14/04/2026

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TUESDAY | APR 14, 2026

ON TWITTER Malaysian Paper

@thesundaily

COMMENT by Kua Kia Soong

Civilisation under siege T HE word “barbarian” once evoked terror across the ancient world. It conjured images of the sacking of cities, the burning of libraries and the obliteration of knowledge painstakingly accumulated over millennia. Contradiction at the heart of liberalism Modern Western liberalism claims to stand for human rights, rule of law, protection of culture and heritage and the intrinsic value of every human life.

Airstrikes in Iran have damaged Unesco-listed grand bazaar and Golestan Palace. Historic complexes in Isfahan, including the Chehel Sotoun Palace and Naqsh-e Jahan Square, have also been affected. Iran reports that over a hundred cultural sites, museums and monuments have been damaged. Unesco has warned that even indirect damage – shockwaves, debris, nearby blasts – can irreparably harm fragile heritage structures built centuries ago. This is not just about buildings; it is about the continuity of human history. When a palace loses its mirrorwork, when a mosque loses its tiles and when an archaeological site is looted or flattened, something deeper disappears – the material record of human creativity; the shared heritage of civilisation and the ability of future generations to understand where they came from. War does not only kill the living; it silences the dead. If “barbarism” once meant the destruction of cities and knowledge, then we must ask: What word applies today when advanced militaries, fully aware of the value of these sites, wage wars that leave them damaged, looted or endangered? Unesco itself has repeatedly warned that cultural heritage is not collateral; it is part of the “social foundation of societies” and is protected under international law. Yet, from Iraq to Syria, from Libya to Iran, that foundation has been shaken again and again. The tragedy is not only that the cradle of civilisation has become a theatre of war; it is that humanity now possesses the knowledge of what is being destroyed – and the means to prevent it – and yet fails to act. History began in these lands. What is being lost there today does not belong to one nation, one religion or one people. It belongs to all of us.

If the Renaissance represents a rediscovery of human dignity, then its legacy cannot be measured only in galleries and textbooks. It must be measured in how power is exercised in the present. Because a civilisation that celebrates the rebirth of knowledge while tolerating – or rationalising – the destruction of its oldest sources is not merely inconsistent; it risks becoming what it claims to oppose. Counting the cost Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the region that gave humanity its earliest cities has endured repeated cycles of invasion, occupation and war. The human toll is staggering but beyond the dead lies another, quieter casualty: memory itself. In Iraq, the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad saw up to 170,000 artifacts – some over 5,000 years old – disappear into the black market amid the collapse of order. Ancient sites such as Babylon were damaged by military use, their archaeological layers crushed under modern war machinery. In Syria, all six Unesco World Heritage sites were damaged during the civil war – through shelling, military occupation and looting. Cities like Palmyra – once a crossroads of empires – became battlegrounds. In Libya, Unesco has warned that all five of its World Heritage sites have been endangered by conflict since 2016. In Afghanistan, decades of war have left archaeological sites vulnerable to looting and destruction, with satellite studies confirming widespread damage to heritage landscapes. Latest chapter: Iran’s human and cultural wounds In the most recent conflict, the 2026 war involving Iran, thousands have died and even formally protected sites have not been spared. Ancient heritage sites across Iran have been damaged in US-Israel bombing in the last 30 days.

Yet, in practice, the same political order has justified or enabled wars that have devastated societies in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iran, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and left cultural landscapes damaged, looted or destroyed. This is not merely a policy contradiction; it is a moral one. There is a long continuity in the language used to justify such actions. Where empire once spoke of a “civilising mission”, modern interventions speak of “spreading democracy”, “humanitarian intervention” or even “stabilisation”. Yet, on the ground, the results often resemble something far older: the breaking apart of societies and the erosion of their historical memory. The irony is stark. A civilisation that venerates Michelangelo and Leonardo, that reveres classical antiquity and that funds museums to preserve global heritage, has also participated – directly or indirectly – in the destruction of the very cradle of civilisation. Racism and ethnic cleansing What makes this hypocrisy particularly striking is selective outrage. When heritage sites in Europe are threatened, it is framed as a loss to “humanity”. When ancient cities in the Middle East are damaged and thousands murdered in genocides, it is too often framed as unfortunate but secondary – “collateral damage”. But the ruins of Palmyra, the shattered artifacts of National Museum of Iraq or the damaged historic complexes of Isfahan are no less part of human civilisation than Florence or Athens. To treat them otherwise is not just inconsistency; it is blatant racism.

When the barbarians destroyed Baghdad in 1258, the great Abbasid capital – heir to the intellectual traditions of Mesopotamia – was reduced to ashes, its libraries cast into the Tigris. But long before that catastrophe, humanity’s first great experiment in civilisation had already taken root between the Tigris River and Euphrates River. My first history lesson in primary school was about “Sumeria and the dawn of human civilisation”. In Sumer, writing, law and urban life first emerged. Babylon later became a symbol of human achievement – a centre of culture, architecture and governance. civilisations That is why the destruction by US Western imperialism that has unfolded across the modern Middle East is not merely geopolitical; it is civilisational. Western liberal thought takes enormous pride in the legacy of the Renaissance – a rebirth of learning, art and human dignity. It celebrates the Renaissance as the moment Europe rediscovered reason, science and the value of human life. But what is often quietly omitted is this: the Renaissance did not emerge from a vacuum; it was built, in no small part, on knowledge preserved and transmitted through the Islamic and Asian world – through scholars working in places like the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and drawing on intellectual traditions that stretched back to Sumer and Babylon. In other words, the Renaissance owed a debt to the very region that is now repeatedly reduced to rubble. Renaissance ideals, ruined

“The tragedy is not only that the cradle of civilisation has become a theatre of war; it is that humanity now possesses the knowledge of what is being destroyed – and the means to prevent it – and yet fails to act.

Kua Kia Soong is a former MP and director of Suaram. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

Education retains its importance in the Malaysian landscape for parents, students and stakeholders. The changes are fast paced with new developments in new fields of study such as cybersecurity, data protection, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning in education, digital education and artificial Intelligence. Leading the way are universities, who are invited to showcase their latest programmes, curriculum and content in our Education Focus for 2026.

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