Iraq as Eden
CNN ran a feature on the Eden Project which intends to restore the ancient marshes of Mesopotania that once extended from the juncture of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. All of a sudden this has become a ’cause celebre’ and one has to wonder why. While clearly of profound ecological importance, there seems to have been an unusual amount of attention being paid to this ecological restoration project by the US State department. After all, the marshes at the mouth of the Colorado river (quite ecologically analagous to the Tigris, Euphrates system) were almost completely destroyed by American damming and draining initiatives with similarly catastrophic ecological results such as the near extirpitation of the Yuma Clapper rail and the cultural life of the Cocopa Indians. Since the 1950s, the Tigris/Euphrates marshes have all but dried out due to upstream damming and draining initiatives both within and outside Iraq. This was exacerbated under Saddam Hussein’s regime because of the presence of the so called ‘Marsh Arabs’ which had been critical of his regime. The marshes were the purported site of the original ‘Garden of Eden’ and I can’t help thinking that America’s sudden focus on their restoration is an extension of the same Bush administration agenda of triumphalist, fundamentalist Christianianity that encouraged the looting of the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad. History is being re-written as we speak and we’ll never know completely why. The image of the pelican regurgitating its dinner to feed its young has uncomfortable resonance to me with the way US media is uncritically regurgitating government agit prop to its population.
