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Violent
acts of vandalism-–this is how in total the humanity estimated the destruction
of enormous Buddha statues in Afghanistan in mid-March.
There were no victims and no persecutions of believers due to their
complete absence. However, the
world is indignant and Talibs received their bills. Faith
is just an ornament acceptable in the case it acts as a calming and hypnotic
means. Neither Muhammad nor Jesus or Mousses are legitimate from the point of
view of the victorious liberal values.
Chronicle of
events:
At
the beginning of the year, the Talib government of Afghanistan announced that
two huge statues of Buddha dating back to the III-V centuries would be
destroyed. This was done after a
series of unsuccessful diplomatic efforts to achieve the recognition of Taliban
movement, which controls 95% of the country’s territory.
Everyone,
including apparent and secret supporters, denounced Talibs.
Actors of UNO, UNESCO, diplomats of India, Iran and Pakistan, museum
workers of Greece and USA started the bargain with the “Islamic fanatics”
for the possibility of taking the statues out of the country. Remarkably,
the destruction of several Buddhist exhibits in Kabul Museum just as devastation
of Hindu mausoleums accomplished by Talibs earlier did not rouse the public
opinion like the threat of destruction of these relics, which used to be the
tourist emblem of Afghanistan for long time.
The
Islamic State teases the liberal consciousness and its rather flexible priority
values. And here is the reaction!
The Buddha statues were engraved in the cliffs 125-km away from the capital and
were the facade of a deserted cave monastery. One of the statues lost its head
when Talibs seized the Bamian province in 1998.
Both sculptures suffered severely during Soviet Union’s occupation of
Afghanistan.
Mullah
Muhammad Omar, one of the leaders of Taliban movement, declared in February that
the decision was sensible and was characterized by religious attitude to idols,
which these “pagan pictures”
are. There are no confessors of
Buddhism on the territory of Afghanistan; hence, the action did not violate
anyone’s rights in the boundaries of the country.
At
the meeting in March 3 with Pierre Lafrance, who on behalf of UNESCO proposed
exporting the statues, Ambassador of Afghanistan in Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaif
told that the theologians and not the government took the decision, which makes
it irreversible and obligatory for the administration. Three days later the ambassador made a statement that
only “an appeal of the divine of the Arabic world could change the situation”.
However, no distinct appeal was heard. Vakil
Mutavakil, representative of Taliban movement, stated that pressure and attempts
to buy the statues were not promising since “the decision was taken and
changing or canceling decisions does not conform to Taliban rules”.
An interval was made for the period of the feast of sacrifice
Kurban-Bayram in March 5-8, with successive continuation of the “
unprecedented vandalism”.
On
the 15 March, the last Western journalist was removed from Kabul.
The government refused BBC the right for a farewell tourist filming and
closed the correspondent point. Thus,
the destruction of the statues, troubling the humankind, was performed not only
without spectators but also without pictures.
From the viewpoint of Islam:
Any
Muslim remembers the first action of the Prophet upon the seizure of Mecca:
Kaaba was CLEARED FROM IDOLS. Muhammad
did not call for the destruction of CULTURAL MONUMENTS, since at the time
consciousness was integral, the world was not subdivided into separate registers---politics,
cult, culture and so on. The
founder of Islam acted in accordance with the principle of monotheism.
The prophetic mission had no points of intersection with humanism,
mankind’s values, human rights and other skeletons the world keeps in a closet
and takes out from time to time for the achievement of quite specific political
and economic goals.
The
fact that Islamic countries joined the choir of protest against the actions of
Talibs reveals the readiness of their political elite to accept the system of
liberal values, wherein culture occupies the priority place in comparison to
prophetic truth. This could be
called conformism or a “dialogue of civilizations”, on which presently the
Homeini successors are working in Iran. Their
opinion, publicized by the agency Iran News, comes to that “the decision of
Talibs casts a shadow over the holy religion”.
According tot the statement of a governmental official of Pakistan,
faithful ally of Talibs, they “probably, forgot that the Muslim leaders of the
past defended the rights of other religions”.
Finally, one of the muftis of Egypt Nasr Fareed Wasel stated “that
Islam does not prohibit the presence of the statues”.
Against
the background of such powerful moves, the languid reproofs of the Council of
Alims of Dagestan (“it is necessary to suit the example of the pious khalifs”)
and of Mufti Ravil Gainutdin (“historical monuments belong to the history of
the nation; they should be treated with respect”) appear to be a fussy wish to
manage to shout out, “We also, we are also against!”
Only
the mufti of Spiritual Leadership of the Asian part of Russia, Sheikh Nafigulla
Ashirov, uttered directly that “only Muslims live in Afghanistan, there are no
Buddhists, and the decision whether monuments of the pagan past should remain on
Muslim state territory is an internal affair of Afghanistan. The hysteria in the West concerning the destruction of the
Buddha statues bears exclusively political nature.
Recently in India, as a result of religious conflict people were killed,
18 women were burned alive, a mosque was destroyed and a Hindu temple is being
built instead. These events did not particularly agitate the world community...”
On the other side of
Nirvana:
Talibs
encroached upon a rather important element of the modern world: Buddhism, in the
XX century, gained sound positions in the sphere of Western intellectuals; it is
fashionable, all-penetrating and does not oblige its adherents to anything.
