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Perhaps you saw on the Evening News the destruction of Artifacts at the Mosul Museum in Iraq. I may be closer and more passionate about this than most readers due to being an artist and a former high school art teacher, but I would like to explain why it is important for us as a people.
We are the inheritors of the Western civilization. Part of that inheritance is our system of democratic government, judicial process, freedom of expression, privacy rights, and the freedom to choose a religion without threat of persecution. These examples and other freedoms are guaranteed us in the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps you saw the barbarians with sledge hammers destroying statuary and edifices that have stood for thousands of years. I found this incredibly hard to watch and was angry that a theology could inspire such atrocities. Not content to murder the innocents, they seek to murder every cultural vestige outside their nihilistic value system. Coptic Christians of Egypt are decapitated, their churches desecrated, and symbols of their faith destroyed. Other religious traditions, viewed as heretical, are subjected to the same brute force.
For anyone with a degree of cultural sensitivity and appreciation for the societal value of antiquities, this destruction of art is more appalling than Hitler's bonfire burnings of what he termed "degenerative art" (art by modern masters). We are witnessing the annihilation of a cultural heritage - irreplaceable and priceless. The narrow-minded bigots who perpetrate these crimes against humanity are bent on destroying any form of Art. Unfortunately, it may be an inevitable template for future attacks on culture in Paris, London, Stockholm, or ironically, Berlin. Why Berlin?
In the movie "The Monuments Men", the looted Art of Europe by the Nazis was to be delivered to Berlin or destroyed if Hitler fell. When asked if the loss of a single life was worth a single work of art, the actor answered yes. We fight for what we cherish whether home, family, freedom, or symbols of our ideals. The loss of a cultural heritage robs us of a pillar of our own identity. Culture has value. Sacrifice for the common good has value. Knowledge has value, and it is precisely these values that are under attack. Art is a universal representative of a value. We may not always agree on the message portrayed, but freedom of expression is what counts.
We value museums for similar reasons that we value public parks. They provide reminders of who we are and from where we come. They provide places of reflection and solace. Imagine a world where no art exists or is allowed to exist, and those who value Art are labeled infidels. Paintings are forbidden, no sculpture, no memorial statues, no jewelry, no cartoon figures, no playgrounds, and no fashion allowed. This is the austere dream, aspiration, and perceived duty of the ISIS fighter. The wrong cartoon can warrant a death sentence. Where there is no freedom of expression, dialog is futile and violence ensues.
So in conclusion, an attack on art is in the broader sense an attack on every individual who values freedom. The conflict we are witnessing is one of a culture of preservation versus one of destruction. In an old but wise vernacular, freedom isn't free. An attack on Art is an attack on our right to enjoy and learn from it. It deserves a defense.
Steve Sliwinski is an artist and a former Art Teacher at Troy High School.