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Bamiyan Statues
By Dr MS Quraishy, Kolkata
After a long-drawn internalwar the
Taliban won and now they control effectively almost the entire country.
But because of Western vested interests the regime is not recognized by
the international community. As such the Afghans today are an isolated
community in the world.
How far the news spread by the Western media is correct is anybody’s
guess. One suspects that most of it is only disinformation to give a dog a
bad name to prepare a ground to kill him. It is difficult to rely on the
information emanating from western sources. Late Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi had once taken initiative to free the developing nations from
strangle-hold of western news media and to establish an independent source
of information, a news service, which was not followed up after her.
Afghanistan was once a country where Buddhism was widespread just as it
was in India but then things changed and it became a Muslim country and
Buddhism disappeared form Afghanistan just as it disappeared from India.
During the Buddhist regime devotees carved out some magnificent Buddha
statues in the rocks of the country. The two sculptures of Buddha at
Bamiyan are supposed to be great pieces of art and part of the heritage of
the entire humanity, so it is everybody’s duty to protect and preserve
them.
The authorities of the government of Afghanistan find these statues in
their own interpretation of Islam as conflicting with their view of their
religion so they have decided to destroy them. Nobody can deny anybody's
right to adhere to one's faith. But does Islam enjoin upon its followers
to destroy history and artifacts of historical importance if it is not to
one's liking. No, it is not so. It is everybody’s duty to try to
preserve the heritage of historical importance.
Why the Taliban have resorted to this act of destruction? To a large
extent the world community is responsible for this deparate action. The
government and people of Afghanistan are ostracized and are isolated
politically, economically, socially and culturally by the entire world
community and they must be feeling the pinch. In this deparate situation
this may be an act of desperation as they stand to lose nothing but will
certainly draw the attention of the international community to them, and
in that they have succeeded. One can as ask how the future generations of
Afghans will think of it.
Not long ago we have witnessed in our own country, India, that a section
of our people behaved in the same way as Taliban and fanatically destroyed
a monument of historical importance. All these are results of wrong
perceptions based on wrong precepts. q |
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