15 - 21 March 2001
Issue No.525
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 15 - 21 March 2001 Issue No.525 |
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The campaign continues
Despite the destruction of the two colossal statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan this week, UNESCO's International Campaign to save Afghanistan's pre-Islamic cultural heritage will continue, writes David Tresilian from Paris
Independent reports reaching international news agencies and UNESCO from within Afghanistan this week confirmed the destruction of the country's pre-Islamic cultural heritage by the Taliban authorities, notably of the two colossal statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan, south-west of the capital, Kabul. The destruction of the two statues, as well as of that of other important expressions of Afghanistan's pre-Islamic Buddhist cultural heritage, comes despite an international campaign, led by UNESCO and supported by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to save the statues. Their destruction had been ordered in February by Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar, on the grounds that the colossal statues, which were the largest such depiction of the Buddha in the world, could incite idolatry.
A giant Buddha hewn in the rock soars 53 metres above the town of Bamiyan, central Afghanistan is one of the treasures of the country's ancient pre-Islamic Buddhist heritage
(photo: Reuters)
According to Christian Manhart, UNESCO Programme Officer in charge of the UN agency's activities to promote cultural heritage in the South Asian region, news of the destruction of the statues had reached the Organization at the weekend. It had come despite the dispatch, by UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Maatsura, of a Special Representative, Pierre Lafrance, to Afghanistan on 1 March to try to save the statues and to persuade the Taliban to drop their edict.
Lafrance, a former French Ambassador to Pakistan, had been sent to Afghanistan within the context of a growing international campaign to save the country's cultural heritage from destruction. On 28 February, the UNESCO Director-General wrote to Mullah Omar, asking him to drop the edict as international protests against it mounted. This appeal was subsequently seconded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, with UNESCO asking religious leaders from several countries, among them Egypt and Pakistan, also to intervene.
"These statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan were absolutely unique," Manhart commented. Aside from the colossal size of the figures, they were carved from the rockface in a style that exists only in Afghanistan and in Northern Pakistan. This style, described as Graeco-Buddhist, was the result of Classical Greek figurative influence, first introduced into the region in the wake of the campaigns of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, later mixing with Buddhist styles from India and from China in the centuries that followed.
"These statues were carved in the 5th Century AD, and it is tragic that they have survived for 1,600 years as testimony to a unique civilization that once flourished in this region only to be destroyed in the 21st Century," he said. UNESCO had learnt that special forces dispatched by the Taliban in Kabul had arrived in Bamiyan on 8 March, Manhart said, blowing up the statues the following day. A part of the torso of the larger Buddha and a few surviving fragments of the smaller are now all that remain.
According to the report received by UNESCO from Kabul, news of the statues' destruction had come as a shock, since it had appeared that there would at least be further delays in the implementation of the fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Mullah Omar. The support the UNESCO had received from Pakistani, Egyptian and Qatari religious authorities had provided hope that the Taliban might be persuaded to withdraw their decree, as had talks held by the Organisation's Special Representative with Taliban authorities in Kabul.
Manhart added that UNESCO had learnt that there had apparently been internal protest within Afghanistan at the Taliban's decree. "Local military commanders at Bamiyan had refused for more than one week to carry out the order to destroy the statues," he said, necessitating the dispatch of special units from Kabul.
"We knew that they had made holes in the statues a month ago to prepare their destruction," he said. "But we are very disappointed that the international campaign was not able to save the statues, and that the Taliban decided to carry out this act despite unanimous international protest."
Despite the failure of the international campaign to save the Bamiyan statues, Manhart said that UNESCO intended to keep up the pressure on the Taliban authorities to halt further destruction. Pre-Islamic Buddhist statuary, carved in the same unique Graeco-Buddhist style and dating from the same period, exists on a smaller scale throughout Afghanistan, and the Kabul Museum has a large collection of such statues, which are now also threatened.
According to Manhart, UNESCO has received reports indicating that much of this priceless heritage has also been destroyed. However, the situation was still very unclear, he said, and the Organization intends to make every effort to save what remains. To this end the Organization's Special Representative will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, he added. "Many Afghan archaeological artifacts are now stored in crates in the Ministry of Information and of Culture in Kabul. We should try to save them from the kind of destruction visited on the Buddhas at Bamiyan, and we should also try to save the Buddhist murals at Bamiyan."
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