President Donald Trump’s new year message, posted on Twitter in the wake of the US killing of Qassem Suleimani, was unequivocal: “Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites … some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”
There’s little room for doubt: the president is threatening to destroy cultural heritage, which constitutes a war crime according to several international laws that the US has both sponsored and signed. These include the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 2017 United Nations Security Council resolution 2347, which “condemns the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage, including the destruction of religious sites and artefacts, and the looting and smuggling of cultural property from archaeological sites, museums, libraries, archives, and other sites, notably by terrorist groups”.
The description of Iran’s most valuable cultural sites fall under such regulations, which were first created in the aftermath of the second world war, a time in which both sides lost invaluable buildings, artworks and cultural practices, mostly due to technological advancement in the means of warfare. Fears of future wars with widespread use of aerial bombardment, even nuclear warfare, were so great that one of the nascent UN’s imperatives was to protect not only people from indiscriminate destruction, but the spaces where their livelihoods were carried out as well. This is how current shorthand terminologies such as Unesco world heritage sites were coined: not as a list of beautiful and valuable sites to be visited or seen, but as an inventory of spaces where war could under no circumstances be waged.
With conflicts ongoing today that extend even longer distances between attacker and target, these legislations demand obedience by their signatories more than ever.
In the wake of the 2001 Taliban destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and Islamic State’s 2015 laying to waste of the ancient site of Palmyra, we have become much more aware of the fragility of cultural heritage. The global outcry after the accidental fire which last summer consumed Notre Dame Cathedral was also loud: the feeling that treasures of the past are slipping away from our protection is one of the marks of contemporary culture. However, it is worth remembering that the construction of the Taliban and Isis as barbaric enemies makes it far easier for the public to denounce these events as war crimes.
Iran is a widely misunderstood nation, partly because access to it has been restricted since the 1979 Iranian revolution, but mostly because cold war-era western politics coated the country with a communist veneer, shrouding it as a barbaric land, a perception which persists to this day. Its regime, non-secular and repressive, has bolstered its negative reputation recently as it has allegedly murdered more than 1,500 activists in the past three months amid an internet blackout. In this context, Iran is often viewed as a cultural void rather than the birthplace of the Persian empire and of great achievements in the arts and sciences.
Currently, 24 sites in Iran are protected by Unesco: Persepolis, one of the last massive archaeological complexes from ancient Persia, protected by Iranian institutions; the Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan with its breathtaking mosques and architecture that unifies engineering, religious symbolism and material mastery; the historic city of Yazd, the quintessential landscape from which we get all our fantastical ancient Middle Eastern references to Arabian nights.
Additionally, as of August 2016, 50 more sites in Iran are on Unesco’s tentative list, awaiting ratification. As we contemplate this collection of architectural treasures, we must understand that these places do not exist apart from those who live, love, laugh and pray within and throughout them: Iranians understand their value better than anyone and have set up commendable efforts to preserve, restore and share them.
We therefore cannot separate the sites’ worth from their people. Any unjustified harm that comes to Iranians, or weakens their institutions, will inevitably place these sites at risk of damage, a pattern we should have learned from Palmyra, and from Mosul after the irreparable damage to artefacts held in the museum there.
Even though Unesco has set forth the foundations for the absolute protection of priceless buildings, we have yet to better understand the relationship between humans and their environment that produces culture. In light of the Trump administration quitting Unesco in 2019, the president’s threats to Iran’s cultural heritage must not be taken lightly. We should all know well what could be lost forever.
