Media

The bookman of Mosul dreams of restoration


Alaa Hamdon likens it to a “lighthouse”. The library at the university of Mosul was much more than just a place where books were kept, says the geo-archeologist. It imparted knowledge and culture far beyond the campus of Iraq’s second biggest university, bolstering the city’s reputation and prestige.

Until, that is, Mosul and its university were captured by Isis in 2014. The library — famed for its extensive collection of books and periodicals, some dating back centuries — was torched in what Unesco called an act of “cultural cleansing”. Nearly all of the 1m books and documents held there are reckoned to have been destroyed or to have disappeared. The gutted library, likened by some to a stub of charcoal, was a powerful symbol of the repressive reality of life in the Isis caliphate. “The lighthouse was gone,” Mr Hamdon recalled last week at the London Book Fair. “It left a lot of lost ships in the sea — they don’t know where to get knowledge.”

The library joins a depressing registry of cultural destruction and assault on knowledge — from the Bamiyan valley to Palmyra — that has accompanied the conflict and turmoil that has engulfed the Middle East and central Asia in recent years.

In Mosul, some of that is now being redressed in a project that raises wider questions about cultural reconstruction and power politics in the country and wider region. The library is being rebuilt with aid money from Germany, while an initiative — the Mosul Book Bridge — launched by Mr Hamdon, is organising the restocking of its shelves.

The project has found support from Book Aid, a UK charity that mostly works in Africa, which has brought its links to publishers and logistical expertise in getting books across often difficult terrain. Publishers, such as Oxford University Press, are contributing books, while a number of British universities are donating money they take in library fines to the initiative. A first consignment of 7,000 books arrived a year ago; a second of 5,000 will arrive soon. The new books have been well-received — lecturers were reportedly dancing in the street.

The aim, says Alison Tweed of Book Aid, is to send 50,000 books chosen according to requests from the university, which has expressed a preference for technical, scientific and higher education texts. Yet, as impressive as that sounds, it is relatively small compared to the overall challenge of restoring the onetime “icon” to its original size.

There is also a question about the donated books themselves. They are English-language texts. The library’s pre-destruction collection was roughly 70 per cent Arabic, with the rest spread across an array of regional and ancient languages, as well as some international texts. The hope is to roughly restore that ratio. Appeals have been made to Arab states in the Gulf and north Africa. The response, says Mr Hamdon, has been words of sympathy — but so far no books.

A different point of tension is one familiar to all authorities confronting the aftermath of physical destruction: rebuild or start again. Architects from the Zaha Hadid group recommended a new build. But the authorities in Iraq opted for reconstruction.

Some view this as a missed opportunity that might have seen a more digitally-savvy approach to reviving Mosul’s library. In an age of devices and downloads, who needs to recreate a world of airless stacks and dusty tomes?

It is an inspiring idea, but in a city with poor internet infrastructure an unrealistic one. It also misses the point, says Mehiyar Kathem of the Nahrein Network, a research group focused on Iraqi culture. Given the scale of destruction in Mosul and the size of the reconstruction task ahead, a tangible tome is especially important. “You are showing immediate results,” he says. “The reader has a physical book in front of them. It does not take much to generate that.”

There is another dimension. In Iraq’s complicated sectarian politics, cultural capacity plays an important part in underscoring any one group’s claim for resources and influence. In this context, says Mr Kathem, “the physical presence is very important”.

It is a view Mr Hamdon shares, if at a more local level: “My dream is to stand again in front of the library.”

frederick.studemann@ft.com



READ SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.