Being a DC Tourist

I am making the most of my time off, not just being productive getting things done in my house and garden, but also encouraging friends to play hooky and spend the day with me doing fun things. On Thursday, one good friend did just that and we decided to be home grown tourists for the day in DC.

First stop was the Newseum – a museum of the news. The private museum starts visitors with a short video that establishes the context of the museum – presenting both key events in history covered in the news and the history of newsmaking. The video included this quote from Thomas Jefferson in 1786, "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." But my suspicions were aroused. The video covered the key themes of news: first time events, life and death, discovery, and of course war and peace. They showed several clips from the current conflict in Iraq during the war segment but they included something that just didn’t quite fit – a photograph of Osama Bin Laden, right in the middle of all the Iraq images (not in the later Afghanistan images). Now our wonderful president GWB would like us to believe that Osama is somehow connected to Iraq, but to date, there has been no evidence unearthed of any connection. Interestingly most Americans believe that there is a connection because GWB is so good at his job. It turns out that the Newsuem’s founder is none other than Rupert Murdoch, media tycoon who brought to us the Fox news network and other mouthpieces for the current administration.

The other missing piece in the museum was information on the current administration’s infringement on freedom of the press. There was an exhibit on the embedded reporters that are on the ground in Iraq, but they did not include a discussion on the fact that the military also controls all footage that is allowed to be released by these reporters. Nor did they cover the fact that stories published by reporters (or footage shown on CNN) that portrays a less-than-flattering image of the US quickly disappear. (See my “Afghan Soldier” entry in June 2006). A disappointment to say the least. That said, I will drop the Newseum a line and make sure they are aware of their Osama mistake, but I will say that the rest of the museum was very interesting and informative. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1938, “A free press is essential to us as a people and to the maintenance of our form of government” (another quote from the video).

After a very sunny lunch sitting at the Naval memorial and watching cadets rehearse for their summer Concerts on the Avenue, we went across the street to the National Gallery of Art to see the special exhibit on Afghanistan. Somehow I had not heard of the exhibit, but everyone should know about it. It is a collection of spectacular ancient artifacts from four sites in Afghanistan. The pieces themselves are breathtaking and include a two thousand year old intact plaster bust of a poet, a plate of silver and gold, and a magnificent collapsible gold crown. The history of the objects is equally as fascinating as many are a unique blend of east and west. Maybe the best example of this is a gold statue representing the Greek Goddess Aphrodite but with a South Asian bindi and the wings of an Indian goddess.

Despite the interest in the objects themselves, the exhibit is most amazing for its more recent history. The only reason these artifacts survived the past 25 years of conflict in Afghanistan is due to the heroism of Omara Khan Massoudi, the Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan. In 1988, when the Russians were preparing to invade Afghanistan, he foresaw the threat to the treasures in the museum and he and some trusted colleagues packed up the greatest treasures and hid them in safes under the Presidential Palace. They never spoke a word about them until 2003. It is difficult to imagine how hard their lives must have been during that time and how much personal gain they could have received from the hidden treasure. The museum was ransacked, artifacts destroyed by the Taleban and even shelled. Much of the Museum’s collection was destroyed, but these pieces remain in tact.

I cannot recommend the exhibition highly enough. The schedule in the US:
- National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.)
May 25 to September 7, 2008
- Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
October 24, 2008, to January 25, 2009
- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
February 22 to May 17, 2009
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
June 23 to September 20, 2009

For more information on the exhibit see the current edition of National Geographic or read the article at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/afghan-treasures/atwood-text