(Fwd) East-West Cultural Treasure Destroyed

["Gobind Rudra" <gobindrudra@iname.com>]

the following posting is not a troll. 

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------  

The Japanese-language newspaper _Asahi Shimbun_ last year 
showed ominous photos of tanks and armored vehicles of Moslem 
fundamentalists between the legs of a giant Buddha in central 
Afghanistan. Carved into a sheer cliff, the stone Buddha was over 
100 feet tall (38 meters). Positioned along the fabled Silk Road, it 
had reflected Indian and Persian as well as Central Asian 
influences. On the ceiling was an image of the Greek goddess 
Athena, but these irreplaceable treasures of humanity have been 
blasted away. Apparently taking shelter from aerial bombing under 
the Buddha in an Afghanistan civil war, the Taliban forces had no 
respect for their own cultural heritage prior to Islam.  

In perspective, the damage from Maoism in China, Cambodia and 
elsewhere has been far worse, but our tolerance is still taxed by the 
destruction of this rare fusion of East and West in classical times. 
No one accuses the Moslems of colonizing the consciousness of 
South Asians, North Africans, and so forth, whereas Westerners 
bear the brunt of such critiques. Conversions "by the scimitar" were 
denied by Moslems at an East-West Center symposium I once 
attended in Honolulu, saying that the conversions to Islam were 
gradual over generations. And yet Westerners are surprised to find 
that Buddhism was snuffed out in India while it became the 
international religion across most of Asia.  

There is much more that I could add, but many people may never 
have known that such a fusion of East and West once graced 
Afghanistan.  

Collegially,
Steve McCarty         
Professor, Kagawa Junior College, Japan
World Association for Online Education: http://www.waoe.org
http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/presence.html
E-mail: steve@kagawa-jc.ac.jp

--