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I guess that's what UNESCO is for
For an assignment I'm studying the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan back in 2001 and the resulting emotional havoc in the art/archaeological/Buddhist/non-Taliban community. It's leaving me with a rather sick feeling that 1500-year-old historical relics can be destroyed with such fervor, despite the "religious" reasons behind it.

I think what bothers me the most is that in 1999 Mullah Omar said that since the Buddhist community no longer exists in Afghanistan and the statues won't be worshiped, they should remain intact because of the potential tourist income. Two years later, he deemed the statues "gods of the infidels" and they were destroyed. First of all, who did he originally think would travel there to see the statues? BUDDHISTS. It might seem backwards that I'm upset over his first comment in 1999 rather than what he said in 2001, but I guess I feel as if he were just pulling our chain. Giving us false hope that he gave a shit about such remarkable relics. I've come to expect the Taliban to want to get rid of those kinds of things, whether or not religious reasons are an excuse for destruction, so it was nice to hear an Afghan official (and the leader of the Taliban, no less!) say something nice about the remnants of a foreign culture.

Then they had to go and bomb them. I guess that's what UNESCO is for.

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2010-02-28 @ 4:43 p.m.