"We All Speak Arabic" Memorial — cultural healing for Iraq

As of this writing, it looks like the war in Iraq is winding down. So as we prepare to leave, I feel strongly that for all we have destroyed, and for all we have tried to build back up in the way of security and infrastructure, we also need to try to reconstruct some cultural interiors in Iraq—we need to restore some of the dignity of the Iraqi people and pay tribute to their once and future greatness.

Toward this end, I have conceived and designed a teaching memorial for Baghdad called: "We All Speak Arabic." This memorial would celebrate the accomplishments in mathematics achieved during the golden age of Islam—many of which were actually made in Baghdad.

The “We all speak Arabic” memorial would celebrate Islamic civilization’s significant contributions to our international system of decimal numbers and to mathematics in general. The actual forms of our numbers, zero through ten, are taken directly from Arabic script! Think about how important ones and zeros are to the digital age. So this memorial would tell the story of Islam’s achievements in mathematics during their golden age. These mathematical achievements were adopted by Europe several hundred years later and made a big difference in the development of capitalism in Italy, and in Western civilization in general. Numbers (Arabic numbers) are the world’s only universal language, and now is the perfect time to thank Arabians and restore some of their pride as a people through this memorial.

I have a beautiful design for the memorial (the attached image is only a placeholder) that combines traditional Islamic architectural motifs with sacred geometry and some high-tech elements for a stunning appearance. Inside the open air memorial there would be exhibits informing visitors about the accomplishments of great Arabic mathematicians, such as Al-Khwarizmi.

From a cultural standpoint, the developed world can now help the evolution of Islamic civilization by showing respect and gratitude. A memorial such as this would thus help to heal the animosity that is an ongoing threat to peace, reducing the anti-American resentment that is so prevalent in the Middle East. Just as the Vietnam War memorial provided cultural healing for America, this memorial could help heal the “internal wounds” and restore some much-needed dignity to the Iraqi people, and to Islam in general. This kind of project can also contribute to the reduction of violence and the recruiting of terrorists. Although food, medicine, security, and investment are all needed, we can’t ignore the “internal” cultural side of the problem either. Now that we have torn down the memorials to Saddam Hussein, we need to replace them with something positive—now that we have removed the dictator, we need to restore hope. And it is through symbolic gestures such as this memorial that hope and morale can be restored. This could also generally benefit international relations between Islam and the West, which would ultimately redound to the benefit of Americans.

Initial Steps to implementing this idea include the architectural rendering (CAD drawings and model making) for the memorial, as well as the collection of contents for the educational exhibits. Prior to actual construction, we could create a “virtual tour” of the memorial’s design, viewable on-line. This would build support and help in the organization of a diplomatic mission to Iraq to secure the cooperation of the Iraqi government and find an appropriate site for the memorial to be constructed.

The optimal outcome would be that the memorial would become a symbol of pride for Iraqis. Similar to the way the Statue of Liberty (a similar gifted memorial) has become a symbol of pride for America. Measurements of success would include international media coverage of the memorial, both in its idea phase, in its construction phase, and ongoing thereafter. Success could also be measured by opinion polls of Iraqi people in their attitudes toward America and the West, and by the state of long term relations between the U.S. and Iraq. Once we raise initial seed capital, a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Foundation could be set up to receive the additional money needed and administer the creation of the project. If you would like to help with this project, send me an email: steve@stevemcintosh.com