The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan is often cited as a modern catastrophe, an unforgivable destruction of invaluable cultural heritage by machine gun toting Luddite savages. How could these psychopathic extremists destroy such a culturally significant site, one which was protected under international status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site? Could they not see that it had a special place in the heritage of the world as a whole? What horrid drivel, what feigned outrage.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan were rightfully destroyed as a moral statement by the Taliban. The diplomats and “intellectuals” of the West are unable, or unwilling, to grasp reality as it is, outraged at the destruction of some metric tons of sandstone from the face of some faraway cliff while pockmarks from heavy caliber machine guns were strewn across homes, the bodies of women and children lay rotting in streets. Even before their destruction, as war was raging in Afghanistan, with processions of refugees marching away from the rapidly shifting zones of combat, international agencies stressed the importance not of aid to those rendered homeless, orphaned, or disabled by the conflict, or even of efforts towards reconciliation or peace, but of the need to protect the inanimate statues from potential harm.
Disregarding this moral statement, the destruction of the Buddhas was a necessary undertaking of a truly independent Afghan state. The destruction of the Buddhas was a great exclamation that “this is our nation, our country, and only we have ultimate agency over our possessions!” There can be no international agency, no Europeans in armchairs looking down at us, believing in their vain folly that only they can truly appreciate our heritage. The fundamental root of the controversy is that the West believes that the rest of the world are philistines, unable to truly appreciate what they consider as culture, and thus the West must work to “protect” these old, dusty, stagnant artifacts from their savage progenitors. The cultural heritage of Egypt, Iraq, Mexico, Peru, Africa, all sit in the display cases of European museums, out of the hands of its rightful inheritors, safely under the protection of the “truly civilized”.
And what of this that is to be protected? What can it do for us? Sit there? The European “intellectual” has now taken the role of an international hoarder, wishing to grasp on to every scrap of what was left behind, disposed of and abandoned by those before us. This compulsion leads them to live in delusion, a mind riddled with mildew and old newspapers.
Leave a Reply