LOOTERS OR LANDLORDS?

[Yervant1]

LOOTERS OR LANDLORDS?

 

http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/10/03/looters-or-landlords/

Opinion | October 3, 2012 3:39 pm

 

Edmond Y. Azadian

 

Since Fatih Sultan Mohammed occupied Constantinople in 1453, the

Ottoman rulers have been destroying and desecrating churches, castles,

architectural monuments of Hittites, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and

other nationalities who had been the indigenous people of Asia Minor,

occupied and ruled through blood and sword.

 

Now, all of a sudden, the destroyers of all these cultures presume

to be landlords, claiming treasures originated in Asia Minor to be

returned to the present government of Turkey. Those artifacts and

treasures which have been preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, the Getty Museum, the Louvre and Pergamon Museum have been

saved from the Turks themselves, becoming part of the legacy of

human civilization. Had they been left in the hands of the Turks,

they would have been doomed to suffer the same fate as the 2,000

Armenian churches, monasteries and architectural monuments which

were systematically destroyed and rendered into ashes. After 200,000

Armenians escaped from Van in 1915, the Turkish Army burned tens

of thousands of illuminated manuscripts and Bibles on the island

monastery of Leem in Lake Akhtamar.

 

All that barbarism was tolerated and permitted by the Western powers

because of political expediency, fueling the arrogance of the Turks,

in turn, to get back at the West, which had saved antiquities from

Turkish-Ottoman plundering hands in the first place.

 

The latest example was the destruction of thousands of khachkars in

Jugha, Nakhichevan, now an exclave ruled by Azerbaijan, by the Azeri

Turks in broad daylight; not one finger was raised by the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) or

other agencies or governments despite protests by Armenia's government.

 

Also, in a cynical condescension towards small nations, the British

Museum and other museums stubbornly keep mislabeling Kutahya tiles

or the head of Diana (Anahid, "The Satala Aphrodite,") as Seljuk art

or any other label in the name of academic propriety, rather than

ascribing it to the Armenian talents and skills which are the true

creators of those treasures.

 

As late as this year, UNESCO refused to label Armenian architectural

monuments in Europe their true name during an exhibition, giving in

to Turkish threats. That policy today has opened up the major museums

in the West to Turkish threats and lawsuits.

 

In a front-page article on October 1, the New York Times covers

Turkish arrogance under the title "Turkey Demands Return of Art,

Alarming World's Museums." Museum curators consider Turkey's newfound

aggressiveness "cultural blackmail."

 

At issue are many art treasures originating in the countries occupied

by Ottoman rulers. Mr. Murat Suslu, director-general of cultural

heritage and museums, says, "we only want back what is rightfully

ours."

 

"The Turks are engaging in polemics and nasty politics," answers

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage

 

Foundation, which oversees the Pergamon in Berlin. "They should be

careful about making moral claims when their museums are full of

looted treasures."

 

One example of such looted treasures is a sarcophagus named after

Alexander the Great, which was discovered in Sidon, Lebanon, in 1887,

and is now in Istanbul's Archeological Museum. According to Mr. Suslu

the sarcophagus was legally Turkey's because it had been excavated

on territory that belonged to Turkey at the time.

 

With the same warped logic, Turkey can claim all the Armenian churches

and art treasures in Jerusalem, because at one time Jerusalem was

under Ottoman rule.

 

There are no firm international laws that govern the ownership of art

treasures originating from different parts of the world which are now

preserved in museums in the West. There is a UNESCO convention that

allows museums to acquire objects that were outside their countries

of origin before 1970.

 

Turkey wants its cake and to eat it. Although it has ratified the

convention in 1981, it still cites a 1906 Ottoman law to claim any

object removed after that date as its own.

 

Since Turkey selectively wishes to use its Ottoman heritage, than it

has to recognize the Ottoman Genocide against the Armenians, which

not only destroyed millions of human lives but also the cultural

heritage of that subject nation.

 

Turkey, using its double standard, has been successfully suing Western

museums and retrieving major pieces of art for its own museums.

 

For example, in 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston returned the

top half of an 1,800-year-old statute, "Weary Herakles," which is an

example of Greek cultural heritage.

 

Throughout history, the Turks have not been known as creators in

the fields of art and culture; they are rather known as destroyers

of culture, valuing militarism and brute force. But since they have

realized belatedly that art and culture have some monetary value in

the form of tourism in their country, they are aggressively going

after treasures originating in the land they presently occupy.

 

This is a dangerous precedent. If it is not stopped in its track,

the Turks may go after all Armenian treasures around the world,

claiming by the same logic and citing the Ottoman law that those

works had originated in territories under Ottoman rule.

 

Especially in Turkey's case, UNESCO and the UN have to declare the

universal ownership of treasures created by Armenians and other

nationalities but occupied or looted by the Turks. Turkey must be

held accountable for the destruction of Armenian cultural monuments on

its occupied soil which to this day are kept in ruins. Those ancient

churches and monuments that belong to the Armenians must be declared

part of human civilization and thus warrant some protection from

further damage.

 

Otherwise, looters and plunderers will present themselves as owners

of a cultural heritage, which does not belong to them and which has

been abused by them for centuries.

 

The irony is that the looters have become landlords under the

tolerant gaze of the civilized world which is delinquent in its duty

of preserving universal treasures of humanity.

[MosJan]

good find Yervand jan.