The Oasis of Palmyra | Hacker News Reader

The Oasis of Palmyra

laphamsquarterly.org

69 pointsseattleiteite14 comments

I remember reading a truly appalling account of how the head of antiquities at Palmyra Khaled al-Asaad endured a month of torture and was later murdered for his refusal to reveal where he had hidden many artefacts from the site. This act of heroic courage should be what history associates with ISIS's barbaric occupation of Palmyra in my opinion.

The loss of Palmyra's heritage while heartbreaking can at least partially be put right with careful restoration, but we have to be careful not to minimise the horrifying amounts of human suffering inflicted by ISIS who committed atrocities against living humanity as well as atrocities against human history and culture.

I'm a big fan of the History of Rome podcast and the occasional narratives into Palmyra were always some of the most fascinating. Sad to see what has happened there.

》Why did ISIS need to destroy the temples? Because these were places where pagans before Islam came to adore mendacious idols? No, I don’t think so. It seems to me that the temples and artifacts of Palmyra were destroyed because they were venerated by citizens of the West. ISIS wanted to show that it doesn’t respect what Western culture admires.

Wrong! Islam was destroying old monuments long before modern West even existed. If anything West and ISIS fought on the same side, against Syria!

Saudi Arabia does this with its own Islamic heritage all the time. And at least parts of IS have vowed to destroy the Kaaba.

One must never forget, the pure doctrine of Islam is one of radical iconoclasts.

Beside the Saudis hate their own history. They love to be seen as modern, everything brand-new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic_h...

https://time.com/3584585/saudi-arabia-bulldozes-over-its-her...

That part struck me, too. It's a narcissistic way of seeing things, where everything comes back to being about us (the West). ISIS's motives were pretty plainly spoken from what I understood at the time. It was a grand nihilistic reset they had in mind, where everything from before was to be erased, and a new, pure beginning was to happen.

Great article. But ia it ne ot ia the english strange and slightly pretencious?

> But ia it ne ot ia the english strange and slightly pretencious?

Oh, the irony...

For what is worth, as a non native English speaker the article sounded just fine.

As a native speaker, the article might occasionally betray its origins as something translated from another language, but tbh I was too busy enjoying the level of detail the author went into to pick at quirks of phrasing :)

I honestly don't understand what the commenter meant by "ia it ne ot ia".

Likely "is it me or is"

Thank you. Now all we need is someone to explain "pretencious".

In my personal experience (some of it on the receiving end), the "accusations" of "preteciousness" usually say more about the accuser (and their set of life experiences), than the accused.

The only person who could objectively make that claim is someone who is very-well-versed and up-to-date with the in the targeted writer's writing and/or speaking style.

That is to say - I perceive preteciousness to be something an author or orator purposefully and/or intentionally does for the specific occasion and/or audience, this being "unlike themself" for potentially spurious or considered-bad-by-the-accuser reasons. If that is the "natural" way the person in question communicates, I'd consider the claim false.

[As mentioned, from personal experience, the "new" people ("barely-an-acquitances") often mark or accuse me of it, on account of my (unintentional) code-switching and/or quite consistent mixing of my native language and English, especially when it comes to writing. Meanwhile, people who have known me for years know it to be just one of my (many) idiosyncrasies.]

I feel you gave my dumb comment more thought than it deserved. But i enjoyed the reply immensely, thanks!

One of those idiosyncrasies is intentionally taking things deadpan seriously.

And don't call me Shirley.

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