Dan Cruickshank's Civilisation Under Attack, BBC4 - TV review: A depressing look at the destruction of human heritage

Has the global media's blackout unwittingly inspired a new form of telegenic propaganda?

Dan Cruickshank's Civilisation Under Attack

In Dan Cruickshank's Civilisation Under Attack BBC4 documentary, the usually cheerful art historian held his head in his hands as he watched footage of Isis thugs destroying artefacts from the ancient Mesopotamian "cradle of civilisation".

Cruickshank's investigation into the philosophy (if you can call it that) behind such actions led inevitably to rent-a-gob pantomime villain Anjem Choudary, who declared himself "very pleased, actually" about the destruction of so much human heritage.

His argument that this was a fundamental religious duty was, however, easily refuted by other Muslims including Islamic scholar Usama Hasan and Saba al-Omari a curator at the Mosul Museum, whom Cruickshank met on a trip there some years before the 2014 attack. "She's a Christian, I'm a Muslim," said al-Omari, indicating her colleague, "but life is meaningless to us. We will protect this museum until the last drop of our blood."

Cruickshank also did a thorough job of examining the extent to which the rest of the world should take responsibility. When the global media began imposing a blackout on Isis images of beheadings, did they unwittingly inspire this new form of telegenic propaganda?

It was historian Tom Holland who best summed up the dilemma: "I don't see how we can, morally, as a society, intervene on behalf of stones and statues and not intervene on behalf of the women and the children and the men who are being slaughtered." Perhaps BBC4's arts and culture output can sometimes seem rarefied, but it was proof of how urgent these subjects truly are.