Killing a people’s heritage is the weapon of choice among dictators

Trump, in his warmongering stupor, has proposed the same destruction dictators have used for centuries: ‘culturecide’, where future generations must grieve for their very essence, writes Robert Fisk

The most culturally important building in Tehran? Iranian students storm the US embassy in 1979 (AFP via Getty)

There is something deeply ritualistic as well as outrageous about our coverage of the latest mummers play in the Middle East. The US president tosses off another tweet to the world and – however infantile or medically insane its contents – we treat it as some serious political statement. Then millions march on the streets of the Arab world, shouting “Death to America’’ and “Death to Israel’’, and we report this nonsense as if these slogans – which I have been listening to in the Middle East for decades – are actually the product of some serious political debate. Their cries may be understandable, but they give no indication of Iran’s future reaction to the murder of Qassem Soleimani.

Then the international channels dress up all this verbiage into the language of “crisis journalism’’ – scrupulously fair to both mendacious sides – and open an old journalistic notebook. Escalation, retaliation, backlash, revenge, hatred, the gravest crisis since the last gravest crisis, you name it. This is familiar territory and I am reminded of the early days of the Northern Ireland war when we played the same preposterous, childish word games.

In one of his exasperated poems of the early Seventies, Seamus Heaney – later a Nobel laureate and now, alas, the late Seamus – expressed almost identical fury. He wrote of journalists in Belfast “who proved upon their pulses ‘escalate’,/‘Backlash’ and ‘crack down’…/‘Polarisation’ and ‘long-standing hate’…” Heaney’s poem, titled Whatever You Say, Say Nothing is all too applicable. The more we journos utter, the more banal we become. And the more banal it becomes, the less we understand. Or, more to the point, the less we are supposed to understand.

For we who prove these words “upon our pulses’’ connive at the conflicts we write about. We are essential components of the false drama. The murdered Soleimani is a “bearded icon’’, an “inveterate opponent’’ of the US – a dangerous thing to be right now since Trump has taken “a dramatic leap up the escalation ladder’’. And so on and on and on. And on.

Indeed, this form of crisis-speak is quite addictive. Let’s start with the Trumpian suggestion that there may be future targets of the US military which are “important to Iranian culture”. The press pack in Washington immediately pointed out that using cultural targets was a war crime – or would be under conventions signed at Geneva and The Hague, not to mention the 2017 UN Security Council resolution condemning the destruction of cultural sites.

The Iranians blathered on about Genghis Khan (which is pushing it a bit) and Hitler – which is much more to the point, although Shia clerics are not normally experts in post-Second World War jurisprudence. And then it was all about what exactly Trump said or meant. Surely it was quite clear. He was proposing “Culturecide’’. It’s a word we used to use in Bosnia when the Croatians or the Serbs or the Bosnians deliberately blasted down Ottoman bridges, ancient mosques or churches or dug up ancient graveyards to revenge themselves upon each other.

Culturecide rides a second best to genocide. You are not mass murdering a race of people. You are destroying the past and future heritage of a race of people to ensure that generations unborn – if genocide does not work, which it sometimes does – cannot experience or enjoy the historical proof of their own existence.

You are destroying the past and future heritage of a race of people to ensure that generations unborn – if genocide does not work, which it sometimes does — cannot experience or enjoy the historical proof of their own existence

The Nazis were experts at Culturecide. What else was the burning of 267 synagogues on Kristallnacht in 1938? Or the razing of 427 Russian museums at Smolensk, Poltava, Stalingrad, Novgorod and Leningrad by the Waffen SS in 1941? Or the setting alight of the Louvre’s temporary repository in the Valencay chateau in 1944 by the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division? Or, a few months later, after Hitler had ordered the destruction of the remains of Warsaw, the blowing up by the Sprengkommando of the Polish Royal Castle and the destruction of the church in which Chopin’s heart was once buried?

