From the Field of Bosworth to the Sands of Timbuktu

Richard III of England

The University of Leicester in England has announced that they have confirmed that the bones dug up from under a parking lot are indeed those of the hapless Richard III. Of course, this has brought up all kinds of delicious speculation and historical revisionism, particularly from those who think he was a much maligned king, especially via Shakespeare's history, exemplified by Laurence Olivier's almost cartoonish performance. Shakespeare clearly drew on historians who had fealty to Elizabeth I, a granddaughter of the winner at Bosworth, Henry of Lancaster. An example of how history is written by the winners, as well as by those who wish to flatter them.

Those of us who care about cultural and historical survival have been following the struggles in Mali and the ancient city of Timbuktu, where it was originally speculated that in addition to the destruction of the Sufi saints' tombs, the Ansar Dine would burn the ancient manuscripts. After all, there is much reason for concern; those who care watched in horror as the Taliban assaulted the Bamiyan Buddhas which had survived for 1,700 years. Good news, the majority of the ancient manuscripts are said to be safe.

(via: Hyperallergic dot com)

"Decentralizing the documents, which range from academic treatises to commercial contracts, law books, and medical texts, kept them safe. After Tuareg rebel fighters entered Timbuktu on April 1, curators and collectors began to remove texts from the libraries and “distributed them around,” Cape Town University professor Shamil Jeppie said. The New Yorker reports that 50,000 manuscripts are housed in 32 family libraries that remain protected."

History is cruel. Elizabeth I's father, Henry VIII had a dispute with the Catholic Church. In the process of wresting power and, it must be said, money and influence from the Church of Rome, Henry destroyed monasteries all over England. Due to this destruction the bones of the only English King with the designation "The Great," Alfred, are missing. Also missing are those of Henry I to the same cause.

Sacred Spaces, ctd.

This image is from the The Funambulist, an architectural website.

Timbuktu, at the crossroads of empires, at the crossroads of the north-south and east-west caravans of West Africa, Songhai, Wangara, Fulani, and Arabs, a center of learning, trade in salt and gold, is under threat of destruction by Islamist fundamentalists.

Here I quote Max Fisher in the Atlantic Magazine which has the title, "These 600 Year Old World Heritage Sites May be Rubble by August":
"The West African city of Timbuktu used to be one of Africa's richest and most important, a nexus of trade across the Sahara and a center of religious and scientific learning as far back as the 1400s. The relics of that history still stand in the form of such world heritage sites as the University of Sankore. More recently, this city in the sprawling West African country of Mali has been a tourism draw. But, on April 2, it came under new ownership: rebels from an ethnic minority known as Tuareg, who'd sought independence for years. Five days later they got it, declaring northern Mali as the independent country of Azawad. Then, on June 1, breakaway rebels with the extremist Islamist group Ansar Dine (translation: "Defenders of Faith") took control of Timbuktu.

"In their first month of rule, Ansar Dine has shut down the tourism industry ("We are against tourism. They foster debauchery," a representative said), sent locals fleeing, and, over the past four days, destroyed half of the shrines that mark Timbuktu's ancient and remarkable history. The United Nations condemned the destruction and the International Criminal Court suggested it could be a war crime, but Ansar Dine insisted they won't slow down, later pulling a beautiful Gothic door off the Sidi Yahya mosque that became one of the world's great centers of learning during the 1400s. They follow an extreme form of Islam (though a relatively modern one; it emerged in late-1700s Saudi Arabia) that sees Timbuktu's shrines and mosque-universities as sacrilegious; a form of idol-worship. Their campaign is still going -- it's been compared to the Taliban's early-2001 destruction of ancient Buddha statues -- and some observers worry that many of Timbuktu's historical treasures, which have survived countless invasions and empires, won't live out the month."

Here's the Funambulists' take on these depredations:
"Those mausoleums are being destroyed by iconoclast people who see in them, a form of rivalry towards God. From what I understand from the articles I read, Salafism forbids for a grave to be any less modest than a simple stone. The notion of saints (who are buried in those mausoleums) constitutes an heresy as it brings a single human closer to the status of god. Those men are therefore not destroying buildings because they despise architecture but rather, because they fathom its symbolical power and are oppressed by it."