The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha: Terrorism on Culture?
The demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan by the Taliban that took place in March 2001 shocked the world with its literal and devastating imageries of destruction and terror. It was a news feast for the modern media, where sentimentalities of loss and disappointment were forced out of every viewer. It was easy to condemn this blunt act of ‘cultural terrorism’, and every easier to condemn after the shocking episode that came later. Finally after the devastatingly sad incident of September 11, 2001, the Western world and its media found an exact ‘source’ of all these terrible events and a target for all their condemnation and rage. This easy target was the almost abstract ‘arch-nemesis’ of the goodness and wholesomeness of what America stood for, i.e., the Taliban.
The readings from this week, the ones by Manhart and Francioni illustrate this ‘righteous anger’ where they represent the mainstream international organizations of UNESCO with regard to the event of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha. In the paper these authors express a clear outrage against the ‘immoral act’ of the Taliban, and condemn these actions as ‘war crimes’ under any circumstance. A detailed description of donations and recent rehabilitation of the site and the Kabul museum is also provided, showing the majority of donors as developed countries such as Japan and the US. The UNESCO expresses that the ownership of these sites is not only that of the people of Afghanistan, but also shared with the people of this planet, for the Bamiyan site is considered to be an international cultural heritage site that needs to be honored and protected by the international community. This active intervention of cultural preservation, management and rehabilitation by the UNESCO as represented by the Western and mainstream developed countries show an active initiative, but could also trigger an opposing attack on the hypocrisy of these international organizations.
As briefly analyzed by Manhart in the readings, one of the reasons why the Taliban chose to carefully design and broadcast this purposeful act of destruction of an extremely valued piece of international cultural heritage might be that their aim was specifically to get the full attention and maybe some fear of the international community. This is probably done out of a grudge that Afghanistan was mercilessly sanctioned by the international community (mainly represented by the developed nations, again) for housing the Taliban leadership Osama Bin Laden. It seems to me that the obliteration of the Bamiyan Buddha really had a lot less to do with religion but a lot more with politics and economics. It was not directed at the Buddha for being an heretically idolized God in opposition with Islam’s principles or Buddhism in general, it was directed at the modern realities of post-Cold War politics. The Taliban got what they desired, which is the global attention, but this attention turned out to be a magnifying glass focused more on their inhumane deeds than some of the realities in Afghanistan that they wish to expose to the world. You could say that extreme times call for extreme measures, but extreme measures usually accomplish nothing but creates more extreme problems. An eye for an eye and the whole world will turn out to be blind.
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