Preservation in a World of Diplomacy

The ongoing destruction of cultural heritage by Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq brings to the fore a glaring paradox. On the one hand, preventing the deliberate destruction of culture now appears to hold little moral ambiguity, with such acts now regularly condemned by various governments and agencies around the world as both “war crimes” and a “crimes against humanity.” And yet, the failure to prevent IS’s campaign of destruction is a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities of culture in times of conflict, and the inability of the so-called international community to act upon the imperative to preserve. Indeed, today it appears as though the threat to cultural heritage is increasing in magnitude in accordance with the changing nature of international conflict and terrorism.

Looking across Western media, academia, and the various agencies committed to preventing further destruction, the response to IS has revolved around select themes, namely the legal instruments for preventing the illicit trafficking of objects, the challenges of protecting archaeological sites and museum collections, or the benefits of documentation and digital capture. While fully recognizing the critical importance of such efforts, I would, however, suggest that the challenge posed by IS extends beyond questions of actual preservation and international law, to include a serious diplomatic conundrum, one that has not received the critical and sustained attention it deserves.

We have come a long way since World War II, and yet the characteristics of today’s international relations and diplomatic arena mean significant challenges remain in putting together effective solutions to a phenomenon like IS. UNESCO has led the charge in raising awareness of the plight of the region’s cultural heritage, and the issue has received sporadic attention from a number of governments around the world. In September 2014, for example, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the Department of State would dedicate resources for preservation and documentation of heritage in the region. In May 2015, ninety-one states supported the UN General Assembly Resolution “Saving the Cultural Heritage of Iraq” (69/281). With the protection of culture now widely acknowledged as a human rights issue, it would appear it is the responsibility of all to act. This idealism, however, belies the far more complex task of bringing together “coalitions of the willing.” For Syria and Iraq’s regional neighbors, material culture inherited from the past is deeply entangled in the broader politics of the region today and speaks to the hostilities between Sunni and Shiite groups and the religious roots at the heart of tensions between countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. The possibility for enacting effective heritage protection interventions in Syria has been further complicated by the domestic political situation, whereby IS has provided a geopolitically expedient foil for Bashar al-Assad. In this regard, both Syria and Iraq also raise the highly challenging question of how to intervene in the protection of culture when states collapse and domestic governmental priorities shift in other directions.

Although IS’s version of Wahhabi extremism, which attempts to erase the cultural pasts of others, bears the hallmarks of nation-building, their declared aim to establish a caliphate is an explicit attempt to stand outside the current international system of nation-states. The situation presents major challenges for both states and intergovernmental agencies searching for diplomatic solutions to the heritage issue. With so much of the focus on the destruction of high-profile sites such as Palmyra and Nimrud, we also need to ask why far less concern has been expressed in the Western media over the destruction of Syria’s mosques, churches, and other shrines, or to the extensive damage to the historic cities of Yemen caused by Saudi Arabian air attacks. Equally, with much of the burden seeming to rest on the shoulders of UNESCO, what should we expect from the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) in steering more effective political, legal, and “on the ground” policies? The pursuit of such lines of enquiry adds clarity to a situation wherein the protection of culture and heritage appears to be a largely uncontentious enterprise with a clear moral...