MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
Timbuktu world heritage site attacked by Islamists
By artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 1:40am |Reuters in Bamako, July 1, 2012
Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes have destroyed the centuries-old mausoleums of saints in the Unesco-listed city of Timbuktu in front of shocked locals, witnesses say.
The attack by the al-Qaida-linked Ansar Dine group came days after Unesco placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger [....]
"They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly," said a local journalist, Yeya Tandina.
Tandina and other witnesses said Ansar Dine had already destroyed the mausoleums of three local saints – Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi el-Mokhtar and Alfa Moya – and at least seven tombs. "The mausoleum doesn't exist any more and the cemetery is as bare as a soccer pitch," a local teacher, Abdoulaye Boulahi, said of the Mahmoud burial place [....]
URL:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/01/timbuktu-world-heritage-site-attacked?newsfeed=true
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Comments
by artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 2:28am
The link to the original article doesn't work, appraiser.
Shades of Bamiyan! A tiny faction of fanatics, mostly from one tiny tribe, uses the chaos of Mali's power vacuum to destroy an irreplaceable cultural gem. Ansar Dine, without a shred of religious cred, declares Sufism (which has a history at least as old as Islam itself) to be idolatrous.
Let me point out that the breakup of Mali couldn't have happened without the arming of avowed jihadis to fight against Gaddafi. Unintended consequences, I know.
by acanuck on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 4:48pm
The link to the original article doesn't work, appraiser.
Oops; thanks-fixed now--what happened was my pasting got a little out of control there, I didn't put a link there but some text.
I just posted it because I caught it on the Guardian site, reading something else, and it seemed to be the first mention, from a local source with nobody else covering it; I was curious to see if maybe more would come of it or the story would just fade away.
Well, now in searching for the old link, I see there's quite a bit more coverage. And yeah, it's up to people to decide whether that's warranted or not, making a mountain out of a molehill or not, or who to ultimately blame. On the other hand, you can't expect UNESCO not to want to make a big deal about it, they can't avoid seeing it as an attack on them and their authority as well, coming right after they cited the place.
by artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 6:11pm
The destruction of old Timbuktu strikes me as a pretty big deal. The West and the Arab League can summon up billions on short notice to bankroll strategically motivated regime change in Libya and Syria, but dither over whether and how to stop 30 gunmen with pickaxes from methodically wiping out an important part of the world's cultural patrimony.
It's not just the mausoleums that are in danger, either. There are several libraries filled with centuries-old art and manuscripts.
by acanuck on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 6:58pm
Let the Muslims protect Muslim mausoleums. It strikes me as not a big deal.
You have to be kidding if you think NATO is now going to add 'protecting burial and holy sites and structures of various religious sects and offshoots anywhere in the world" to its charter.
At least no lives have been lost, and the Sharia fanatics work off some Holy steam.
by NCD on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 8:04pm
Notice that I did say "the West and the Arab League." The Saudis and their Gulf proxies are Muslims, no? They could spare a regiment or two.
In any case, I'd feel the same way as I do about Timbuktu and the Bamiyan buddhas if some yahoos were torching the Sistine Chapel or the Vatican Library, or looting the tombs of the pharaohs or the Baghdad Museum. I'm not at all religious but that's all part of our common heritage as human beings.
Finally, you should understand that, despite what the Ansar Dine spokesman says, sharia does not mandate the destruction of other believers' shrines, any more than the Bible commands Christians to burn the Quran. There are quite a few aspects of Islamic law I'd have trouble living under, but I can't claim to live up to all 10 commandments, either. Ironically perhaps, Sufi rulers were quite flexible in how rigid a compliance with sharia they demanded of others.
by acanuck on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 9:24pm
I suspect most leaders of the Arab League don't exactly have that much interest in maintaining Sufi history.
by artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 8:41pm
The Arab League, perhaps not. The Turks, on the other hand, have a long tradition of Sufi penetration into the ruling class. The janissary corps was largely Bektashi, and, to an extant also Mevlevi. The more obscure Kwajagan persisted and remained influential in government. and finance, to my personal knowledge, well into the last quarter of the last century and, I suspect even to this day, although Hasan Susud from whom I learned of them is no longer alive.
by jollyroger on Tue, 07/03/2012 - 12:05am
This is very, very interesting. U.S.-trained Burkina Faso troops board a plane for a "training mission" in Mali -- a couple of days ago. Like I said, the thugs who are terrorizing Timbuktu are said to number two to three dozen. Seems to me you can load at least that many troops and their top-of-the-line equipment into a single C-130. Is it possible the U.S. military presence in Africa could be used to good effect for once?
by acanuck on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 7:31pm
Forgot the link:
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-military-plans-small-operations-in-afr...
by acanuck on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 7:32pm
Those that know my record know I am not big on conspiracy theorizing. That said, I cannot resist posting this piece from a week ago that I just ran across in checking for more news on this, the coincidence is so strong:
by artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 9:04pm
I just found evidence that it's not true that there was no warning and that this just happened out of the blue, as current news reports tend to make one think. Actually, it looks like what's been going on is a "war" between UNESCO and Ansar Dine:
by artappraiser on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 9:02pm