Save statues not people
Criticism of Afghani government hypocritical and cynical
Living in a society intent on removing religion and its symbols from the public domain, the vehement reaction to the efforts of Afghanistan’s Taleban regime to destroy two statues of Buddha appears hypocritical and arrogant.
By design or by accident, Western economic might is spreading a bland consumer culture that is replacing cultural heritage. In a world where the citizen’s only role is to act as consumer, public spaces and world culture are being over run by franchises and marketing campaigns.
The strange hypocritical reality known as human nature allows us to act as full participants in this pervasive cultural holocaust and also be offended by the desire of fanatical Muslim clerics to destroy the icons of another religion.
Once again the refugee camps that dominate the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are filling with refugees. Thousands of Afghanis are starving in the worst crisis to hit the country since the unpopular Taleban regime took control in 1996. A desperate situation, but hardly the sort of thing to put the Western media in a tizzy.
Afghanistan, however, has been a hot topic that has eclipsed the coverage of the devastation and death in India, Central America and Africa. The cause célèbre is not the mundane struggle of thousands of Afghanis to cope with violence and drought – such death and despair is easy to come by these days. The Western media has come to wring its hands and cluck over the Taleban’s efforts to destroy the greater and lesser Buddhas in the valley of Bamiyan.
There is no question the Taleban are a nasty group intent on using violence and oppression to bring their strict interpretation of Islamic law to Afghanistan. The refugee camps that the Taleban movement sprang from a decade ago are now full of the victims of its policies.
Other countries, such as China, abuse their populations in a similar fashion, but are accepted by the international community. Afghanistan simply has the dual misfortunes of being run by an Islamic government – the equivalent of being a communist regime in the ’50s – and not having resources or a population that Western economies are interested in exploiting. Today, the government faces the combined displeasure of the U.S., Russia and China, and is not expected to control the country for much longer as the three powers begin supporting the opposition forces.
The Taleban were international pariahs long before they decided to blow up two 1,600-year-old statues. It is the destruction of these icons, not the oppressive regime, that has caught our attention. The outcry and abuse would have been much the same if any other country tried to dynamite part of its cultural heritage out of existence.
The fact these were Buddhist statues adds an interesting twist to the discussion. If they were icons of another religion, its leaders would have been front and centre in the fight to save them. In keeping with Buddhist beliefs, none of the stories on the statues contained quotes from prominent Buddhist leaders – the rejection of desire, including a desire for icons, is a fundamental tenet of the Buddhist religion.
Instead, a society that has pillaged almost every form of human culture for either personal self-fulfilment or for economic gain stepped forward to claim the statues must be saved for their historical and cultural significance. The efforts to save the statues failed. The Taleban refused the offers to move the statues to the U.S. for safekeeping. This might have saved the physical presence of the statues, but it would have made them part of the ever-increasing volume of displaced culture. Even partially destroyed, the statues remain a part of the Afghani cultural context. If located in the U.S., they would become culturally irrelevant, although they might pull in a lot of valuable sponsorship dollars from Pepsi or Coca-Cola.
If you feel like questioning the values of a society, spend some time wondering why two ancient icons of a different culture can generate more emotional appeal than the desperate plight of thousands of starving humans. |
