When Isis destroy ancient monuments, it’s not always true that ‘people are more important’

Civilised people balance the short-term interest of one generation against the values enshrined in the past, and the right of future generations to share that past

From magazine issue: 14 March 2015

UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1900: Assyrian civilization, 8th century b.C. Relief depicting warriors on horses. From the Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, Iraq. Detail. (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

issue 14 March 2015

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Simon Jenkins

When Isis destroy ancient monuments, it’s not always true that ‘people are more important’
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Perhaps we need censorship. The Isis vandals now destroying the greatest sites in ancient Mesopotamia have no care for history, so why do they bother? The answer is to get publicity. As with beheadings, they want to taunt us with their outrages. So why give them what they want, which is our obvious dismay? Why encourage more destruction?

To read of the loss of ancient monuments is heartbreaking.