The destruction of memory

The total annihilation of Aleppo, in Syria, and of the mausoleums in Timbuktu, in Mali. The demolition of the Twin Towers in New York and of the Mostar bridge in Bosnia. Dresden bombed to rubble in 1945 and medieval Armenian tombstones, desecrated during the 1915 genocide. Over this past century, “war against culture” – not recognised even today as a crime against humanity – has led to painful, catastrophic results and has become an invincible weapon in wiping out the identity of a people. 

This topic is explored in The Destruction of Memory, an impressive 2015 documentary directed by Tim Slade and presented during the Milano Design Film Festival, a true gem of the event. By covering the most dramatic events in our collective memory, this film, based on Robert Bevan’s book by the same name, has the great power of remembering stories of destruction but also ones of courage and resistance. There are many original images and documents, with many different people interviewed, from UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda, 15 historians, legal experts, architects like Daniel Libeskind who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The key role, however, is played by ordinary people, especially women, who by risking and, often, losing their lives tried to protect what we were and, consequentially, what we’ll be.

“The destruction of memory is perpetrated not as collateral damage but caused only and exclusively to remove a piece of civilisation, of memory built over time,” responds Andrea Kerbaker, a writer and professor of Cultural Institutions and Policies at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan who presented the film at the event. “Taking it out on cultural heritage is, in fact, a totally new factor. It’s true, if we’re dealing with religion, the destruction of monuments and churches has always been done, but what’s alarming is how it’s evolving. Take, for example, the archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad who, captured by a jihadi group, refused to reveal where some works of art were hidden. The other important consideration,” continues professor Kerbaker, “is the theme of reconstruction. As soon as the opportunity arises, there’s an enormous desire to rebuild a lost identity exactly as it had been. For example, what did Milan fix right before rebuilding the city after the war? The Teatro alla Scala: it was damaged during the war, but even before reconstructing the city, Milan began from its opera house, which is the city’s true identity.” 

On the one hand, memory – so abstract and immaterial, perhaps impossible to erase – and on the other, architecture – so solid and tangible, made up of bricks, stones and cement. It’s almost a paradox. “Architecture has always been the custodian of memory. Luckily, we didn’t need destruction to realise this. Since the time of the pyramids, architecture has always born witness to the traces man has left behind over time. Getting rid of these means they never existed at all. Rebuilding them means they’ve always been there,” Andrea Kerbaker concludes. 

From this point of view, maybe something’s changing: for the first time, the International Criminal Court sentenced someone for a crime against historical monuments, of a symbolic and religious value, protected by UNESCO. Ahmad Al Mahdi Al Faqi, former head of the Islamic Ansar Dine extremist militia, was convicted of war crimes for having taken part in destroying the mausoleums in Timbuktu in northern Mali in 2012. During trial, the first ever of its kind, he declared himself guilty.

© all rights reserved