What To Do About Bamiyan

You may have heard about the savage destruction by the Taliban of the gigantic Bamiyan Buddhas. Two huge statues, once the largest standing Buddha sculptures in the world were blown to pieces by the fanatical followers of mullah Omar in 2001. Now the rest of the world as well as the sane Afghans are trying to figure out what to do with the remains. The New York Times has quite a good article on the efforts to salvage what is left.

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — The empty niches that once held Bamiyan’s colossal Buddhas now gape in the rock face — a silent cry at the terrible destruction wrought on this fabled valley and its 1,500-year-old treasures, once the largest standing Buddha statues in the world.

It was in March 2001, when the Taliban and their sponsors in Al Qaeda were at the zenith of their power in Afghanistan, that militiamen, acting on an edict to take down the “gods of the infidels,” laid explosives at the base and the shoulders of the two Buddhas and blew them to pieces. To the outraged outside world, the act encapsulated the horrors of the Islamic fundamentalist government. Even Genghis Khan, who laid waste to this valley’s towns and population in the 13th century, had left the Buddhas standing.

Five years after the Taliban were ousted from power, Bamiyan’s Buddhist relics are once again the focus of debate: Is it possible to restore the great Buddhas? And, if so, can the extraordinary investment that would be required be justified in a country crippled by poverty and a continued Taliban insurgency in the south and that is, after all, overwhelmingly Muslim?

This valley about 140 miles northwest of Kabul, where in the sixth century tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked to worship at its temples and monasteries and meditate in its rock caves, is attracting new international attention.

In 2003, the United Nations designated the Bamiyan ruins a World Heritage site, but also listed them as endangered, because of their fragile condition, vulnerability to looters and pressures from a post-Taliban boom in construction and tourism. Intensive efforts have been under way to stabilize what remains of the cliff sculptures and murals.

Read the whole thing. It has a lot of background about what is happening over there right now to try and save what remains. Some very nice pictures and video also accompany the article.