If you demolish a historic building in Timbuktu you
commit a war crime. If you demolish one in Britain you apply for retrospective
planning permission. What is the difference?
For the first time, the concept of
war criminality has been extended from killing people to trying to wipe out
their cultural heritage.
In 2012 al-Mahdi led a band of
jihadis in the
systematic
destruction of relics
of Mali’s ancient culture of pluralism, claiming it as an offence to Islamic
fundamentalism. Timbuktu’s three mosques and its mausoleums were the great treasures
of Saharan Africa, a culture that flourished at the time of Renaissance
Florence.
Despite the efforts of their custodians, manuscripts and books dating
back to the 13th century were lost. Unesco’s director general,
Irina
Bokova, called the attack part of “a genocidal project, an attempted
annihilation of otherness”.
The mayor of Timbuktu said the shrines “belong to
the whole world”.
In theory, the definition of a
war crime has long gone beyond killing. It embraces torture, rape, the use of
certain weapons and the destruction of property.
Conventions in 1954 and 1977
specifically extended the protection of international law to “cultural property”,
including sites, monuments, museums and art works.
A
1999
protocol set out
criminal sanctions covering such matters.
Prosecutions were never brought.
This was partly for fear of appearing to elevate objects above people, but also
because few hands are clean in this matter.
No action was taken over the 1993
demolition by Serbs of Bosnian mosques and other historic structures. No action
was taken in 1999 over Nato’s senseless bombing of historic structures in Novi
Sad in north Serbia.
Britain itself has never even ratified the 1954
convention, despite promises as recently as in last May’s Queen’s speech.
It is
believed the RAF lobbied against doing so.
In other words, the Hague case
could open a can of worms – and with luck will do so.
From Cortés in Mexico to Britain’s bombing of
historic Lübeck and the retaliatory Baedeker raids in the second world war,
Bevan records systematic attacks on heritage targets as integral to military
conquest.
In case after case - mostly recently the Taliban in
Bamiyan and Isis in Palmyra - wiping out the culture of a hated people was a
means of subjugating them.
Even in peace, communist regimes knew that
destroying old buildings played a part in countering the conservative enemy
within.
The jihadis’ destruction of
Islam’s past may have seemed appallingly systematic.
But its effect on the
ground was no more appalling than the reckless western, and now Russian, aerial
bombardment of urban targets in Iraq and Syria.
The cultural
devastation cannot be computed.
America standing by during the firing and
looting of Baghdad’s library and museum during the 2003 invasion was in
flagrant defiance of the Hague convention.
It makes al-Mahdi’s crime seem
almost petty.
Timbuktu’s assiduousness in
pursuing its case reflects the complex relationship of all countries to their
past.
Old places are not simply relics for scholars. Millions visit historical
sites because they see them as exemplars of continuity and stability amid change.
As Bevan points out, that conquerors so crave their destruction is a measure of
their significance.
I like old places not because I always find them
beautiful – many are not beautiful while some new buildings are.
Rather I
prefer the display of the old as illuminating the new. It pleases the eye and
stimulates memory.
It is older quarters of towns that nowadays attract crowds.
This applies even where they have been drastically rebuilt.
If the 19th century
had not restored so many Gothic cathedrals and old towns, 21st-century Europe
would be immeasurably the poorer.
Historic buildings possess the
same cultural vitality as do great sculptures and paintings. We have
international laws governing the restitution of art to its owners.
The Hague
prosecution suggests that we might treat destroyed old buildings the same,
protecting them in time of war and restoring them to their cities if damaged
afterwards.
Warsaw rebuilt its old square,
Dresden its Frauenkirche and the National Trust its fire-damaged Uppark.
It is
to Unesco’s credit that it has already used local craftsmen to rebuild the
shrines smashed by al-Mahdi, even if it cannot recover their books and
contents.
By prosecuting those who did the smashing, the court greatly
strengthens the case for such rebuilding.
Yet a new fundamentalism is
emerging, that of “historical authenticity”.
Unesco still cannot make up its
mind to restore the
Bamiyan
buddhas, even though parts of them were already copies.
Argument is
raging over whether the
bombed
temples of Palmyra should
be rebuilt – as conservationists stand ready to do – or left as piles of rubble
as obscene monuments to Isis.
The future of old Aleppo faces those caring for
Syria’s past with a clear choice: to restore as in Warsaw, or to “modernise”.
Our debt to the past is growing more complicated than
either wiping it out or putting up fences and charging for entry. The challenge
is constant.
In Britain this week, Liverpool is demolishing its earliest
cinema,
the
Futurist, and
Grimsby seeks to wipe out the legacy of its maritime dockside.
The cause may be development
value rather than war. The loss to communal memory is the same.
If a vase is broken or a picture
slashed we do not leave them unrepaired. Why treat a building or a
neighbourhood or a whole culture more harshly, when we now have the means and
the skills to repair them?
To retreat into some ideological “truth to
materials” or “conserve as found” is elitist, obscurantist and, in the case of
jihadi outrages, a glorification of terrorism.
The Hague trial honours the
obligation of today’s generation to guard the evidence of the past, at least in
times of conflict.
In admitting his guilt, al-Mahdi’s lawyer says “he regrets
all the acts he committed… and feels pain and a broken heart at what he has done”.
Would that all who perpetrate similar destruction, in war or peace, might say
the same.
Imprisoning al-Mahdi cannot do
much good. Making amends by correcting his destruction is far better.
If
Timbuktu is any guide, the miseries lately inflicted on Iraq and Syria could
yet be turned to recompense and renaissance.
When peace returns, we cannot
breathe life into dead bodies, but we can redress the murder of memories.