{"id":66194,"date":"2005-01-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/01\/16\/bye-bye-babylon-voici-les-barbares-postmodernes\/"},"modified":"2005-01-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-16T00:00:00","slug":"bye-bye-babylon-voici-les-barbares-postmodernes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/01\/16\/bye-bye-babylon-voici-les-barbares-postmodernes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bye bye Babylon, voici les barbares postmodernes<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bye bye Babylon, voici les barbares postmodernes<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t16 janvier 2005 Les Britanniques ont soulev\u00e9 un sourcil pour exprimer leur profonde indignation. Cultural Vandalism, appr\u00e9cie Le Guardian<\/em>, \u00e0 propos de l’alli\u00e9 privil\u00e9gi\u00e9 de l’Angleterre, i.e. les Etats-Unis. Le quotidien se fend d’un \u00e9dito rageur<\/a>, d’un r\u00e9cit d\u00e9taill\u00e9 des circonstances de la catastrophe<\/a>, d’un inventaire d\u00e9taill\u00e9 des cons\u00e9quences de la catastrophe<\/a>, des commentaires d\u00e9sol\u00e9s d’un invit\u00e9 de marque, un sp\u00e9cialiste am\u00e9ricain des probl\u00e8mes arch\u00e9ologiques, Francis Deblauwe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl s’agit de la catastrophe arch\u00e9ologique qui a frapp\u00e9 les vestiges de l’antique Babylone, selon un rapport furieux du British Museum qui fait le bilan. L’U.S. Army y avait install\u00e9 une base dont on aura peu de mal \u00e0 croire qu’elle \u00e9tait strat\u00e9gique. (Les soldats polonais leur succ\u00e9d\u00e8rent, prenant la suite logique pour un pays si admirateur des \u00c9tats-Unis du travail de d\u00e9gradation d’un des plus grands sites de l’histoire de l’humanit\u00e9. En l’occurrence, les Polonais sont des comparses sans beaucoup d’int\u00e9r\u00eat, tout comme la d\u00e9cision de leur gouvernement de faire partie de la coalition. On n’en parlera plus.) Deblauwe trouve un bon titre pour r\u00e9sumer cette aventure: \u00ab American Graffitti<\/em> \u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tQuelques extraits de l’\u00e9dito du Guardian<\/em> pour pr\u00e9ciser le probl\u00e8me.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab The damage wrought by the construction of an American military base in the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon must rank as one of the most reckless acts of cultural vandalism in recent memory. And all the more so because it was unnecessary and avoidable.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb The camp did not have to be established in the city – where the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the world, once stood – but given that it was, the US authorities were very aware of the warnings of archaeologists of the historic importance of the site. Yet, as a report by Dr John Curtis of the British Museum makes clear, they seem to have ignored the warnings.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Dr Curtis claimed that in the early days after the war a military presence served a valuable purpose in preventing the site from being looted. But that, he said, did not stop substantial damage being done to the site afterwards not just to individual buildings such as the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity, but also on an estimated 300,000 square metres which had been flattened and covered in gravel, mostly imported from elsewhere.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb This was done to provide helicopter landing places and parking lots for heavy vehicles that should not have been allowed there in the first place. He describes this as extremely unfortunate from an archaeological point of view since it means previously undisturbed archaeological deposits will now be irrevocably contaminated, seriously compromising the status of future information on the large areas that have not been excavated (including, possibly, the remains of the gardens themselves). The damage was compounded by bringing in sand and earth from elsewhere some of which may have been archaeological deposits in their own right.<\/em> \u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tOn reste fascin\u00e9 devant l’extraordinaire constance des forces arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricaines, qui devraient \u00eatre plus justement qualifi\u00e9es d’am\u00e9ricanistes, \u00e0 se pr\u00e9cipiter sur toutes les sottises que peut concevoir l’esprit humain dans cette campagne irakienne. On croirait qu’il y a quelque chose de magique dans cette constance. Les sc\u00e9naristes de Hollywood sont compl\u00e8tement d\u00e9pass\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLe saccage du site de Babylone, \u00e9videmment involontaire puisqu’il y avait au d\u00e9part l’intention de le prot\u00e9ger, cela n’en est que plus b\u00eate dans ce cas, prend la suite du pillage autoris\u00e9 du Mus\u00e9e National de Bagdad<\/a>, en avril 2003, dont on se demande encore si l’autorisation \u00e9tait involontaire ou non.