It is essential we remember these acts of barbarism if we are to understand what Trump has proposed. Not because he’s sane – he is bonkers – but because many of those who have ordered Culturecide have been quite as demented as the US president. Goering told Czech president Hacha he would destroy Prague if the old man did not agree to Nazi occupation. Hitler was getting impatient, you see. Hacha had to realise that the Nazis meant business (and he got the message).

Berlin, March 1939: Hitler informs Czech president Emil Hacha of Germany’s imminent invasion of Czechoslovakia (AFP via Getty)

But this Culturecide – the targeting of sites “important to…culture” in Trump’s imperishable words – does not fit neatly into a mere few years. In 1914, the German army invading Belgium deliberately set fire to the great library of Louvain (Leuven) university, destroying 300,000 books, many of them medieval manuscripts. Nor do we forget the burning of Armenian libraries and Christian churches and Roman antiquities – think Palmyra – by Isis.

And nor should we cast aside the memory of the Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Harris as he climbed to the roof of the Air Ministry in London on the night of 29 December 1940 to watch the fires of the Nazi Blitz lighting the sky over the capital. It was just six weeks since the Luftwaffe had destroyed the centre of Coventry and its medieval cathedral.

In his own autobiography, Harris describes how, as he turned away from the fires, he said to his then boss, Chief of the Air Staff (head of Bomber Command), Sir Charles Portal: “Well, they are sowing the wind.” In other words, the same Germans bombing London would – in the words of Hosea 8:7, which Harris had slightly misquoted – “reap the whirlwind”. Which came, of course, in the firestorms of Hamburg and Dresden, when Harris was himself head of Bomber Command.

It’s no use saying Dresden was not a revenge raid. Yes, rail links, industry, close to the advancing Russian lines, etc. But Dresden, like Hamburg, was also chosen because incendiary bombs worked well among medieval civilian houses – because they were made of wood. So well that the resulting fires in Dresden, stoked by 650,000 incendiaries, even brought down the great 18th-century stone Frauenkirch. And liquified the people of Dresden.

Dresden was chosen by Bomber Command because incendiary bombs worked well among medieval civilian houses because they were made of wood (Getty)

Strange how Kristallnacht, Poltava, Novgorod, Leningrad, Louvain, the chateau of Valencay and poor old President Hacha didn’t get much of a running after the Trump twitter. A few heartbeats about Isis and Dresden were all that historical memory proved on anyone’s pulses.

But we forgot one other all-important and salient element – the spurious claim of retaliation. The Nazis alleged that Kristallnacht in 1938 was in revenge for the killing of a German diplomat by a Jew in Berlin. The Russian museums were razed because Soviet forces continued to resist the Wehrmacht. The Louvre’s chateau was assaulted because the SS blamed the French for helping the Allied landings in Normandy.

The Germans destroyed the centre of Warsaw on Hitler’s orders because its people had dared to rise up against their occupation. Prague was threatened because Hacha’s delay was annoying the Fuhrer. The Germans of 1914 burned Louvain after their troops were attacked by Belgian francs-tireurs. Hamburg and Dresden came after the Nazi’s first destruction of Warsaw in 1939 and then of Coventry in 1940. Isis pulverised churches and antiquities because they offended their literalist interpretation of Islam.

But try this. Trump’s piffling attempt at Culturecide – though it could become a lot more serious – was uttered to warn of US retaliation, which might come for the Iranian retaliation, which hasn’t yet come for Soleimani’s murder, which was US retaliation for the killing of US troops in Iraq who went there in retaliation for Saddam’s non-existent role in 9/11.

A US tank outside the plundered National Museum in Baghdad in 2003. US soldiers stood by as priceless treasures were looted (Getty)

And now – journalists, of course, should run the news as a comedy show these days – Soleimani’s assassination was, according to US vice president Mike Pence, also in retaliation for his assistance “in the clandestine travel of 10 of 12 terrorists who carried out the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States”, even though the killers actually numbered 19 – 15 of whom were Saudis who would have liked to see Soleimani dead.

