August 4, 2014--The War Against Culture

This is not a culture war as we in the United States know it. It's not about matters such as same-sex marriage or if evolution should be taught in public schools. Our culture "wars" seem trivial in comparison to what is being fought over in the center of Iraq.

There, in Mosul, in the country's second-largest city, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has seized control and is imposing strict Islamic law--sharia. ISIS is also waging war on culture itself, on history, and on people's identity.

The headlines have been about ISIS extracting vengeance against the Shiites who are their historic enemies. How they have been rounding up and summarily executing anyone with the taint of having served in or supported the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

All of this is sadly familiar. What is different is that ISIS is deliberately and systematically obliterating everything that makes Mosul Mosul and everything that connects the people there to their 8,000-year history and culture.

Mosul is one of the most ancient of cities and was once the capital of the Assyrian Empire. For centuries, at the crossroads between East and West, it was fought over and conquered in turn by the Persians, Arabs, Turks, and others, all of whom left evidence of their occupation.

Now ISIS has seized control and rather than adding their imprint to this cultural mix they are doing all in their power to obliterate all evidence of the past, especially destroying any Assyrian, Jewish, Christian, and even every Islamic shrine, the presence of which, according to their beliefs, are heretical.

Thus far they have leveled statues of Abu Tammam, a revered Arab poet, and Mullah Othman, a famous and popular 19th century musician and poet. And they have driven all Christians from the city, obliterating their holy places or forcing their conversion to ISIS's form of Islam. A form so severe that even Al-Qaeda has denounced them.

They also destroyed the grave site and shrine to the prophet Jonah whose life story plays a prominent part in the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Residents fear that ISIS is planning to tear down and reduce to rubble the city's ancient leaning minaret. It is older than the Leaning Tower of Pisa and its image is represented on Iraq's 10,000 dinar bank note.

    Wrecked grave site of the biblical prophet Jonah

When ISIS militants entered Mosul in June, government troops stripped off their uniforms, threw away their arms, and attempted to blend into the civilian population for at least two reasons--to save their lives and because they felt that ISIS rule would be less oppressive than that imposed by the Maliki regime.

But with their history and culture imperiled, according to the New York Times, resistance to ISIS has emerged and Mosul residents, taking up arms, are coming forward to resist further desecration of their historical and religious shrines.

This is a reminder that culture trumps politics and economics every time.

There is a lesson here for those of us who, above all else, believe in reason and are reluctant to see the geopolitical force of emotion and belief. And thus we frequently fail to understand the power of culture.

Belief systems, history, national narratives, language, customs, arts, collective memory are more powerful than flatscreen TVs, Nikes, or iPhones.

OK, maybe not iPhones.