The wanton and horrifying destruction of a World Heritage site — the Sidi Yahia mosque — and several ancient tombs at Timbuktu by radical Islamist insurgents in Mali is another grim reminder of growing intolerance towards cultural symbols in conflict areas. Eleven years after the Bamiyan Buddhas were pulversised by the Taliban and 19 years on from the demolition of the Babri Masjid by Hindutva fanatics, it is clear that existing international conventions and the protective measures they offer to heritage structures are ineffective. Timbuktu is not, as the English-speaking world conditioned by Orientalist imagination conjures, an insignificant place located in the back of beyond. Rather, it is a historic city of captivating beauty. Saddled between the desert and the irrigated areas of the river Niger in north Mali, Timbuktu, founded by Tuaregs in the 11th century, flourished as a trading city during the 15th and 16th centuries, and also as a centre of learning. The mosques of Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, built more than 400 years ago, attest to its great past. These exquisite examples of earthen architecture along with 16 cemeteries are World Heritage sites. Ansar Dine — the radical Islamist militia which has taken control of the area — considers the mosques dedicated to Sufi saints and structures over graves as idolatrous, and has barbarically ravaged them with pickaxes.
What Malians fear more is the condition of about 300,000 ancient manuscripts. In the past, Timbuktu hosted thousands of students who came to learn about Islam. Books on religious and other subjects were written, copied and traded. Libraries and institutions there such as the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research still preserve and use many of them. If these precious documents meet the same fate as the monuments, the loss would be irreplaceable. Sadly, the World Heritage Convention and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols have turned out to be toothless. They could not bind the radical militia. Hope now lies in two places. The statute of the International Criminal Court includes as war crimes the deliberate destruction of cultural properties. Such legal provisions could be improved in scope to become effective deterrents. A proactive empowerment of local communities to care for and guard their heritage during conflict is another avenue to explore. UNESCO’s assistance to local guards in Congo during the time of conflict (2001) to save the world natural heritage sites there was reassuring. Timbuktu needs more of such support and it needs this urgently.
Keywords: Mali heritage destruction, Sidi Yahia mosque, Timbuktu heritage sites, World Heritage site
The destruction of the Bamiyan Budha statues at Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001 had been not only a cultural shock but a personal one to me because I was a member of the Archaeological Survey of India team that had restored these magnificent statues, working over a period of 9 years from 1969 to 1977. The present destruction of the Sidi Yahia mosque at Timbuktu is yet another instance of mindless violence against world heritage and culture by religious fanatics.What can you say to people who cannot see beyond their nose? It is for the international community to sit up and devise some means for the protection of such monuments in the furure.
now days people were become religious fanatics and they not respecting the beauty of past and neither praising the structure .we can save it just to raise alarm in society and get support of people.
@Siva. Like Babri masjid was a disputed mosque, so must be the dispute
over this mosque or tomb of the saint among the locals there. The
primary issue is protection of cultural monuments wherever they may be
Thailand-Cambodia,Afghanistan, New Delhi or Timbuktu.
It is indeed unfortunate that structures of such historic importance are being destroyed by mindless fanatics driven by religious fundamentalism. On such occasions it becomes even more imperative that Islamic scholars and organizations across the world raise their voice against such heinous incidents, declare such acts as un-Islamic and impress upon the perpetrators not to indulge in such activities in future. UNESCO too, as suggested, needs to take up this issue with priority and do all it can to prevent the recurrence of such barbaric and condemnable incidents in future.
The author clearly defines the problem in this essay, when he says, "the radical Islamist militia ... — considers the mosques dedicated to Sufi saints and structures over graves as idolatrous". We need to see "what is idolatry". Who defines what idolatry is. We need to see whether Islam and Christianity have the necessary legitimacy to decide on what constitutes idolatry, and whether they have the right to wipe it off. Ideally, Islam's and Christianity's exclusive claims to truth must be challenged, without challenging that, there is no hope for cultural and religious diversity, and communal peace.
Mr Siva Bhaskaran above does not like the Babri Mosque to be compared
to the Timbuktu monuments because the mosque was a "disputed
structure"! What does a dispute have to do with age and historical
value and antiquity? Does a dispute mean an ancient structure can be
destroyed? The Islamist vandals in Timbuktu also look at the Sufi
mosques as "disputed" because they do not conform to their warped view
of Islam. They see the gravs and shrines as an affront to Islam, just
like the Hindutva vandals in Ayodhya saw the Babri mosque as an
"affront" to their warped view of Hinduism. Alas Mr Siva Bhaskaran,
what was done there is a mirror image of what is happening in distant
Timbuktu.
The rise of fanaticism is directly proportionate to the fall in liberal
mores. As a society, we have failed to understand the deep and abiding
values of tolerance and accommodation of alternate ideas/views.
Extremist ideas have no place in any civilization and have always been
the harbinger of grief and sorrow.We would do well to heed the cries of
rapidly drowning voices of alarm.
It has been failure of the world community to stop the coup at mali and further stop the Boko Haram militia in the Nigeria region. It can be seen from the negligence shown to the two above that the focus of major powers largely remains in the countries which are energy rich not the democratic principles which they boast of. Our failure to protect the heritage by not building pressure on groups shows our concerns regarding ancient resources which throws light on culture.
It is time to increase the diplomatic maneuvers so as to save our ancestral artefacts.
The Babri structure was a disputed structure. It is highly naive of the author to compare the demolition of a disputed structure with the wanton destruction of historical monuments by Islamists. Talk about comparing apples and oranges.
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