Harrison Ford is gonna have to pass on the torch eventually...

Sometimes familiarity can breed contempt. Often it just breeds ungratefulness, but the Arab people have been particularly gifted at ignoring their own cultural heritage. Often the driving forces behind preserving Arab cultural foundations or traditions are not Arab. As much as I value the works of these people, it makes me happy to see Arabs doing the same work:

When Nada Shabout visited Iraq in June 2003, she thought she was going home to a country she'd long been forbidden to enter. As an art historian, she expected to visit the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art – previously known as the Saddam Center for the Arts – to see the finest works of 20th-century Iraqi artists.

Instead, she found the museum looted and burned. Intruders had crushed sculptures and torn paintings from their frames. Looters had pried up tiles from the museum floor. Almost all of the 8,000 works were destroyed or missing.

She heard rumors about stolen Iraqi art selling on the black market. A wooden sculpture of a pyramid, a national treasure crafted by Shakir Hassan Al Said, was spotted on a balcony in a poor part of town – being used as a birdcage.

Since then, Dr. Shabout, who grew up in Iraq and is now an assistant professor of art history at the University of North Texas, has dedicated her life to tracking down the stolen art. She is documenting a modern Iraqi culture she worries might disappear.

Is it just me or does this have the making of an Arab Indiana Jones? I would love to see Nada Shabout saving some pre-Islamic figurines from the clutches of al Qaeda leaders, replete with commando rolls and explosions. Perhaps busting down the door as a corrupt ex-Baathist is about to sell a priceless work of calligraphy to an evil Spanish art dealer "You are not going to take that back to Spain Jorge! All you are getting is Nada!" Thwack! I am thinking that the movie version of Nada should be proficient in Silat, Eskrima, or some of the Chinese Muslim Martial Arts (where do i sign up!!). I have not decided if she should have sufi-derived superpowers or what her funny side-kick should be like. Any suggestions?

Shabout also gives me some hope, both for the power of art and the future of Iraq:

"These pieces are sources of national pride" – not sectarian pride, she explained. She says politicians who think Iraq needs to be divided into three separate countries should study these works. "Iraqi art demonstrated that there was a way to assimilate all the groups. If it was possible before to construct a cohesive identity, why can't we today? The art can show people the way Iraqis can live together."