Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Iraq's antiquities

I believe there should be an organization made specifically to protect Iraq antiquities. The organization needs to set plans to have high security for museums and archaeological sites. Middle Eastern people need to understand how important their soil is, they should become educated and taught values from the day they begin school. I know it’s hard to convince people to believe certain things, but that is why it’s important to be taught in schools or at least in some place they have common interest in.

Also, those who steal civilization’s historical artifacts should be punished. Having a reward to return something is good, but that shouldn’t be the only thing. If someone returns something, they should be interrogated, questioned how the particular piece got into their hands.

Different countries and people have different values. How is it something from another country can be more important to someone that doesn’t live within that country? I’m sure morals were lost or have faded over the generations, but I believe protecting antiquities isn’t just for the Middle East to protect. To hold on to historical artifacts, it is a job for all nations because that is where civilization began. If people don’t understand the importance of artifacts, then they don’t care about history and how the world came about. If everything is lost, then the future will have nothing to look back on. Maybe people are just hoping the world will come to an end, because they’ve had their share of pain. People facing war or anything that has a major impact on their lives are focused on how to survive, that is why people outside of the middle east should lend a hand to protect history.

1 comment:

amanda said...

This whole world revolves around money and the fight to get more than the next person. Art is big business. I don’t want to be the proverbial bad person but as long as there are people that will pay millions to own original artwork, there will be people that will steal it. This is very sad that people would steal from such culturally rich people.

So my proposal to save the antiquities would be to form a special services group. A type of bounty hunter organization with very few members. These thieves are selling this art underground so reason would have it that the hunters would have to be prolific in developing relationships in the “black market”. These hunters would be held accountable by the country they are working in. I think any country would work with the group because I think every part of the world sees the benefit of having the history of their culture preserved. I think that espionage on the “black market” art world is definitely key. Tough sentences on these thieves is a must after all it is the history of the different cultures of the world. I am not much of a history buff but it is cool to see work that was made by people thousands of years of ago.