Mood Swings:
Come undone
At times, a journalist in Iraq can feel like a glorified tourist. Roaming the grounds of Saddam Hussein's former palace -- now smugly occupied by the shifting US-UK political establishment in Iraq and the buzzing nexus of the American military -- one can imagine the immaculate gardens and opulent halls as a standard stop on any tour set up by the legion of long redundant tour operators desperately awaiting the return of tourists to a country steeped in rich cultural history.
There is no guidebook, however, for manoeuvering most of the cultural landmarks ransacked in the looting that followed the dramatic fall of Saddam Hussein. No one will miss the massive statue of Hussein that once towered over Al-Fardous Square, but the innumerable artefacts, manuscripts and historical sites that fell victim to the wanton destruction visited on Baghdad and beyond following the collapse of Hussein's regime have been the subject of considerable controversy.
At the entrance to the Iraqi National Museum, the gatekeepers are American soldiers. A tank is parked just inside the museum wall, and sweating soldiers pass the time fending off curious locals peering in at them between the bars of the gate like animals in a zoo cage. For now, they are the only thing to see at the museum.
Decidedly closed to the public, no amount of sweet talking will get you past the gate, which is a matter left to the discretion of museum staff. There were no such staff present on my first visit, in the early afternoon, as the two archaeologists who have handled the public face of the ransacked museum were both in Europe. The next morning, after a stern warning from the US guards, I managed to enter the grounds to try my luck with the staff at the door. But the curator, Nawal Metwalli, was sequestered in the museum, incommunicado.
Waiting in the entry hall, I encountered a French journalist and a photographer also hoping to get a glimpse of the museum. Their translator, looking bored to the point of exasperation, remarked that the looting had come as no surprise to him. Darting a disapproving look around, he added, "Millions of people died. People have lost their lives. There are so many more problems than this."
To be sure, this is a feeling shared by those in the US-UK provisional authority spurned by international cultural organisations, who blame the military's passive reaction to the wave of looting for the resultant loss of precious artefacts. In a country ripped apart by war, in a city gripped by chaotic uncertainty, it seems almost too quaint to muster up such outrage over the museum's destruction. And yet the extent of damage to many of Baghdad's cultural institutions is both immediately distressing and obviously significant in the long term.
At the grounds of what was once the Fine Arts Centre, a group of boys are enjoying a swim in the shallow fountain at the centre of the building complex. The sounds of splashing and delighted yelps strike a discordant note while viewing the stark destruction of the main building, now only a burned shell. Bits of broken pottery and scattered leaflets sit under piles of shattered glass. They are the only indication that the building once housed an art collection.
The Baghdad Museum was boarded shut when I stopped in, with no staff or guards to be found, so I headed over to the cultural centre known as Beit Al-Hekma (House of Wisdom), an independent organisation housed in a complex that includes a former Abbasid Palace that had the misfortune of being located close to the Ministry of Defence. The sixth- century palace was relatively untouched, but the two houses beside it, one of which housed the "Great Hall" of the first Iraqi parliament, are barely standing.
"It was intentional to burn that place," remarks Adnan Yassin, deputy general secretary of the organisation. "There was nothing there -- just chairs and desks. Nothing else." The institute, which promotes cultural studies through publications and seminars on various socio-economic and political topics, hopes to restart its public programmes within the coming weeks, but the restoration of the destroyed sites will be a long-term and money-intensive project.
The next morning, I try to catch Dr Metwalli at the Iraqi Museum, but to the confusion of the staff, she did not arrive to work at her usual hour and no one had been informed of her whereabouts. Again, a glimpse of the museum's interior remained elusive -- something it will continue to be for the general public for some time to come. I asked one of the staff how long it was estimated before the museum would open its doors once again. The cataloguing of lost items, identification of newly returned pieces and restoration of the displays are a slow, ongoing process. Even with help from UNESCO, the work is estimated to take well more than a year.
Museum pieces are trickling back into the collection, however. US troops recovered a load of stolen artefacts when they seized a car nearby that was packed with pieces taken from the museum, and every few days people turn up with pieces. Historical manuscripts kept in the seventh-century Abbasid Al-Mustansiriya School were unfortunately moved to the museum for safekeeping and were since lost, but again, many find their way home. As for the millions of books once housed in places like the National Archive, and the palace at Beit Al-Hekma, it is said that the best way to see these is to buy some up at street markets, where they go for the equivalent of a dollar or two a piece.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 5 -11 June 2003 (Issue No. 641)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/641/li2.htm