George Monbiot writes: Journalists are meant to be able to watch and read dispassionately: to face horror with equanimity. I have never acquired this skill, and I know I’m not the only one. It’s true that we seek out bad news, but there is some news that many of us find hard to confront.
This is why I write about extinction less often than I should: most of the time I just don’t want to know. It’s one of the reasons why I have turned my gaze away from the Middle East. I’ve been unable to watch, or even to think very much about the bombing of Gaza, the war in Syria or the slaughter of hostages by Isis. But, reluctantly, I’ve forced myself to read about the destruction of the ancient wonders at Nimrud and Hatra.
The war Isis is waging against difference has many fronts. Just as this rebarbative movement is engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the peoples whose lands it has occupied, it is also involved in the cultural cleansing of the pre-Islamic past. Anything that deviates from its narrow strictures must be destroyed.
The magnificent buildings at Nimrud and Hatra and the precious sculptures and friezes they held were, to Isis, nothing more than deviance. Marvels that have persisted for thousands of years were leveled in hours with explosives and bulldozers. These people have inflicted a great wound upon the world.
But while this destruction, as Isis doubtless intends, is shocking, for me it is also familiar. Almost every day, I find in my inbox similar stories of the razing of priceless treasures. But they tend to involve natural marvels, rather than manmade ones.
The clearing of forests and savannas, the trawling or dredging of coral reefs and seamounts and other such daily acts of vandalism deprive the world of the wonders that enhance our lives. A great global polishing is taking place, eliminating difference, leaving behind grey monotonies of the kind that Isis appears to love. But while the destruction of those ancient citadels in northern Iraq has been widely and rightly denounced as a war crime, the levelling of our natural wonders is treated as if it were a sad but necessary fact of life. [Continue reading…]
