War creates loss of culture as well as loss of life

Casualties of war are counted in death tolls, not by looted portraits or lost cultures. Records of war are scripted by treaties. However, there is a muffled outcry reaching beyond these standards of combat. \nHistorians and war victims struggle to keep lost pieces of their culture together as the artifacts that connect cultures are lost in the rubble of conflict.\n"In times of war, art that is destroyed deliberately is a direct blow to the people of cultures or religions that have somehow offended the aggressors," said IU doctoral candidate of art history Holly Silvers. \nArt deliberately destroyed as an act of war is often ignored during primetime news. These subjective pieces are expressed through religion, art, figureheads and even architecture. \nThe Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist militia that ruled Afghanistan before being ousted by the United States in October 2001, were known to destroy pre-Islamic works in that country. In March 2001, militia members destroyed fifth- and sixth-century statues of Bamiyan Buddhas in Kabul in an effort to remove icons which did not advocate Islam. These statutes included the tallest existing Buddha figures in the world. \n"By destroying art in the name of radical Islam, the Taliban has attempted to show the non-radical Muslim population by essentially erasing modern Afghani visual culture," Silvers said. "Equally destructive demonstrators gathered to burn copies of the Holy Islamic book, the Koran, in protest."\nThe U.S.-led invasion of Iraq caused intense destruction to what remained of an already damaged Iraqi culture. The war in Iraq resulted in thousands of looted artifacts in Iraq's national museum alone.\n"We were all shocked by the destruction of Afghanistan statues and Baghdad looting," said Rebecca Cape, head of reference and public services at the IU Lilly Library.\nThe museums had ancient, irreplaceable artwork which held great cultural value, and rebuilding the damaged art involves much risk, said Christiane Gruber, assistant professor of Islamic art. \n"There might be funding to reconstruct and to restore," Gruber said. "But if they don't restore (the art) properly, there might be a mixing up of historical billing, which is a loss."\nMuch of the stolen relics from the Iraqi museum are already being recovered, said the museum's director, as several boxes full of artwork have been intercepted by U.S. and Iraqi authorities. \nSilvers said that most of the remaining artifacts have not yet been significantly destroyed, but instead are being bought and sold on the black market. \n"The arts are always going to take second place to human catastrophe. It's just how we work," Gruber said. "The problem with that is there is a cloak over activists that are being led to the black market."\nJewish rabbis in the past months have been fighting a similar theological debate in Gaza, Israel. In September, the Israeli army withdrew after a 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip. This included removing their Jewish settlements. \nThe Palestine Authority then made demands that Israel must dismantle remaining synagogues in Gaza, claiming they are part of the settlements. \nHowever, after consideration of Jewish ritual law, Israeli officials decided to leave the synagogues intact, stating they would observe theological law and not overlook the cultural value of the structures.