Iraq

Burnt interior view: Maktabat al Awqaf

Arguably the most criminal and agreeably the most senseless, was the Shock and Awe campaign of the Bush administration in 2003 which destroyed more than 200 public buildings in Iraq - not to mention businesses and markets. Not only that, but the American troops left buildings unprotected - the National Library of Baghdad being one of them.

On April 10, 2003 the American troops entered the building of the National Library and Archives with military tanks and vehicles. The famous statue of Saddam Hussein stood in the main square, at the front of the Library building. Having pulled this statue down, an American soldier momentarily draped an American flag over its face, which was then quickly replaced by that of an Iraqi flag. Once the pictures and knowledge of this event began to circulate, along with the knowledge that Saddam Hussein and his sons had been deposed, the people, no longer repressed by his dictatorship began a spree of looting and destruction. In the midst of this the U.S soldiers left the area of the main square and therefore left the library buildings unprotected. Apparently only minutes after they left, the National Library and Archives of Baghdad builings were on fire. Lootings followed. Two days later the same scenario repeated itself. Needless to say, the loss to Iraq was enormous.

It should be noted that at the time, most cultural institutions in Iraq were looted and burned - not just the library and archives. Many of these were seen as symbols of the regime of Saddam Hussein, even though many of them had been sorely mistreated whilst under the severity of its rule, hence the looting, burning and ransacking. On the other hand it is thought that those that were loyal to the old regime were also responsible for the fires, as archives detailing the history of the Ba'ath Party since 1963 when it seized power were destroyed. As well as this, archives containing court transcripts of all court martials for the trial of opponents to the Ba'ath party were turned to ashes. Archival documents regarding Iraq's relations with Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran also went missing. UNESCO and the Library of Congress teams later concluded that the burning of the NLA was well organised as evidence of the use of illegal inflammatory materials was found.

Pile of documents after looting at a library, Bayt al-Hikma, Iraq.

Over a period of three days in April 2003, hundreds of thousands of archival documents, historical documents and rare books were totally destroyed and a large part of Iraq's historical memory was erased forever. Added to this was the loss of photographs, maps, newspapers and old journals as well as itemms on microfilm. Equipment losses were photocopiers, typewriters, printers, microfilm material, cameras and furniture. The following Youtube video discusses the looting that occurred:

Robert Fisk, a reporter for the Independant, in Iraq at the time wrote this now well renowned article of his eye witness to the events: Library Books, Letters and Priceless Documents are Set Ablaze in Final Chapter of the Sacking of Baghdad, in which he told of the loss of this treasure of the Ottoman history, as he held in his own hands the remnants of the history of Iraq as pieces of it blew about in the wind outside, and the absolute lack of response of the American soldiers. The then Secretary of Defence for the United States of America, Donald Rumsfeld, shrugged as he said "Stuff happens", to which he added "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes, and do bad things". The world media was focused on the looting of the Iraqi Museum (and smashing of artefacts), and historical sites, more so than the losses to the library and the fact that the Americans neglected their responsibility as occupiers to safeguard Iraq's cultural heritage, which included the National Library and Archives of Baghdad.

On November 21 2006, Saad Bashir Eskaander the director general of the National Library and Archives of Baghdad, closed the library after several staff members were killed and the building had come under increasing fire. It had become a safe haven for students and scholars in the period of time since the attacks in April 2003. It would appear that in spite of the tremendous losses over so many centuries that we still have not learnt to value ourselves, our past and our history, and that the egotistic desire to erase all memory in order to become the supreme nation and ruler of all, still takes precedence over intelligence and common sense.

REFERENCES.
BOOKS:
Baez, F 2008, A Universal history of the destruction of books: from ancient Sumer to modern Iraq, Atlas & Co, New York.

ARTICLES:
Eskaander, S 2004, The tale of Iraq's 'cemetary of books', Information Today, Vol. 21 Issue 11, p 1-54, Computers and Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost, ISSN 87556286, AN 15257824, viewed 9 May 2010.

Arnoult, J M 2004, Libraries in Iraq in 2003, Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, Vol 58 Issue 1, Jan-Mar, p31-38, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, ISSN 15629392, AN 12417288, viewed 6 May 2010.

Fineberg, G 2003, Surviving war, Library of Congress Information Bulletin, Vol 62 Issue 12, Dec, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost, ISSN 00417904, AN 13486875, viewed 9 may 2010.

Bollag, B 2006, Iraq's national library and archive closes, Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol 53 Issue 17, pA44-A44, Religon and Philosophy Collection, EBSCOhost, ISSN 0009-5982, AN 23489654, viewed 6 May 2010.

"Stuff happens": A brief overview of the 2003 destruction of Iraqi manuscript collections, archives and libraries, Library Trends, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p730-745, E-journals, EBSCOhost, ISSN 00242594, AN 11576848, viewed 9 May 2010.

REFLECTING ON THIS POST: This week I found that it was very much the same process whereby I wasted alot of time fiddling around with the aesthetics of the blog. Personally, I prefer to do everything by hand as I then have full control over the end result. My final step was to accept the product as final and move on, this being another form of learning in itself. As per the other weeks I learnt alot about the subjects that I was investigating and found them all very interesting and in the case of the more recent ones a wonderful example of the absolute stupidity of people as well as being extremely sad.

I should add that I really would have liked to add advertisements to my blog even if just for the fun of it, but declined to because this blog is a part of a class at an educational institute in Melbourne, Australia. Last but not least, I have to admit that I do like having my own space on the Web, somewhere where I can tweak and edit at will.