Not Islam, But The Times Of Jahiliyya Might Be The Focus Of Iraqi Unity

This is a story about several things. One is the re-opening of the Baghdad Museum. Another is the tens of milions of dollars, from foreign, Western, donors, that apparently went missing, for there are no visible signs of that money being spent as it was supposed to be, on the improvement of the Baghdad Museum. And third, it is a story about the reaction of those — a few, but choice — who comment, showing a nostalgia for an older Baghdad, the fabled Baghdad not of Haroun Al-Raschid, but just of a few decades ago, when Iraqis thought of themselves as advanced — that is, more advanced than the other Arabs — because more secular, more open to Western-style education, less hijabbed if in other ways, just as hellish, as other Arab societies. And now that Iraq is riven by Islam-prompted or Islam-connected strife — the war by and against the Islamic State, the war by and against Sunnis and Shi’a with each other, the war by and against Arabs and Kurds, with the later clearly recognizing that they can expect nothing good from the Arabs, and dimly or dawningly recognizing that this Arab supremacism has a lot to do with Islam, which is the source of, and vehicle for, such supremacism.

But what is in the Baghdad Museum? It’s statuary (which Muhammad condemns), and other artifacts, from the pre-islamic period of Mesopotamia’s existence, that is, the Time of Jahiliyya. Can Iraq be saved by an appeal to the Time of Jahiliyya? Does anyone, among those quoted in the article, recognize that this is impliedly what they think? Does the reporter, unaware of the need to be a dive-dapper and look under the surface of the roiled Iraqi waters?