Unfortunately you are right brother. So many of our recent leaders or present leaders are parasites who have allowed so much of our world famous and ancient heritage to be looted and now it forms an integral and huge part of the world's biggest and most visited museums such as British Museum, Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum. Be it pre-Islamic or Islamic artifacts.
Even the artifacts of Prophet Muhammad (saws), Rashidun Caliphs etc. to make a few examples are stored in Istanbul while they should be kept in Makkah and Madinah. So many examples.
Thankfully the GCC leaders are an exception and many of the leaders now have the ability, also private collectors, to buy some of that heritage back from museums and especially from private collectors which is easier.
The Arab League should draft a plan which all Arab countries should ratify dealing with this topic (theft of our heritage - pre-Islamic and Islamic). Unfortunately many of our people do not even know about this.
Yemen under the crook Saleh was particularly bad. You probably already know about the stories of Western and other "archaeologists" and private buyers who came to Yemen to buy ancient heritage for pocket money and many of the idiotic locals helped them with that.
Now the ISIS parasites are on a rampage of destruction in Iraq and Syria if that was not enough along with the Al-Assad regime.
The intellectual class in the Arab world and those with most money should really do so much more on this field. It's embarrassing and painful.
Insha'Allah better times will emerge and regardless where our artifacts are they remain ours in reality in the sense that it was our civilizations and forefathers that created them. In any case it also has positives as they are at least stored in safe places. Can't say that about several Arab countries nowadays sadly….
Just take a look at this for instance.
Thousands of Saudi artifacts returned to Kingdom
December 24, 2009
Saudi Arabia has retrieved more than 10,000 of its artifacts from other countries, Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), said on Wednesday,
Arab News reported today.
“Retrieving antiquities has now become a national issue,” Prince Sultan bin Salman said, adding that the government would continue its efforts to bring back Saudi artifacts scattered across the world.
Prince Sultan said the SCTA with the cooperation of other government agencies would prevent the theft of antiquities, especially the ones from the Islamic heritage sites in Makkah and Madinah.
“Saudi Arabia is replete with a large number of valuable antiquities and protection of these artifacts is a national duty,” he said, adding that the Kingdom would not tolerate smuggling of antiquities.
Prince Sultan said the Kingdom would host the first international conference on architectural heritage on April 18.
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, USA
Now KSA was not even a Western colony. Now imagine all those Arab countries that were, those that do not have the economical means to reclaim their ancient artifacts and all of those Arab countries that were or are ruled by corrupt leaders who could care less.
I would love nothing more than to start an Pan-Arab organization based on restoring, preserving and reclaiming our heritage which was stolen or sold off for peanuts. Pre-Islamic as Islamic. If I am not wrong such organizations exist (practically the governments deal with this though) but they should make it Pan-Arab to make their voices stronger and for coordination purposes.
That was long but necessary. I really hope that more of our people realize the importance of preserving our heritage although I know that many have many more serious matters to think about but our leaders and governments have a special responsibility which they have not always fulfilled which is unacceptable. It was different 100 years ago but times have changed.
@azzo @BLACKEAGLE @Full Moon @JUBA @Falcon29 @Halimi @SALMAN AL-FARSI @Ahmed Jo etc.
