Leo Sigal. Vandals

M was even more than a week from the day that Baghdad fell. A wave of looting and robberies begins to subside, since public buildings are already defeated, and the Iraqis are ready to protect their homes and shops with weapons in their hands. Unlike the "noe" libraries and museums, they are in their eyes are real value ...

Only on the fifth day, the soldiers of the Anglo -Saxon coalition, together with the local police officers who returned to the service, began countering the marauders' bands. But this did not stop the crowd on the sixth day (April 14) to plunder and burn the national library. According to some reports, up to a million volumes were stolen or destroyed. This has happened today in the country where archaeologists discovered the ancient library in the history of mankind - the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. And on April 12, on the fourth day after the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqi National Museum was defeated.

Among the tens of thousands of stolen exhibits "Aries, stuck with horns in thickets" - the finest work made of gold with inlay, dating from about 2400 BC. The English archaeologist Wolly discovered this sculpture during excavations of the ancient Sumerian city of Hurray, but hesitated to take it to the British Museum. About the same time, and the golden funeral mask of one of the Akkadian kings, mutilated by the nearest descendants. Apparently, the long -suffering basalt stele with the laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, dated to the 18th century BC, was also stolen. The glass and ceramics, which survived almost five thousand years, the hordes of vandals of the beginning of the III millennium of our era preferred to smash to smithereens. Previously, the author of these lines condemned the British for the stubborn unwillingness to repatriate cultural values, although the British Museum is so crowded with exhibits that they were plunged almost in a heap. Now it seems to be happiness that, for example, bas -reliefs depicting the lion's hunting of the Assyrian kings were "in exile."

The disappearance of the stele containing one of the first in the history of mankind of the arches of the laws, as if symbolizes the next triumph of lawlessness. True, this stone did not stand for long where the great king of Babylon hoisted it, and the laws carved on it were not much survived by Hammurabi, no matter how eloquently he exhorted the descendants to follow them. One hundred years ago, French archaeologists discovered this monument during the excavations of SUZ - the capital of Ancient Elam (the current territory of Iran). He was taken out by the Elamite conquerors, triumphing to the victory over Babylon.

By the way, Hammurabi installed relatively looters: "If a fire flared up in a person’s house, and another person who came to extinguish, raised his eyes to the good householder, this person should be thrown into this fire." The ancient ruler of Babylon understood how great the temptation of fracture was.

I riots had to be suppressed in the germ itself, because, as the French say, L'Appetit Vient EN MANGENT, and the Russian proverb says: "Clack is bogged down - the whole bird is an abyss." And here is another illustration: first the offices of the ruling party are robbed, then state institutions and banks, then - hospitals, then museums and libraries, and finally, shops and houses of wealthy fellow citizens. (Interestingly, why did the crowd not touched the palaces of Saddam Hussein? Counted them to the legitimate military booty of Americans and the British?) Even the most cruel measures corresponding to the laws of wartime would be justified to hold the crowd from this temptation. World history knows what kind of measures it is. The Americans did not hesitate to shoot an unarmed crowd in Mosul when she tried to deal with the newly appointed puppet mayor ...

Now, when museums have already been looted, alas, to save exhibits, you need to make the exact opposite. It is necessary to declare an amnesty to the marauders and centrally buy up their loot. But the Western community now stupidly follows the path of prohibitions and is. This means that unique monuments are lost forever: at least, the robbers will melt the products from gold, more precisely - almost certainly already melted.

The damage caused these days to world culture is comparable with the plunder of Rome vandals in 410 or Constantinople with crusaders in 1203. In ancient times, the custom of the war arose - after taking the enemy city for three days to give it to the plunder of soldiers. This was considered as a legal award to the conquerors for military works, risk and deprivation. Baghdad and other Iraqi cities were given for plunder for at least five days, but not to soldiers, but to the local population - an unprecedented case in world history. It is difficult to explain it differently as Bush’s attempt and to “buy” the support of the Iraqi Lumpen.

The words of Chernyshevsky about the "nation of slaves" come to mind. But the latest events say more about the fact that there is no such nation as "Iraqis". Residents of this country did not want to actively resist foreign soldiers. Yesterday, they proudly called themselves the heirs of Sumer and Akkada, and today they destroy the monuments of these civilizations. Yesterday, the monuments were built to the leader, and today they crush the monuments to the tyrant. Yesterday they burned US flags, and today their own national flags are trampling. Yesterday they kissed Hussein's hands, and today to American soldiers. Well, if the king is defeated by foreigners, then he angered the gods.

The gray story of Mesopotamia knows the endless string of foreign conquerors: from Gutians, Amereev and Kassits to Turks and the British. And almost always these were the wars of rulers, not the war of peoples. For five millennia of its history, Mesopotamius practically did not know a different form of government, except for eastern despotism. That is, in the traditions of this country there is nothing similar even to the wild mountain and steppe freemen, which is characteristic, say, for Chechnya. Iraq as a single independent state has existed only since 1936 and has never been democratic. I recall Aristotle's arguments about "slaves by nature." Of course, you can “drop a slave out of yourself by drop”, but by himself and by drop, and not by order of the foreign military and at once.

