Anyone surprised that President Trump would propose the same kind of cultural destruction that made the lunatic vandals of ISIS repulsive to the civilized world hasn’t been paying attention.
Forty years ago, Trump set out to build his ego tower on the site of the historic Bonwit Teller building. Its facade featured priceless Art Deco bas-relief carvings and bronze grillwork. Trump promised the Metropolitan Museum of Art to carefully remove these remnants of a vanishing world of New York luxe so they could be preserved.
Instead, he reneged on his commitment. To save time and money, he ordered a construction crew of illegal Polish immigrants working for less than the minimum wage 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to destroy the facade. They took acetylene torches to the grillwork and jackhammers to the friezes. In the aftermath, it was discovered that the cost to save them would have been $9,000, but Trump, the renowned art historian, said ”the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.”
It has been clear ever since that the man is a barbarian, contemptuous of a concept to which he is tone deaf — civilization. So who is surprised that after the assassination of an Iranian super-villain Trump should seek to forestall reprisals by threatening to emulate the villainy of ISIS.They systematically destroyed ancient mosques, shrines, artifacts, libraries, and ruins in territory they seized. These included the cities of Nimrod, Petra, and Palmyra where the archeologist who had made the city’s excavation his lifework was beheaded for protesting.
At least ISIS had religious fanaticism as an excuse. How will Trump, allegedly a representative of a country standing for more enlightened values, justify his promised destruction? He has been warned that such acts would constitute war crimes and represent a violation of international law, but do we believe he has any more respect for the rule of law and for the artistic heritage of mankind than the fanatics of ISIS?
We do not. He has threatened Iran with the swift destruction of 52 sites that have already been targeted, including cultural sites. These have not been named, but the 24 Unesco World Heritage Sites in Iran would be a likely place to start.
These include the historic bazaar of Tabriz, the Dome of Soltanayeh on the site of the 14th century Mongol Capital, the Golestan Palace at the eat of the Qajar dynasty, the Behistun rock relief from the period of Darius the Great, around 500 BCE in Kermanshah, the Jameh Mosque begun around 771 and the 17th century Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus the Great c. 559 BCE, the Eram Garden of Shiraz, monasteries and Sufi shrines, and, of course, the crown jewel — Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE. It is one of the wonders of the world, where visiting potentates passed through its Gate of All Nations.
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport,” says Gloucester as he wanders the heath after being blinded by the wicked enemies of the dispossessed King Lear. But it wasn’t the gods who took pleasure in such sport, but petty tyrants.
Our president shames our country and debases its ideals by threatening the heritage of the world like a wanton boy who regards killing and destruction as a sport, yearns for the untrammeled power of strong men like Putin, and displays the low taste of the barbarous in his tacky faux gold interiors and pharaonic need to plaster his name on buildings defacing the skylines of any city unfortunate enough to have one in their midst. If this appeals to his base, their taste is as base as his own.
For those interested in a look at what is under the gun (or missile or drone), check out “In pictures: Iran’s sites of cultural importance” at bbc,com. I encourage time travelers to seek out artifacts of the past in museums but also in the wild. My favorite memories are of Roman remains scattered from Italy to France, Spain, Germany and England, the beauty of the Andalusian past, the great cathedrals and palaces, and places rich in layers of history like Istanbul, Kyoto, Greece, and Sicily.
All my life I have been entranced by the remains of past civilizations. I was lucky enough to live near museums that whetted this appetite, and when I got prosperous enough in middle age to travel more widely have been lucky to visit marvelous remains in Europe, Japan and China. We have taken our children on many of these voyages of discovery and pray these wonders remain intact for their children to visit in the decades ahead.
I have not been lucky enough to visit Egypt or India and may now be too old, and geopolitics has put more wonders, in places like Baghdad, Damascus, Carthage, and Iran, out of reach or too risky for an aging, increasingly unadventurous American.
Even if you can’t visit the places themselves, you can travel all over the world in a book, as Cervantes advised. Discover what you are missing and what Trump may be dedicated to destroying in many volumes, including two by a kindred spirit that I treasure — Rose Macauley’s “The Pleasure of Ruins” and “Fabled Shore,”which recount the journey’s of this intrepid and indefatigable middle-aged British novelist who fearlessly sought out remnants of past glories.
I also recommend Ina Caro’s “The Road From the Past,” “Poets in a Landscape” by Gilbert Highet, “Japanese Pilgrimage” by Oliver Statler, “In Ruins” by Christopher Woodward,” “Ulysses Found” by Ernle Bradford, “The Ornament of the World” by Maria Rosa Menocal, “No Voice from the Hall” by John Harris, “Alexandria” by E.M. Forster, Lawrence Durrell’s “Caesar’s Vast Ghost” on Provence, and Joseph Wechsberg’s “The Danube.”