BAGHDAD, Iraq
Readers’ Opinions
Donny George, the head of Iraqi museums, at the National Museum in Baghdad.
FOR the director of a shuttered museum in a country at war, the imaginary can be a welcome refuge. Condemned to contemplate his own and his country's fate in great halls emptied of visitors, Donny George paces past showcases of ancient vessels and jars and clay tablets, and he dreams.
In his mind's eye, the museum director sees the grand opening: the courtyard filled with 1,000 guests, succulent lamb and sumptuous dates on tables beneath the palms, a Baghdad chamber quartet playing, the spirited talk of civilized people in the land where, several thousand years ago, the emergence of writing first permitted the considered transfer of ideas from one epoch to the next.
Mr. George smiles. It is a relief to dream when explosions greet the dawn. His genial brown eyes express both hope and the burden of living in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, he learned to live a double life: praising the dictator in public, worrying in private. He was a member of Mr. Hussein's now-disbanded Baath Party. Not to be, he says, would have meant dismissal and the abandonment of archaeological excavations, his great love. Compromise is woven into the texture of his life.
Now, as the director general of Iraqi museums, his new title, he inhabits a labyrinth. The Interior Ministry has been urging him to reopen the National Museum, saying it will provide him with 1,000 guards if necessary. "But then it's no longer a museum," Mr. George said. "It's a barracks."
Three years have now passed since the chaos accompanying the arrival of American troops in Baghdad set off looting at the museum. Mr. George fled through the back door, he says, when Iraqi militias began firing rocket-propelled grenades into the grounds. The plundering prompted international outrage, finger-pointing and a frenzy of political spin.
Initial reports of 170,000 stolen artifacts were exaggerated, as were wild comparisons to the sack of Constantinople. But the real number, about 15,000, still amounted to a tremendous loss. Reversing the damage has been arduous.
Largely through American assistance, both public and private, the museum has been restored and modernized. Mr. George, an Iraqi Christian who speaks excellent English, has proved adept at garnering this aid, forging good relations with several American officials while nursing an undiminished anger at the way, in his view, the United States "dismantled the whole former system only to leave a void."
Even with thousands of pieces still missing, the museum houses an extraordinary collection by any standard. What is lacking is the peace it needs to admit the public.
"When a museum is reopened, it means that peace has come," Mr. George said. For now, it is a hollow place, devoid of life, empty of discourse. This echoing museum at the heart of Baghdad — that is to say, at the heart of the American project in Iraq — is an image of hope frustrated.
"Everyone, deep in himself, is grateful to the United States that they helped us get rid of this regime," Mr. George said. "But the uncontrolled situation, that is another thing. Why was it not controlled?"
In Baghdad today, as the concrete blast walls multiply, control seems almost unimaginable. Since 2003, three museum employees — an archaeologist, an accountant and a driver — have been killed.
"It's hard to know what you can do with security the way it is," said John Russell, an expert in Iraqi archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art who spent several months in Baghdad coordinating cultural reconstruction for the State Department. "The museum will open some day, but for now it's right to keep a low profile. Nobody wants to be responsible for a disaster."
Least of all Mr. George, who at 55 sees himself as standing guard over his country's history. A love of the outdoor life marked him from childhood, when he would fish with his father, hunt with his grandfather and lead expeditions of scouts. He was set to study English literature at Baghdad University but was steered to a French literature class that he said held no interest for him. He went to see the assistant dean, who told him that the only other opening was in archaeology. "I asked if that meant living in tents and excavating sites, and when he said yes, I jumped at the opportunity," Mr. George recalled.