Rebuild the House of Wisdom

Brian Turner suggested building a library in Baghdad during the William Joiner Institute’s writing workshop, while reading on the lawn outside of The Longfellow House in 2017. He bought the first book for it, the Warrior Writers 2014 anthology. An esoteric call to action, The House of Wisdom recalls translation efforts of the turn of the last millennium in the Middle East, which eventually spread knowledge of mathematics and eastern philosophies into Europe. It’s not necessarily a place. It’s an idea.

But who cares? Is there even an audience? Marshall Mcluhan said that all content is “a piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.” All of our stories are fodder for the social media meat grinder, designed to shape our interests, exploit our weaknesses, and (very rarely) change our minds. So why make anything?

At the emerging Veteran Artist Movement’s Triennial in 2019, Fanny Garcia brought up the difference between art therapy and artworks. One easy distinction could be in who gets paid: a therapist or an artist. But all creative work is ethereal. Successes might be imprints of the artist’s ideas into the circuitry of another person’s brain, triggering actions and reactions. Of course, none of this accounts for the belated success of artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

At a well attended writing workshop for veterans in Boston, an opioid enthusiast reads a poem observing the length of the American war for the greater Middle East. A hard body wearing cruddy combat boots leaves the room with a few words respecting his service, rarely to be seen again. In the war of words, nobody wins. Nobody feels heard. The loudest voices can get absurd. And because the actual words matter less than the outcomes for those affected, a lot of people just do not talk.

1. Publications and Performances

Encourage creative collaborations across platforms and artistic disciplines. Finance artworks (physical and digital broadsides, performances, workshops, audio, video) and journalism projects.

2. Cultural Exchanges

Inspire conversations between enemies. Develop connections with emerging writers, journalists and intellectuals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and explore cross broadcasting content.

3. Change the Narrative

Build an interactive audience, and network across the globe. Gather a small cohort to visit the University of Baghdad for a research project on the history of The House of Wisdom.