We Need to 'Loot' to Preserve Art for the World

Lindsey Hilsum on International Affairs has some sensible views on the preservation of the cultural heritage in unstable underdeveloped countries (" Iraq: why looting can be a good thing" Friday 27 Feb 2015)

Thank goodness for looting. If Henry Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad, hadn’t removed a 16 tonne 7th century alabaster statue of a winged bull from Nimrud, near Mosul, in 1849, Islamic State vandals would be taking a sledgehammer to it right now. [...] The magical figure, one of two that once guarded an entrance to the citadel of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 BC), is now one of the treasures of the British Museum. Last year 6.8 million visitors had the chance to see it. Contrast that with the horrific scene we witnessed on an Islamic State video yesterday, as the demolition squad of the IS destroyed Assyrian statues – thankfully many of them replicas – in Mosul museum.[...] The destruction we witnessed on the IS video has echoes of the Taliban’s detonation of the Bamyan Buddhas and the wrecking of mud tombs by jihadis in Timbuktu. Zealots are doing the same in Libya, destroying Sufi shrines and other historic buildings they regard as idolatrous. In Syria, historical sites at Palmyra and around Aleppo have been looted by smugglers who sell the artifacts on the international antiquities market. In an ideal world, every country’s heritage would be guarded in situ for the benefit of those whose identity is rooted in their past. But if the violent destructive tide of history shows no sign of ebbing, better that at least some vestiges of previous civilisations be kept safe in the great museums of London, Berlin and New York, courtesy of the colonial looters of yesteryear.