of a national treasure is palpable.

鈥淲hat a pity!" who left Mosul to exile years ago, . "We used to go to the library in the 1970s. It was one of the greatest landmarks of Mosul."

Added Rayan al-Hadidi, an activist and a blogger from Mosul, 鈥淣ine hundred years ago, the books of the Arab philosopher Averroes were collected before his eyes ... and burned. One of his students started crying while witnessing the burning. Averroes told him ... the ideas have wings... but I cry today over our situation."