The universal declaration of human rights proclaims the right to enjoy art. This is the right of every person on earth, despite the national boundaries. Therefore, those who destroy historical monuments commit crimes against all of mankind, against each of us. To protect these monuments was the responsibility of Iraq citizens. For if there is no state power, a developed society is self -organized: parties, trade unions, religious organizations, local authorities form squads to protect public order. Iraq demonstrated the complete absence of civil society. Hussein did not allow the existence of opposition parties, but the question hangs, where were, say, spiritual leaders?

International organizations were not on top. For example, the head of UNESCO Koitiro Matsuura only said that, "unable to take specific actions in Iraq at the moment, UNESCO will be able to use this period in order to prepare for such actions in the near future." Meanwhile, hasty preparation for similar situations is now more than relevant. For example, it was time to create under the auspices of UNESCO international armed groups similar to the “blue helmets”, which, in the case of armed conflicts, observing the strictest neutrality, would take under the protection of the monuments of history and culture.

The Americans say that they did not follow the museums because their forces were abstracted to suppress the foci of resistance and protect oil towers. But one gets the impression that the invaders, first of all, showed cowardice. For they like it when they kiss their hands, and do not like it when they are shot in the back. Undoubtedly, they believed that, giving the population the opportunity to "slightly" to permanently, they could gain his sympathy. Eyewitnesses claim that the robbers, seeing the American soldiers, joyfully welcomed them and waved star-striped flags. The crowds of Iraqis are really grateful to them for the opportunity to rob five days with impunity. The dictator Hussein did not allow them to. This bloody tyrant took care of the monuments of history and culture (although he sinned with "retaining").

However, the Americans not only connected vandalism, but also a little earlier they themselves showed the population of Iraq an example of a neglect of material values, to work, albeit modern, architects, builders and artists. We can say that they aroused a passion for destruction from the population of Iraq for three weeks. Bombings, leading to the complete destruction of such far from military facilities as the pompous building of the Ministry of Agriculture or the Palace of Flower, what is not an example of a mischievous "decent" pyromania?

It is ridiculous when they deny the economic interest of the United States in this aggressive war. How can I deny the interest of the Americans in reducing oil prices, when CNN promises its viewers that soon the oil production will be increased and the fuel in their gas tanks will become at least twenty percent cheaper? How can one deny the interest of the American military-industrial complex and large American construction corporations, when an information war on the distribution of profitable orders is already flared up in the United States, reflected, for example, on the pages of New York Times? They say that the expenses of Americans for this war are much exceeding income. This is so, but these expenses are budget expenditures, and income is the income of private corporations and specific persons lobbying in the White House their interests. As if the latest Russian history did not teach us that the manager can ruin a huge plant for the sake of extracting a relatively small personal income?!

But, of course, the Americans are guided not only by the thirst for profit, but by vanity. The laurels of Alexander of Macedon, Caesar and Napoleon do not give rest to someone. Bush and his environment want to go down in history as "great liberators of the East." One of my friends, supporter of the US global policy, compared this course with the Trotskyist model of the permanent revolution. Say, the troops of the liberators (the revolutionary army) are included in the enslaved countries, the army of tyrants (bourgeois armies) are scattered, and the peoples are accepted "to" destroy the whole world of violence. " And, of course, at the same time, Asian riots take place, meaningless and merciless: “The world of the huts, war to the palaces!”, “Saryn to Kichka!”, “Breeded loot!”.

Only in fairness I must say that this is an ideal model of the permanent revolution. And in reality, as we all remember, already in February 1918, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "Socialist Fatherland in Danger!" Was adopted. It announced that "enemy agents, speculators, thugs, hooligans, counter -revolutionary agitators, German spies are shot at the crime scene." (I recall “Posa” from the “Russian Truth”.) Of course, on the “Cursed Days” of the Russian Revolution, many landowner estates and houses suffered, but the Kremlin, the Winter Palace and many other Bolsheviks saved the raids of the dark crowd. Not an example of Americans and British.

"The liberation of Iraq" is the historical mistake of America, which is more than a crime. Each nation deserves the power that he has. Hussein’s dictatorship was adequate to the nature of the Iraqi society. The Americans violated historical balance and gave rise to chaos. Meanwhile, it would be worth listening to the Taoist sages:

"... High fearful asked Laodza:
- If you do not put order in the Celestial Empire, how to fix human hearts?
- Be sharp! - Laodza answered him. - Do not disturb the human heart! It is worth overthring it - a person humiliates, it is worth lifting - a person will become proud. So he turns into a slave or a killer. "

This is how the head of the eleventh book “Zhuangzi” says, which has a characteristic name: “Provide everyone for himself.”