Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA23312 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:26:47 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745CC3@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Witness Tells of Taliban Attack on Ancient Buddha Relics Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:24:58 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I'm torn here. I hate it when history and archaeology is treated with such
contempt, but at least as bad is the massive international outcry over these
statues compared to the deafening silence over the Taliban's treatment of
women. I think the international community should get its priorities right.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Sunday, March 4, 2001 11:14 pm
> To: Memetics Discussion List
> Subject: Fwd: Witness Tells of Taliban Attack on Ancient Buddha
> Relics
>
>
> ---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
>
> By Amir Shah
> Associated Press Writer
>
> KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban soldiers blasted two towering ancient
> statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft weapons, according to the first
> witness
> account from the area on Sunday.
>
> Other statues throughout the country were being demolished with rockets,
> tanks and explosives, ridding the nation of reminders of its pre-Islamic
> past.
>
> A resident of central Bamiyan said Taliban soldiers began attacking the
> relics at least three days earlier. The area is where the two ancient
> statues of Buddha were hewn from a cliff face in the third and fifth
> centuries.
>
> "I could see the Taliban soldiers firing anti-aircraft weapons at the two
> statues. That was three days ago," said Safdar Ali, who arrived Sunday in
> the Afghan capital of Kabul from Bamiyan, about 80 miles away.
>
> "The soldiers wouldn't let us get too close so I couldn't see how much was
> damaged. We just left the area," he said.
>
> The Taliban have ignored pleas from an outraged world to stop the
> destruction of the ancient statues, even snubbing an offer from the
> Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to take the works and preserve
> them.
>
> "We are not against culture, but we don't believe in these things. They
> are
> against Islam," the Taliban's Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told
> The Associated Press in a telephone interview from southern Kandahar - the
> headquarters of the Taliban.
>
> Muttawakil was to meet later Sunday with Pierre Lafrance, a special UNESCO
> envoy sent from Paris to try to negotiate with the Taliban and register
> the
> world's outrage at the destruction.
>
> "I will explain our point of view and our internal situation," Muttawakil
> said.
>
> On Saturday, Quatradullah Jamal, the Taliban's Information and Culture
> Minister, told the AP that troops had destroyed two-thirds of all the
> statues in Afghanistan as well as large parts of the two giant statues of
> Buddha. Muttawakil confirmed that.
>
> By Monday - exactly one week after the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah
> Mohammed Omar, ordered all statues destroyed - the task will be complete,
> Jamal said.
>
> The Taliban religious militia, which rules 95 percent of Afghanistan,
> including Kabul, adheres to a strict brand of Islamic law. Their
> interpretation has been questioned by Islamic scholars in other Muslim
> countries and Islamic institutions.
>
> The two Buddhas, 175 and 120 feet tall, were damaged in fighting and
> defaced
> by Russian soldiers who carved their names in the statues following the
> Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979, witnesses said.
>
> One of the statues is thought to be the world's tallest of a Buddha
> standing
> rather than sitting.
>
> The destruction of statues began after Omar ruled that they were
> idolatrous
> and against the tenets of Islam. Others argue that Islam does not ban
> images, only the worship of them.
>
> Muttawakil rejected offers from several countries and the New York museum
> to
> take the statues.
>
> "Why should we give them to anyone? They are against our beliefs. We have
> museums here and we will keep our cultural and historical artifacts
> there,"
> he said.
>
> The Taliban have been unmoved by international appeals to save the
> statues -
> even those from fellow Muslim nations, including their closest ally,
> Pakistan.
>
> Expressions of shock and dismay tumbled in over the weekend, from China,
> Japan and Greece to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
> Organization and the environment ministers from the world's seven most
> industrialized countries plus Russia meeting in Trieste, Italy.
>
>
> ----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
>
> ===============================================================
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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