Re-watching the footage of Dubrovnik’s Old Town crumbling
under a barrage of Yugoslav artillery fire in 1991, it seems strangely barbaric. During the 1980s, Croatia’s Dalmatian coast, incorporating the turquoise Adriatic, romantic islands and endless sunshine, was a popular holiday
destination for tourists from across Europe.
The historic and picturesque towns of Split and Dubrovnik, whose walled
city stretching into the sea was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979,
were eerily familiar to the public watching the war unfold on their television
screens. Tragically for the thousands
who had lost their lives earlier in the Croatian War of Independence, it was
this act of cultural barbarity that drew the strongest censure from other
nations around the world.
In the war that followed in neighbouring Bosnia, the
shelling of Mostar’s famous Stari Most attracted similar criticism. Hundreds of Mosques, Catholic and Orthodox
churches were destroyed during the course of the Bosnian War, in an effort to obliterate
the religions and cultures of the warring parties.
There is much sentiment invested in historic sites; the fact
that they have stood for so long and witnessed many lives pass through them and
around them makes their destruction entirely symbolic, serving no strategic
military purpose. In the case of Mostar’s
Stari Most, there were several more modern road bridges over the river that
were left untouched.
In the last two weeks, news has filtered through of the
destruction of the ruins of Palmyra in Syria.
The site contains the ruins of a city once considered one of the most
important cultural centres of the ancient world. The labyrinth of buildings and monuments, demonstrating a broad range of architectural styles, drew over 150,000 visitors
a year before the Syrian conflict began.
The former chief archaeologist at the site, Khaled al-Assad, was
beheaded by Islamic State (IS) militants in August for refusing to cooperate in assisting them
to find hidden treasures at Palmyra. He
was willing to die to protect Syria’s cultural heritage.
IS know exactly what message they are sending when they blow
up sites like Palmyra. They have similarly
rampaged through the heritage sites of Iraq.
Many Shiite mosques, tombs and shrines have been looted and destroyed,
as well as numerous ancient and medieval sites and artefacts, including the
ancient cities of Nimrud and Hatra, parts of the wall of Nineveh, the ruins of
Bash Tapia Castle and artefacts from the Mosul Museum. Such is the alarm at the work of IS that
UNESCO Directo-General Irina Bokova launched the Unite4Heritage campaign in
March this year. Her aim was to create a
global movement “to protect and safeguard heritage in areas where it is
threatened by extremists.”
The destruction of cultural heritage is classified as a war
crime and IS actions have been condemned by the UN General Assembly and
Security Council. The demolition of
cultural icons and buildings in war is considered such a grave crime because the
deliberate targeting of history, along with other symbolic acts such as
book burning and the damaging of art, represents the destruction of ideas
and identity – the things that make us human; the things that embody our
freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
This is what makes them such effective weapons of war.
Although the history itself will be lost forever, the rebuilding
of these sites when wars are over can be equally powerful symbols of
reconciliation. In 2004, the Stari Most
was rebuilt, having been painstakingly restored using original methods. It now attracts as many visitors as
ever. Last year, Bosnia’s National
Library in Sarajevo, destroyed during the siege of 1992-5, was reopened, to
much celebration.
