Crossed Purposes



Victory Arches sometime in 2004 



Statues. Monuments. Arches.  

Whether made of stone, steel or sand, monuments are erected to honor the good, sometimes the bad, and perhaps the ugly.  To marvel at the ancient wonder of Egypt's pyramids, or perhaps the majestic 19th century L'arc de Triomphe is to witness accomplishment embodied for the ages.  Yet controversy in a recent rebuilding of an overseas monument raises the question of when are symbols worth saving and others worth destroying especially when they have been erected by a despot?  



Victory Arches being restored in 2011. 
Photo: Jehad Nga for The New York Times



The recent reconstruction of an Iraqi monument located on a former Baghdad parade ground inside the Green Zone has draw some quiet attention.  The Victory Arch, (also known as Crossed Swords) erected during Saddam Hussein's regime was built to honor Iraqis who died during the Iran/Iraq war.  Steel shaped hands clutch swords which cross at the tips creating an arch underneath which Hussein rode atop a galloping white stallion after his country proclaimed victory over Iran.   According to a New York Times article,  Hussein ordered the structure to be built "from weapons of fallen Iraqi soldiers."  Conversely, helmets of Iranian soldiers are cemented to the bases of each sword wielding hand symbolically defining the victor and the conquered. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=victory%20arches&st=cse

While much of the Saddam inspired statuary has been demolished in Iraq, the crossed swords were spared.  They are out of view from most Iraqis because they are located within the Green Zone which continues to be a restricted area.  The parade grounds, according to the Times, have become overgrown and the pommels of the sword bases fallen.  Yet the upcoming summit meeting of Arab League leaders in Baghdad has been the impetus for some in the Iraqi government to spare and repair the Victory Arch. Flowers have been planted across the city where the visiting dignitaries will pass, and even line the road from the airport, once known for being a  "white knuckled gauntlet through insurgent badlands." 

Why, then, does this restoration make me a bit uneasy?  After all, portions of several concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Austria remain standing as distinctive reminders of the Holocaust.  Pieces of the Berlin Wall are displayed around the world as reminders of the post World War II schism in that city. I think I look at the Victory Arch's sword filled hands and can almost imagine the rest of the phantom body symbolically attached to them in subterranean Baghdad threatening to re-emerge, if only figuratively.  Perhaps Saddam's tyranny is still too fresh. The tenuous nature of Iraq's emerging government keeps me leery of this symbol of autocratic rule.

I am reminded, however, that for Iraqis to face the demons which damaged this country and feel strong enough in their own power to retain this symbol of former might, they hold ultimate authority over it.  Colloquially, it could be said restoring the arch lets Iraqis bite the dog that originally bit them.  Split feelings over the arch's restoration naturally emerge in Iraq, from the sculptor who did not want to be quoted in the Times article to various Iraqi lawmakers divided over the over-sized symbol. "We are a civilized people," Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said in the Times article, "and this monument is a part of the memories of this country."

It is, above all, interesting to consider the power of symbols and what might they can lord over us if we allow them to do so.   

(My niece Beth is a US Defense Department analyst who has done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  During her winter/spring 2005 deployment she took some photographs underneath the arch and they show the gargantuan size of the monument.  Below are the photos she graciously shared with me. Note the helmets at the base and the scale of the arch.)