I was watching an episode of Andrew Marr's "History of the World", episode title Age of Plunder earlier on BBC 1 and I was once again hit by what was unsaid rather than was said.

History is something that is constantly being erased, sometimes in destructive ways and other times to make way for the future. I am not talking about the destruction of Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia through redevelopment, or in Somalia or even in Timbuktu (where the conquest of the city also known as the place of 300 saints was immediately followed by the conquerors going at its historical buildings with pickaxe and shovel while the locals could only look on earlier this year), but something much more subtle.