Mali

Al-Qaeda and their nihilistic north African friends Ansar Dine are going about the systematic destruction and vandalism of Mali's most ancient and sacred buildings. The going belief is that any temple reverencing anyone other than god himself is not worthy of existence. Whist the felling of buildings is not comparable to the massacres these people are undertaking elsewhere in Mali, it symbolizes to me the extreme lack of respect these groups have to the idea of civilization and culture.

  

As you read this, UNESCO world heritage sites across Timbuktu are being pulled down; such as Sidi Yahya, one of the city's main mosques dating back to the city's golden age in the 15th century. Many more shrines are planned for destruction providing that the 'Defenders of the Faith' get their way. This seems to be bucking the trend of cultural suicide displayed by those that feel the material world- the only one we can even try to hope for- is not one worth enriching, all in the hope of currying favor in some post-life theme park. It may be fashionable in artistic circles to masquerade a sort of objective relativism, though I feel it is just as much our right, those who stand behind the ideals of the enlightenment and the fulfillment of life, to defend heritage and culture from those who sincerely plot its destruction.   

 

It is one of the lasting legacies of religion that we have such transcendent architecture and music to defend, however it is now the religious that pose the greatest threat. Actions like this should remind us of the fragility of our expression and that so long as there are those who claim to love death more than we love life, we will be forced to restrengthen, as Orwell put it, 'the power of facing unpleasant facts'. As for now, I'm starting to see this not as a battle between civilizations, but for civilization.