Death of heritage
Aug. 28th, 2006 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyWe all carry images that we will never forget. Scenes burned into our brains, some good, some horrible. The joy of a wedding, the sorrow of a death. A few of these images may be too intimate to share, but some are global; shared with the world. Neil Armstrong stepping on the lunar surface, Challenger exploding, the Berlin wall falling; there are many.
A recent one for me was the destruction of the giant standing Buddha images by the Taliban. The world was outraged. Religious extremists destroying archeologically significant objects that had stood for thousands of years. Assault by one religion on another. The Internet was chattering for weeks.
The relative silence surrounding the latest incidence of fanatical destruction of a religious archeological site is irksome. The site is in arctic Canada: Canada's only major arctic petroglyph site. It has been horribly defaced not by Taliban, but by so-called Christians, whose faith bears about as much resemblance to that preached by its founder as the Taliban's to their own. Those studying the site had asked for World Heritage protection. They doubt they will get it now.
We counter that World Heritage protection did little to help two Giant Buddha images that now lay in ruins. The force of religious extremism is far too strong.
A recent one for me was the destruction of the giant standing Buddha images by the Taliban. The world was outraged. Religious extremists destroying archeologically significant objects that had stood for thousands of years. Assault by one religion on another. The Internet was chattering for weeks.
The relative silence surrounding the latest incidence of fanatical destruction of a religious archeological site is irksome. The site is in arctic Canada: Canada's only major arctic petroglyph site. It has been horribly defaced not by Taliban, but by so-called Christians, whose faith bears about as much resemblance to that preached by its founder as the Taliban's to their own. Those studying the site had asked for World Heritage protection. They doubt they will get it now.
We counter that World Heritage protection did little to help two Giant Buddha images that now lay in ruins. The force of religious extremism is far too strong.