Buddhism is above the world with its wars, discords and aggression.
It is not even a religion; it is a world outlook, decorated with aromas,
borderline psychic states, various practices and eternal learning.
From
the point of view of supreme wisdom, the destruction of the greatest statues is
little more than a redistribution of grains of vanity.
Buddhism does not suffer from vandalism since any oscillation of matter
does not change anything. World’s
intercession for Buddhist sacred relics is a “excessive”, from the
standpoint of the “learned”, enthusiasm.
However, Buddhism included in the “new age project” doubtlessly
provokes that it is defended as the most peaceful and tolerant confession.
History is a chronicle of
destruction:
In
the beginning of the 90s the American historian Fokuyama proclaimed the “end
of history”, implying the final victory of the restraining mechanisms of the
international law over the aggressiveness of countries, blocks and of the
passionate. The history finished, a
MUSEUM must be created in its place. And
what actions can be taken in a museum? Only
“vandalism”.
From
the viewpoint of the new time or museum ethics, if you please, the majority of
deeds of the great prophets and “famous people” are meaningless.
Let’s recall the most obvious things. Mousses
overthrew the golden calf. Jesus of
Nazareth destroyed the walls of Jericho. Angels
sent fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. The
Creator himself overturned the Babylonian tower.
Karfagen was destroyed, and Vaal, and Kibela.
Do
not create an idol for yourself, told Jesus Christ.
Christians hewed the heads, noses and other marble anatomical details. Chronicles of life were written on parchments with pagan
tragedies! Duke Vladimir scourged
and threw idols into Dnepr.
Napoleon’s
artillery disfigured the Sphinx. Advocates
of purity of Islam destroyed memorable places linked to the name of Muhammad:
the house of Khadeeja, the tree in her garden.
Asouan hydroelectric station sank temples in the currents of Nile.
What about the exploded and sunk churches in Russia?
Icons, chopped into firewood? Bolsheviks,
however, in contrast to Talibs, did sell some of the world’s treasures to the
West...
We
just remind but by no means impose conclusions.
Robbed
temples of Aztecs, Inks and Maya. Indiscriminate
bombardment of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki wiped off the ground. Parisian boulevards, Arbat, Poklonnaya Hill and Palace of
Congresses in Moscow... This only
relates to buildings, cultural values; we don’t talk about people. Things
are not so simple. Not always and
not all the CULTURAL VALUES fall under the protection of the public opinion.
Root of the problem:
Religion,
adapting to the secular world, regained an important aspect--- the share in
money circulation. Religion shifted
from the status of persecuted and became a SOLD item.
Objects
of cult, sacred books, popular speculations on religious topics,
ethnic-confessional garments and other attributes constitute the developing
segment of economy for several years already.
Religion is a part of tourist business in exotic countries, of the
business linked to drug market, industry of ethnographic pornography, export of
transvestite subculture, juvenile prostitution and so on. The countries of
Buddhist and Hindu area have been involved in this business quite actively.
The Islamic world just as actively resists such involvement.
The “new age” picture of peacefully co-existing faiths crashes at the
firmness of fanatics. Muslims, the
so-called “political Islam”, are in the vanguard of this stubborn fanaticism. The West does not want to be reconciled with exceeding the
frame of the ethnic religion and with the transformation of Islam into a
political power.
Thus,
the liberal consciousness overlooks the fact that adherents of a different creed
cannot step onto the sacred territory of Mecca, in the like manner, the
oppression of immigrant workers in Saudi Arabia.
Why? ---Because Saudi Arabia is a part of the world’s ethnic-religious
museum. Its Wahabbism, a modernist
trend in Islam, neither, poses a threat to anyone except the Russian fighters
against Islam. The West invented a succession of tall stories about Islam being
a second-rate, simplified religion obsessed about sensual pleasures, a religion
returning a man to the Middle Ages.
The
West cannot reconcile with the fanatic destruction not of sacred places but of
the CULTURAL MONUMENTS. The
monuments of culture, which without effort, moral obligation or a shadow of
responsibility offers itself to ANYONE. For
money, at reduced price and seasonal discounts, in the frame of tourist and
museum business. Had Talibs sold the statues
of Buddha, the power of their challenge would have been diminished.
It would become a regular trade, that the west is accustomed to in the
relations with the “dirty East”.
Talibs
made a move conforming to all the rules of opposition to “shirkq”, paganism.
Not a single drop of blood, not a single tear was shed.
No one’s rights were infringed. But
the howl is there! Islam
retains a precise division, a line that a person has to ultimately step over and
obtain a full clarity whether he/she is in Islam.
It is not accidental that both left and right, Christians and Judaists
have cohered in an attack against it. Anywhere,
where suspicion of solidarity with Islam arises, a provoked conflict flares up;
its initiator is the world, not Islam.
Here
is a characteristic statement made by the Russian Foreign Ministry:
“The
vandalism of Talibs in relation to the material evidence of the rich spiritual
heritage of the ancient Afghan land testifies their undisguised hatred towards
the values of humankind. It clearly
demonstrated once again the alienation of the ideological world outlook of the
Taliban leadership to the humanistic philosophy of the respected religion
Islam.” Neither Russians,
nor Americans succeeded to arrange for the hand over of Usama ben Laden, the
oil-pipe-line construction and the return of Western capital to the territory of
the country.
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