An early sign that the US occupation of Iraq was destined to disaster came in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, when US troops were sent to guard the oil ministry but not to protect Baghdad’s National Museum, which was then ransacked. That museum finally reopened this Monday after over a decade, but its inauguration was overshadowed by the destruction of ancient artefacts in Mosul by Islamic State militants who currently control a large part of Iraq bordering Syria. Indeed, the Baghdad museum’s reopening was moved up in response to the Mosul tragedy. As it turned out, while a few of the sculptures destroyed in Mosul were originals dating as far back as the 9th century BC, many were replicas of works in western collections. That ought to give some pause to those who would repatriate artefacts acquired by Europeans in the colonial era.
The Islamic State adheres to a very strict version of their faith, which prohibits figurative representation. The organisation’s objections to figuration, though, appear to extend only to still figures, and not to videos seen by millions around the world. We learned of the destruction of the Mosul artefacts through an Islamic State propaganda video. The men destroying images were also simultaneously creating images: at 2.45 in the video one can spot a couple of them taking time off from the tiring job of hammering away at fabulous antiquities to capture on cellphone cameras the efforts of their colleagues.
The Bamiyan Buddha
The hypocrisy at the heart of militant Salafism was already evident when the Taliban carefully recorded the destruction of the gigantic Buddha of Bamiyan. It was even clearer in Osama Bin Laden’s many videos, which made him the foremost icon of an iconoclastic belief system. After he was killed in an American raid, footage emerged of Osama watching himself on video in his Abbottabad hideout. One would be hard pressed to find such attachment to one’s own image outside of the entertainment industry.
If their propaganda is anything to go by, Islamic State militants are far more enamoured of commercial cinema than people shunning images have any cause to be. Their videos are always dramatic, combining spectacular locations with well though-out details such as the orange jumpsuits in which victims are dressed, a nod to the attire of Guantanamo Bay prison where a number of Islamists have been held for years without trial. The most elaborate IS video, and perhaps the most spectacular propaganda piece ever created by a militant outfit, is titled “Healing the Believers’ Chests”, and shows, at its end,the captured Jordanian air force pilot Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh being burnt alive in a cage.
Borrowed tricks
The video focuses on Jordan’s king Abdullah II at the beginning, showing his close links with the US and NATO. It moves on to the imprisoned pilot who parrots lines fed to him by his captors. Finally, the scene switches to a site bombed by coalition planes, in the ruins of which ISIS militants sit around like Gabbar Singh’s gang. The painful death of the hapless pilot is intercut with footage of victims of coalition bombings in Syria.The production of this complex narrative – props, sets, sound design, editing, visual effects, use of archival footage – reveals the hand of skilled professionals, and a deep debt to American film and television thrillers. The difference is that the flesh melting off al-Kaseasbeh’s face at the video’s gruesome conclusion is no make-up.
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Catholic Church realised that images could be used as an effective weapon against iconoclastic Protestants, who had drawn millions of Christians away from Catholicism. The result was what we now call Baroque art: spectacular, emotive, decorative, and sensational. Militant Wahhabis aren’t about to repeat the error of 17th century Protestants and give away a huge advantage to the opposition in our image-saturated age. They have, in fact, wrested the upper hand to the extent that mainstream media outlets in the west are extremely reluctant to publish anything violent. Western governments encourage this queasiness, for it erases the horrors of war and thus limits pacifistic protests. Islamist militants and their global audience, on the other hand, revel in videos of martyrdom and retribution. IS might demolish the odd ancient statue, rub out a few paintings and take down a church or two; but in their hearts they worship human figurative images as fervently as the rest of us do.
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The Islamic State adheres to a very strict version of their faith, which prohibits figurative representation. The organisation’s objections to figuration, though, appear to extend only to still figures, and not to videos seen by millions around the world. We learned of the destruction of the Mosul artefacts through an Islamic State propaganda video. The men destroying images were also simultaneously creating images: at 2.45 in the video one can spot a couple of them taking time off from the tiring job of hammering away at fabulous antiquities to capture on cellphone cameras the efforts of their colleagues.
The Bamiyan Buddha
The hypocrisy at the heart of militant Salafism was already evident when the Taliban carefully recorded the destruction of the gigantic Buddha of Bamiyan. It was even clearer in Osama Bin Laden’s many videos, which made him the foremost icon of an iconoclastic belief system. After he was killed in an American raid, footage emerged of Osama watching himself on video in his Abbottabad hideout. One would be hard pressed to find such attachment to one’s own image outside of the entertainment industry.
If their propaganda is anything to go by, Islamic State militants are far more enamoured of commercial cinema than people shunning images have any cause to be. Their videos are always dramatic, combining spectacular locations with well though-out details such as the orange jumpsuits in which victims are dressed, a nod to the attire of Guantanamo Bay prison where a number of Islamists have been held for years without trial. The most elaborate IS video, and perhaps the most spectacular propaganda piece ever created by a militant outfit, is titled “Healing the Believers’ Chests”, and shows, at its end,the captured Jordanian air force pilot Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh being burnt alive in a cage.
Borrowed tricks
The video focuses on Jordan’s king Abdullah II at the beginning, showing his close links with the US and NATO. It moves on to the imprisoned pilot who parrots lines fed to him by his captors. Finally, the scene switches to a site bombed by coalition planes, in the ruins of which ISIS militants sit around like Gabbar Singh’s gang. The painful death of the hapless pilot is intercut with footage of victims of coalition bombings in Syria.The production of this complex narrative – props, sets, sound design, editing, visual effects, use of archival footage – reveals the hand of skilled professionals, and a deep debt to American film and television thrillers. The difference is that the flesh melting off al-Kaseasbeh’s face at the video’s gruesome conclusion is no make-up.
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Catholic Church realised that images could be used as an effective weapon against iconoclastic Protestants, who had drawn millions of Christians away from Catholicism. The result was what we now call Baroque art: spectacular, emotive, decorative, and sensational. Militant Wahhabis aren’t about to repeat the error of 17th century Protestants and give away a huge advantage to the opposition in our image-saturated age. They have, in fact, wrested the upper hand to the extent that mainstream media outlets in the west are extremely reluctant to publish anything violent. Western governments encourage this queasiness, for it erases the horrors of war and thus limits pacifistic protests. Islamist militants and their global audience, on the other hand, revel in videos of martyrdom and retribution. IS might demolish the odd ancient statue, rub out a few paintings and take down a church or two; but in their hearts they worship human figurative images as fervently as the rest of us do.