Now that’s what I call a lazy super-whopper. Almost as brazen as the George W Bush claim 19 years ago that Saddam was involved in 9/11 – remember that? – so he had to invade Iraq which, on a scale of one to 10, was like Hitler claiming that his 1939 invasion of Poland was forced upon him because Poland tried to invade Germany. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HITLER DID SAY!

There are signs, of course, that some among the US military’s top brass are getting a little bit frightened about their commander-in-chief’s intention to lead them into the paths of unrighteous war crimes. The Pentagon is showing a little distance from the White House on this one. So, I’m told by Arab military personnel who talk regularly to the US military in the Gulf, are two senior American officers based in the region.

It’s a simple problem. The Trumps of this world come and go – even if we have to endure another four years of the real Trump – but lieutenant colonels become generals who could still be around waiting for honourable retirement when an international lawyer suddenly comes knocking at the door in 10 years’ time.

The Trumps of this world come and go, but lieutenant colonels become generals who could still be around waiting for honourable retirement when an international lawyer suddenly comes knocking at the door in 10 years’ time

But don’t count on your soldiers. Nor on their intelligence. I’m told on very good authority that the Americans tried to drone-zap Qassem Soleimani in Syria about 18 months ago. And they missed. But what if they’d got him? We couldn’t say the assassination had been ordered because of the US elections – or because of Trump’s impeachment. But wait a moment. Would that not have coincided with the Mueller investigation into contacts between Trump and the Russians prior to the 2016 US elections?

And just two more little crinkles before we drop this whole sordid, lie-soaked business. Firstly, it was Qassem Soleimani who agreed that the Lebanese Hezbollah could try to close down the non-sectarian protests in central Beirut just before Christmas, with Shia as well as Sunnis and Christians protesting together for a non-confessional government. I watched the young Hezbollah men – heroes of the anti-Israeli wars in southern Lebanon, as many believe them to be – striking and beating these innocent protestors. Defenders of Lebanon no more.

Mosul’s ancient leaning minaret, known as the ‘Hadba‘, was destroyed by Isis (AFP via Getty)

In Iraq, Soliemani’s armed men, Iraqis but part of the grand Iranian Shia militia in the country, were repressing another justified demonstration for an end to government corruption, shooting down hundreds of their own fellow co-religionists in Baghdad and Iraq’s holiest city. Even the mighty Ayatollah Sistani objected to Iran’s interference. This was not Soleimani’s finest hour. And then the Americans killed him, just as his campaign to promote Iran’s power was sliding away. Was this stupidity? Or is there something we don’t know?

Either way, here’s the last little questionnaire: we’ve all joined the scaredy-cat debate about where Iran will strike back, but we’ve not decided which “cultural site’’ the Trumpites will hit in retaliation for the Iran retaliation for … You can fill in that bit for yourself. There are the ancient ruins of Persepolis, of course, where our western leaders – and British royalty – once travelled to celebrate the Shah’s supposedly 2,500 year old Persian empire; Nixon, Pompidou, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Anne, the whole shebang. Then I suppose we have to include the great mosques of Isfahan and Mashad.

Western leaders and royals flocked to Persepolis in 1971 to celebrate the Shah’s 2,500-year-old empire (Getty)

But I have a suspicion just what kind of cultural site the mad president of the United States has in mind. It lies in the very centre of Tehran. It is concrete-walled, ugly, strewn with dated slogans, long abandoned by its original occupants. Iranians call it the “den of espionage”.

It is the US embassy in Tehran where 52 American hostages were seized in November 1979. It has long been a symbol of US humiliation. It is the compound whose capture by the so-called students of Ayatollah Khomeini started off the whole American-Iranian catastrophe, or – ergo Seamus Heaney – “long-standing hatred’’. It plays an actively pernicious role in the very centre of Iranian and American political life. It is potentially the most culturally important building in the whole of the capital.

Wouldn’t this just appeal to Trump? Insane American president orders pilotless American drone to blow up empty American embassy. Now that really would be culture for you.