Deploying destruction: Islamic State, international actors, and public opinion in Mosul

ABSTRACT

Destruction of cultural heritage has increasingly taken center stage in global debates concerning conflict, crimes against humanity, and cultural genocide. From NATO to the UNSC, international bodies and their respective experts are reconsidering how to understand and combat targeted damage in an emerging terrain, where heritage destruction is being leveraged as a weapon of war. Relatedly, those same organizations, alongside government and non-governmental agencies, seek to rebuild historic sites as a means of (post-)conflict recovery, seamlessly tethering material and social renewal. Here we focus on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in the aftermath of devastation wrought by Islamic State. We present findings from a survey of 1600 residents, revealing local attitudes toward the destruction of sites coupled with the international agencies and preservation programs seeking to manage heritage within the city. While Iraqis generally support heritage initiatives, we demonstrate how they prioritize broader rehabilitation efforts that foreground security and humanitarian aid. These results have implications for current and future projects in Iraq and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage destruction
• Islamic State
• heritage reconstruction
• UNESCO
• Iraq

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul

2. Bi-Strategic Command Directive (Bi-SCD) 086–005, ‘Implementing Cultural Property Protection in NATO Operations and Missions’, is a key milestone in CPP.

3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/british-army-revives-monuments-men-hopes-salvaging-art-war-torn-countries-180970563/

4. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/12/16/antiquities-looted-iraq-museum-returned-seals

5. Report of the Republic of Iraq, Ministry of Culture State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, World Heritage Department, The High Commission for Managing World Heritage Sites in Iraq (Hatra-Ashur-Samarra), ‘State of Conservation Report 2016’, prepared by Abdul Razzak Aboudi and Dr. Ayad Kadhum Dawood.

6. UNESCO conducted a survey of some 700 Maslawis during November and December 2020 in partnership with the University of Mosul. However, the survey appears to have been designed to confirm UNESCO’s already-stated intentions to rebuild the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri and did not probe broader issues.

7. See: https://www.arabbarometer.org

8. See: https://iiacss.org

9. In designing this survey, we hoped to capture a cross-section of different national, ethnic, and religious identities in Mosul so that we could analyze any potential differences in attitudes to heritage, its destruction, and its reconstruction. However, realities on the ground (including the fact that many ethnic and religious minorities have fled since the incursion of IS) meant that there was very little national, ethnic, or religious variance in the sample.

10. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/88-point-2-billion-us-dollar-price-tag-for-rebuilding-iraq-after-islamic-state-war.html

11. https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul/heritage-houses

12. The Charter of Cracow first dealt with the restoration of damage caused by war, specifically noting that ‘Reconstruction of an entire building, destroyed by armed conflict or natural disaster, is only acceptable if there are exceptional social or cultural motives that are related to the identity of the entire community’ (András 2002, 118).

13. https://en.unesco.org/The-role-of-culture-for-resilience-peace-and-security

14. https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul/heritage

15. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1336131/middle-east; https://www.unesco.org/en/revive-mosul

16. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/restoration-and-critical-reconstruction-al-nouri-mosque-and-its-al-hadba-minaret

17. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/world/middleeast/unesco-mosul-reconstruction.html

18. https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/conduct-hostilities/cultural-property

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Lynn Meskell

Lynn Meskell is a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She is Richard D. Green Professor in the Department of Anthropology, School of Arts & Sciences, Professor in the Department of Historic Preservation at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and Curator in the Middle East Section of the Penn Museum. She is also AD White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.

Benjamin Isakhan

Benjamin Isakhan is a Professor of International Politics and Founding Director of Polis, a research network for Politics and International Relations in the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University, Australia. He is also an Adjunct Senior Research Associate, Department of Politics and International Relations, Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.