Who cares about architectural heritage in Syria and Iraq when people are dying by the thousand? Well, more and more people are as it becomes understood that cultural genocide is inextricably linked to human genocide and ethnic cleansing. Attacks on a community’s history — its cultural identity and the ancient monuments that bear witness to centuries of presence — are calculated. They say you do not belong here and never did; your churches, your Sufi saints’ shrines, your Shia mosques will be swept away so that you are terrified into leaving and are never tempted to return.

Read More: Culture Wars: Tracking the Destruction of Middle East Monuments