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tQu’importent ces d\u00e9tails. Le fait est que l’action des arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricanistes en Irak laisse une longue trace de saccages, certains sanglants d’autres simplement culturels comme celui-ci, dont la caract\u00e9ristique essentielle est la d\u00e9structuration: d\u00e9structuration de l’architecture sociale, d\u00e9structuration de l’organisation urbaine (c’est comme cela qu’on pourrait qualifier la destruction de Falloujah, non?), d\u00e9structuration de la m\u00e9moire historique, etc, c’est-\u00e0-dire, d\u00e9structuration de toute structure dont on peut juger qu’elle participe, de pr\u00e8s ou de loin, au renforcement de la civilisation. Que certains actes soient volontaires et d’autres pas, voil\u00e0 qui est plus significatif qu’accidentel; cela indique bien que nous avons affaire l\u00e0 \u00e0 une tendance fondamentale, de type irr\u00e9pressible, habitant autant l’inconscient que ce qui sert de conscience. Cette tendance habille m\u00eame l’ignorance et l’inculture des g\u00e9n\u00e9raux et des colonels, qui vont toujours dans le m\u00eame sens, qui est celui de la d\u00e9structuration. Il y a l\u00e0 quelque chose de freudien. Les exigences de la haute technologie militaire, celle qui ne sert \u00e0 rien dans le conflit comme chacun sait, font le reste pour achever le saccage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl faut classer cette sorte d’actes, tout comme la guerre d’Irak dans son ensemble (tout comme l’attaque contre la Serbie\/Kosovo il illo tempore<\/em>, etc), dans la logique du mouvement de globalisation. On sait que la globalisation pr\u00e9sente pour la caract\u00e9riser fondamentalement une caract\u00e9ristique quasiment automatique et irr\u00e9pressible de d\u00e9r\u00e9gulation qui en fait un mouvement subversif de la civilisation<\/a>, au contraire de la mondialisation. Le fonctionnement et l’action des arm\u00e9es am\u00e9ricanistes, m\u00eame involontairement, sont tels qu’ils ne nous laissent pas souffler, et nous rappellent sans cesse \u00e0 qui nous avons affaire.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tQuelques mots d\u00e9sol\u00e9s de l’Am\u00e9ricain Deblauwe pour conclure:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab To paraphrase Lord Byron’s lament about the Parthenon: Quod non fecerunt Baathi, hoc fecerunt Americani Polonique (what the Ba’athists did not [destroy], the Americans and Poles did).<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb What started on a good and decent impulse, to protect the ancient site of Babylon, the mother of all archaeological sites, ended up doing more damage than probably any of the misguided megalomanical reconstruction projects of Saddam Hussein.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb I read the report the Guardian sent me with growing dismay.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb How on earth all this was allowed to happen, long after the fiasco with the National Museum in Baghdad, is beyond my comprehension.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Any civil affairs officer worth his\/her salt should have known immediately that levelling whole areas of an ancient archaeological site such as Babylon is just not done.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb My guess is that their protests were summarily brushed aside once the wheels of the military machine came into motion.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb It seems the infrastructure necessary for modern hi-tech warfare was installed and provided for without much if any regard for the exceptionally sensitive and unique setting.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Furthermore, the constant traffic of heavy trucks and machinery wreaks havoc on the archaeological deposits right underneath the surface.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Due to security concerns, Iraqi experts were shut out, especially the people from the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) whom the coalition military probably saw as Ba’athist holdovers.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bye bye Babylon, voici les barbares postmodernes 16 janvier 2005 Les Britanniques ont soulev\u00e9 un sourcil pour exprimer leur profonde indignation. Cultural Vandalism, appr\u00e9cie Le Guardian, \u00e0 propos de l’alli\u00e9 privil\u00e9gi\u00e9 de l’Angleterre, i.e. les Etats-Unis. Le quotidien se fend d’un \u00e9dito rageur, d’un r\u00e9cit d\u00e9taill\u00e9 des circonstances de la catastrophe, d’un inventaire d\u00e9taill\u00e9 des… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}