Intolerance tears to shreds a rich past

It was a cavalier move that essentially saw an ancient Phoenician port, which presumably dated back to at least 500 BC, destroyed in less than a single hour last week in the heart of Beirut. A few days earlier, pickaxe-wielding hardline Islamists attacked and damaged the 15th century Sidi Yahya mosque in Timbuktu, one of three in the desert city in northern Mali, which was considered a historic and religious landmark by Unesco. Other wanton destructions that erased traces of what perpetrators did not value highlighted unimaginable carelessness. What do these acts of challenged bravura tell us?

In Beirut, now embarked on a dizzying reconstruction of private properties and public infrastructure after years of war and neglect, the Minister of Culture Gaby Layyoun rescinded a previous decision that denied the Venus construction firm the right to pursue a $500 million (Dh1.83 billion) development project over a 7,500-square-metre prized location in Mina Al Hosn, facing the Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel.

Archaeologists tasked by the private company persuaded the minister that the site was not worthy of preservation, allegedly because it was not on the coast — though about 225 metres inland — and that the findings indicated the site could not have functioned as a port. Others disagreed.

In April 2011, for example, Layyoun’s predecessor, Salim Wardy, issued ministerial decree number 25 that designated some 1,200 square metres of the land owned by Venus as an archaeological site. Under that order, the ancient port could not be tampered with in any way and, according to a law dating back to 1933 — that is even before Lebanon gained its independence in 1943 — was considered to be public property.

Two other ministers who presided over the country’s rich heritage, Tariq Mitri and Tammam Salam, concurred and severely criticised Layyoun for sacrificing the treasure. The area where the discoveries were made, Mina Al Hosn, means ‘Port of the Fort’ in Arabic, which clearly hinted that it was conceivable two ancient dry docks that were used for shipbuilding could easily be found there. In the event, the priceless port was summarily destroyed in less than an hour, to give way to a future steel and stone behemoth.

The Mali destruction was equally sinister. Alpha Abdoulahi, the town imam, told the Reuters news agency that extremist elements targeted the ancient mosque to “erase traces of what they regard as unIslamic idolatry”, presumably because legend has it that the main gate of the shrine would “not be opened until the last day of the world”.

Eight fighters from the Ansar Deen group — an Islamist group led by Eyad Al Gali, one of the most prominent leaders of a Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s whose goal is to impose strict Sharia across Mali — claimed that they wanted to “destroy the mystery” of the entrance as they perceived the centuries-old shrines in Timbuktu to be nothing more than idolatrous shrines.

In the few months since the Ansar men embarked on their mission, at least eight of 16 listed mausoleums in Timbuktu, which sits about 600 miles north of the Malian capital of Bamako, were destroyed. A number of ancient tombs were also damaged that further illustrated how little respect these perpetrators displayed. Presumably, the desecration of the dead was meaningless, which spoke volumes.

Regrettably, few spoke up last January when 100 Malian soldiers were killed and disemboweled by Ansar thugs even if militants, who thrived on violence, transformed their rebellion into an all-out war. No wonder even fewer objected to the Timbuktu obliteration.

Of course, historic and religious sites were damaged in the past, including recently in Egypt and Libya. Like in similar conflicts everywhere, priceless archeological sites are routinely destroyed, irrespective of what else might be going up in smoke. Still, the Timbuktu attacks reminded the world of the Taliban decision in 2001 to dynamite the two giant 6th century Buddha statues in Bamiyan.

Little did the Buddhist monks who created a thriving centre for religion, philosophy, and Indian art in Bamiyan — then a prosperous city that sat along the Silk Road that linked the Hindu Kush mountain region with other centres of learning on the subcontinent — little did they know that the two statues for Vairocana and Sakyamuni Buddhas would be smashed to pieces.

More recently, invaluable treasures in Iraq were shattered under the weight of 65-tonne allied tanks that roamed throughout Mesopotamia, whose inexperienced and uncultured drivers could not possibly understand what it was that they were flattening.

Robert Anson Heinlein, the renowned American science fiction writer, is often quoted for saying that “a generation which ignores history has no past — and no future”. In Lebanon and Mali during this past week, Heinlein’s dictum proved to be prescient, though the discovery of a skeleton from a bushy-tailed baby dinosaur, which presumably roamed Earth 135 million years ago and that was recently found in Germany, delighted both scientists and laymen alike throughout the world. Efforts were under way to salvage the baby dinosaur’s bones.

Germans, at least, knew that preserving the past was a worthy goal for humanity.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is an author, most recently of Faysal: Saudi Arabia’s King for All Seasons.