| And so again to Nineveh
… upon my tomb
Shall maidens scatter rose leaves
And men myrtles, ere the night
Slays day with her dark sword.
E. Pound
Iraq straggles out northward to where the Tigris River cuts the borders
of
Turkey and Syria. The city of Mosul straddles the river just here. A
confused relationship to national borders is mimicked in its populace.
There
are Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Syrians, Armenians and Yezidis in Mosul’s
biblical labyrinth. In Old Testament times the city went by the name of
Nineveh. Savage Assyrians dominated the region 600 years before Christ.
Assyrians would terrify their enemies by flaying captives alive, allowing
their screams to waft across the breach into the enemy camp. Ashurbanipal
ruled from here; 25,000 clay tablets from his magnificent library now
rest in
the British Museum, courtesy of Sir Henry Layard.
Thomas, the alleged apostle to India, stopped in this city on his trek
east,
mindful that the news he bore contrasted brightly with the dire prophesies
of
Nahum. Nahum, a dour Old Testament prophet, predicted that fire would
devour
Nineveh and a sword would cut it off. Jonah did not want to go. Agatha
Christie lived here and was inspired to write charming tales of murder.
Mosul is just inside the U.S. and British no-fly zone, but just outside
Kurdish captured territory. Although the city gets bombed regularly it
has
abundant food on offer. It has so much local produce as to be unaffected
by
the U.N. sanctions.
Despite all this intrigue and abundance and danger, much of the global
community feels much like Jonah, told to go Nineveh but not really wanting
to. Jonah preached repentance, while Nahum preached forthcoming destruction.
It is as though Mosul continues to live in an Old Testament dispensation.
The
city has timelessness, but a similar choice of destinies endures, poised
ready to visit these archaic streets.
James Clark
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(c) 2002 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 2 no. 31b
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