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Heritage as War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2017

Rosie Bsheer
Rosie Bsheer*
Affiliation:
History Department, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; e-mail: rosie.bsheer@yale.edu
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Extract

The construction of heritage can be a violent process. Authorizing state-sanctioned narratives and the spaces that materialize them are belligerent acts. Crafting and territorializing a singular history out of many entangled ones necessarily relies on the destruction, containment, and/or silencing of the evidentiary terrain—of people, places, and things. In this sense, the construction of the past—to play on Carl von Clausewitz's well-known maxim—is the continuation of war by other means. As networks of knowledge production and transmission, “lieux de mémoire” are everyday sites of violence that embody ongoing social relations and the attendant struggles over power. In times of peace as in war, they are terrains of symbolic and material contestation whose creative destruction can be deployed as political spectacles and projections of power. Examples of such dynamics abound, whether in the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North America or Palmyra, Baghdad, and Mecca in the Middle East. In its varied forms, then, heritage is as much a cause for celebration for some as it is a cause of injury for others. Heritage reflects the power to subjugate the past to the politics of the present and to dictate the future, both of which are intrinsic to state and subject formation.

Type
Roundtable
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 49 , Special Issue 4: Forced Displacement and Refugees , November 2017 , pp. 729 - 734
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

NOTES

1 von Clausewitz, Carl, On War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

2 Nora, Pierre, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoires,” in “Memory and Counter-Memory,” special issue, Representations 26 (1989): 7–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Wilkie, Nancy C., “From the President: In the Shadow of War,” Archeology 56 (2003)Google Scholar, accessed 24 June 2017, http://archive.archaeology.org/0301/etc/president.html; Donald MacLeod, “Scholars Move to Protect ‘Priceless’ Iraqi Heritage,” The Guardian, 21 March 2003, accessed 24 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/mar/21/highereducation.internationaleducationnews; Guy Gugliotta, “Pentagon Was Told of Risk to Museums: U.S. Urged to Save Iraq's Historic Artifacts,” Washington Post, 14 April 2003, accessed 24 July 2017, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19691-2003Apr13.html; Jonathan Steele, “Museum's Treasures Left to the Mercy of Looters,” The Guardian, 14 April 2003, accessed 24 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/14/internationaleducationnews.arts.

4 “US ‘Will Repair’ Iraqi Heritage,” BBC, 14 April 2003, accessed 24 June 2017, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2947251.stm; Alan Feuer, “Hobby Lobby Agrees to Forfeit 5,500 Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq,” New York Times, 5 July 2017, accessed 6 July 2017, https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/nyregion/hobby-lobby-artifacts-smuggle-iraq.html?smid=tw-share&referer=https://t.co/JAqAA39Gfx.

5 Robert Fisk, “Americans Defend Two Untouchable Ministries from the Hordes of Looters,” The Independent, 13 April 2003, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/americans-defend-two-untouchable-ministries-from-the-hordes-of-looters-115073.html; Patrick Martin, “How and Why US Encouraged Looting in Iraq,” World Socialist Web Site, 15 April 2003, accessed 26 June 2017, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/iraq-a15.html; Ann Talbot, “US Government Implication in Planned Theft of Iraqi Artistic Treasures,” World Socialist Web Site, 19 April 2003, accessed 26 June 2017, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/loot-a19.html; Hanson, Katharyn and Emberling, Geoff, eds., Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2008)Google Scholar; Farchakh, Joanne, “Special Report: The Specter of War,” Archeology 56 (2003)Google Scholar, accessed 24 June 2017, http://archive.archaeology.org/0305/etc/iraq.html.

6 Sean Laughlin, “Rumsfeld on Looting in Iraq: ‘Stuff Happens,’” CNN, 12 April 2003, accessed 24 June 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon/; Omar Karmi, “Saddam Hussein's Archives ‘Spirited Away’ by the US Military and Never Returned,” The National, 9 April 2013, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/saddam-husseins-archives-spirited-away-by-the-us-military-and-never-returned.

7 Salah Nasrawi, “Iraq's Stolen Memory,” al-Ahram, 3–9 November 2011, accessed 1 July 2017, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/archive/2011/1071/re10.htm.

8 Tim Arango, “Advocating a War in Iraq, and Offering an Apology for What Came After,” New York Times, 13 May 2016, accessed 24 June 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/world/middleeast/iraq-war-kanan-makiya.html; Antoon, Sinan, “Bending History,” Middle East Research and Information Project 257 (2010)Google Scholar, accessed 9 January 2011, http://108.165.20.117/mer/mer257/bending-history; Haytham Bahoora, “On Iraq War Revisionism: Kanan Makiya and the Arab Revolutions,” Jadaliyya, 17 April 2013, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11256/on-iraq-war-revisionism_kanan-makiya-and-the-arab-; Lisa M. Krieger, “Saddam's Records Arrive at Stanford,” Monterey Herald, 16 June 2008, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.montereyherald.com/article/ZZ/20080616/NEWS/806169921; “US Illegally Obtained and Kept Thousands of Iraq's Cultural Treasures,” RT, 9 April 2013, accessed 24 June 2017, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/iraq-war-cultural-artifacts-553/.

9 Karmi, “Saddam Hussein's Archives.”

10 “Most Endangered Cultural Sites? Iraq Is One,” NBC News, 22 June 2005, accessed 26 June 2017, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8314908/ns/world_news/t/most-endangered-cultural-sites-iraq-one/#.WVOYeTdQe48; World Monuments Fund, “Cultural Heritage Sites of Iraq: 2006 World Monuments Watch,” accessed 26 June 2017, https://www.wmf.org/project/cultural-heritage-sites-iraq.

11 Louis Charbonneau, “U.N. condemns Islamic State's ‘Barbaric Terrorist Acts’ in Iraq,” Reuters, 27 February 2015, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-un-idUSKBN0LW01Y20150228; “UNESCO Laments ‘Barbaric’ Cultural Destruction by ‘IS,’” Deutsche Welle, 29 June 2015, accessed 24 June 2017, http://www.dw.com/en/about-dw/profile/s-30688. For a critical article that nonetheless uses this language, see Haifa Zangana, “The Barbaric Destruction of Iraq's Ancient Artifacts Is a War Crime,” The Guardian, 27 February 2015, accessed 24 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/27/destruction-iraq-ancient-artefacts-war-crime-islamic-state.

12 The regime started considering the centennial celebration in 1994, but did not finalize it until 1996, when it was actually announced. Royal Decree No. 597, “King Fahd Declares Centennial Celebrations,” 1996.

13 al-Semmari, Fahd, “al-Wathaʾiq al-Taʾrikhiyya al-Wataniyya wa-l-Ihtimam al-Matlub,” in Buhuth Nadwat al-Wathaʾiq al-Taʾrikhiyya (Riyadh: Darat al-Malik ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, 1997), 33 Google Scholar.

14 Rosie Bsheer, “The Property Regime: Mecca and the Politics of Redevelopment in Saudi Arabia,” Cairo Observer, July 2015.

15 Michael Rogin, “‘Make My Day!’: Spectacle as Amnesia in Imperial Politics,” Representations 29 (1990): 103.