When I watch this documentary, Iraq: Shattered Heritage, I cannot but ask myself:
Who are the barbarians of our time?
What is the mote and what is the beam in this world?
Who tells Russia that “big countries shall not bully smaller countries”?
Isn’t it time for the Western world to acknowledge its own dark sides and stop projecting them on everybody else?
I am immensely grateful that I have been to the places in this documentary – Baghdad, Babylon, Basra, the border with Kuwait. In 2202 and 2003.
I’ve seen the history, human artifacts and beauty, the museums and the documents of Iraq’s culture, central as it was to all the world.
Most of it is gone now. Many of my friends dead or disappeared or refugees far away from their beloved land.
It breaks my heart to watch what “we” have done.
And of course this arrogant, insensitive “we” will never apologise for the harm it has done to Iraq and all the world – like “our” leaders lack the courage to ever apologise for for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all th rest.
When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation he answered that it would be a good idea.
