Hanging out in Berlin with emerging thinkers and writers from the Middle East
Millions of victims of wars and prisons in the Middle East have come to Berlin & Europe for refuge. They're sometimes surprised to find their own history here, cataloged and well-studied....
Visited by millions of people each year, the Pergamon is one of Berlin’s most popular museums. All come to pay homage to a remarkable (and big) collection of ancient artifacts — including the original tilework from the Gate of Ishtar (Assur) of ancient Assyria and Babylon.
Located at al-Ḥillah (in today’s Iraq), the Ishtar Gate was built about 100 years before the region became home to a great writer (or scribe), Ezra (Uzair). Today, Ezra is understood to be a saint or prophet in three of the modern religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — that emerged from this part of the globe.
Every day, the Pergamon staff watches countless global students wander through, perhaps to learn something about these artifacts. (Here, and in other Berlin museums, one finds huge collections of tablets and scrolls, all recording people’s ideas and common business exchanges in biblical Babylon.)
Sometimes-uncomfortable stories of provenance emerge in our study of art and culture from the Mediterranean and Middle East. Western thinkers shouldn’t be shy about discussing these stories from history — nor those that we see happening to valuable ‘material culture’ today.
How does Berlin introduce these Assyrian artifacts to a growing population of new visitors from that part of the world? I asked some Syrian writers and thinkers: Have you seen this historic material? Do you want to see it? Not especially, they said. Like practically everyone else, new Syrian-Berliners are extremely busy with the very common, daily game of “Survival-Despite-Everything” and, otherwise — like most higher-ed students — they have little expendable cash.
On the “ideological front,” there is also the history (the provenance) behind some of our Berlin-museum artifacts. I would hope that Berlin is full of good, international people working in the field of ‘provenance studies,‘ centered on these stories and others. (Again, Provenance is the search and documentation of history of purchases, acquisitions, and ownership of art and artifacts of the past.)
In the case of artifacts of the Mediterranean and Middle East, our books are full of tales of German/British/European “explorers” — also of early tourists, researchers, adventurers, and outright smugglers and thieves. We shouldn’t be shy or reticent to discuss clear examples of 19th-century “cultural colonialism” and the taking of artifacts — either as prizes of war or “keepsake” souvenirs. There should be interest and relevance enough for a lot of Berliners to be working in this field today. (If you do — and have something to add — write us a note here!)
Another key word in today’s history discussions: Orientalism.
Increasingly, we are watching these conversations “go global,” drawing the interest and engagement of new students of art and literature. The new learners (and teachers) are often emigrating refugees from those regions — often themselves victims of political oppression by modern states, East and West.
As ever, I hope that our “new Berliners” — people from all over Europe and the Middle East — might work collectively and individually to build new awareness and a greater human identity from today’s explorations and understanding of humankind’s most ancient cultures.
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra
https://www.detik.com/hikmah/khazanah/d-7045374/kisah-uzair-yang-dimatikan-dan-dihidupkan-kembali-setelah-100-tahun
https://smarthistory.org/neo-babylonian/