This is very off-topic. It has nothing to do with Leica. But it has everything to do with people who take a strong interest in the visual arts, in human expression, and in documenting the human condition.

So I thought I would bring attention here to what has happened this week, if you haven't all heard, about the calculated destruction of buddhist artifacts in Afghanistan, by the Taliban, including the great statues of the Buddha in Bamiyam.

I certainly hope this does not inspire flames.

I think we are witnessing a bit of the dark ages once again in the destruction of cultural heritage not unlike the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, of the Jewish Temple(s). Or, more recently, the Cultural Revolution in China. Unfortunately, long is the list of savage crimes to which this last act can be compared. Like the many artifacts destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, the buddhist art of Afghanistan stands for no one sect, but is simply a reminder, a symbol of a fascinating history, of Silk Route civilization in the high Central Asian valleys. It belongs to no one, thus it belongs to all of humanity.

I'll understand if Tony finds this post unarchivable, but this is a place on the net I often come to visit, so I thought I would share my thoughts with you all.

-- Tse-Sung Wu (tsesung@yahoo.com), March 02, 2001

Answers

Response to completely off topic!

I feel you message has every right to be in this forum, for a number of reasons. I too, when I heard of the destruction was outraged at the cowardly acts being perpetrated on these relics. When you look at all the previous civilizations, the ones that lasted the shortest times tended to be ones that willfully destroyed all around them. Just as the various communist regimes are falling apart, so probably will the Taliban, yet not before they do much damage. For what it's worth, you can e-mail you thoughts (as I did) to: http://www.taleban.com/ which is the Taliban official web-site based out of New York. As well it has every right to be on this website because these are the sort of world news events that have always seen Leica's present for the last 50 years. No doubt, at this very moment, some photojournalist is using a Leica to document what is happening over there right now.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 02, 2001.

Response to completely off topic!

Your post is quite welcome here.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), March 02, 2001.

Response to completely off topic!

...and it would be nice if eventually we could see some of those Leica photographs presented here. This should not be strictly an equipment forum, but also one of style and circumstance. Subject matter is just as pertinent in this forum as when the latest lens will come out.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), March 02, 2001.

As photographers, I think one thing we all share in common is the desire to preserve slices of the present so they can be shared with others in the future. For myself, this mind-set spills over into a desire to assist in the preservation of many aspects of our world, including nature, wildlife, the environment, and cultural or historical artifacts. Thank you for sharing the details in this forum.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), March 02, 2001.

I have this page bookmarked because the discussion is interesting, not for "leica" reasons. I don't own a leica, but I would love to. Leica rangefinders, in my opinion, demand a level of (dare I say) intellegence from the purchaser/user(preferrably both). Top-notch quaility, perfect design(view vs. rangefinder vs. SLR vs. other methods), and (arguably) the best image quality.

But that's all beside the point.

Photographs are in part(esp. among leica pj's) a reminder of events passed, and weighted moreso because of their appeal to our visual sense. So too, when artifacts are destroyed, it would be akin to an image altogether disappearing, regardless of it's prior duplications.

I don't think anyone likes that idea.

And yes, the madness goes way beyond the statues.

-- Mike DeVoe (karma77@att.net), March 02, 2001.

I too decry the destruction of these ancient statues, but I also recall that one of the core teachings of Buddhism is "impermanence" (annicca, anitya). The destruction of a few statues is ultimately meaningless--the Dharma lives on in the hearts and minds of millions of Buddhists. Still, I wish I could have photographed them before those idiots smashed them.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), March 03, 2001.

Ed: Ironically the pictures now on the web and tv of the Buddhas of Bamiyam show vandalism committed centuries before the Taleban by other islamic extremists. Similar violence against christian art all over France was done by the followers of Robespierre, those children of the Enlightenment. And like the chinese in Tibet, spanish christians levelled a whole culture in Mexico. But to have your nonattachment REALLY tested, read the surviving fragments of Sappho, whose ouvre, along with alot of Homer and we don't know what else, was reduced to ashes, more or less in a careless moment, by the Roman army. "Equally empty, equally to be loved" -I guess. -david k

-- david m.kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), March 03, 2001.

"Hey, Mr. Taleban, tally me banana! Daylight come and me wanna go home."

The best way to respond to fanatics is with ridicule - that's the one thing they really can't take.

Regards, Ray Moth

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), March 08, 2001.

It is unlikely that that would register, Ray... The cultural reference (to Harry Belafonte's song) is just as inward looking. Why do we Americans so often practice our American pop culture oriented references on those whom it means nothing? Perhaps a sign of self- absorbtion, no less than a religious fanatic. Be well...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 08, 2001.

I was going to add, before the post got away from me, this is a profound tragedy.

Whereas some religious precepts such as non-attachment to material things may help the world cope with the loss, it is easy to slide into easy cynicism and inaction, far removed from the ideals of those philosophies.

Read this link for a sense of the appalling destruction that has taken place in the last 10 years...

http://www.col.com.pk/~afghan/page2.htm

Afghan artifacts are of paramount cultural and heritage importance to both the Eastern and Western world. Pre Islamic Afghanistan was ruled by Alexander the Great and other Greeks, as well as the greatest of Buddhist and Hindu Kingdoms of the last 2500 years. Artistically, these statues and all the others being destroyed are absolutely priceless and central to world cultural heritage, no less than say the Venus de Milo or the Parthenon.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 08, 2001.

I'm pleased there's been some discussion here. It lets us all get to know one another beyond our equipment (and eqpt. aspirations).

I was wondering why I felt so much grief over the news when it first came out: I am very interested in Buddhism, but do not consider myself a regular practitioner, have not taken Refuge, do not have a continuing relationship with a teacher, etc., etc.

However, a rather thoughtful op-ed piece in the Washington Post, From Moses to Taliban I think has helped put this in perspective. Indeed, the whole world has brought attention to this tragedy yet only a small part of it would be considered practicing Buddhists. Why might this be so?

According to the author, "The idols [that the Taliban] are obliterating are ours. We of the secular West have to some degree replaced religion with art... Art for us is spiritual, eternal, transcendent."

It's true- the people of Afghanistan are suffering terrible hardship now, and the world only seems to notice when some rocks, as the Taliban say, get broken. Why do we care so much for a Lonely Planet Guide destination, and not flesh and blood?

And perhaps this is a good way to bring this issue once again closer to the purpose of this forum, and to the common interest in art and visual documentation that brings us to this spot in cyberspace.

We care so much about the way in which and the equipment by which we make art, which become little vignettes of the times in which we live, just as the giant statues of Bamiyam once gave a piece of history of Central Asia almost two thousand years ago.

I think that's why it seems so tragic. As someone duly noted above, how ironic and yet how appropriate that great human artifacts have been destroyed which were made in the name of a philosophy that preaches detachment and impermanence.

Another poster points to countless other obliteration of artifacts over time: the books burned by the Legalists of the Qin Dynasty, during the reign of the First Emperor Qin of China. Christians over pagans; Romans over Etruscans (and a whole bunch of other folks).

There are some who state that, at any given moment, what humanity has collectively as its artifacts is complete. Perhaps when the Library at Alexandria was being reduced to ashes, great poetry was being written 500 leagues away.

I recall a thread I once participated in on the Pentax users' group, about how sometimes, when you don't have your camera, you miss that most wonderful shot. And all you have is your memory of it, etched into your brain, and not, tragically you think, in silver on a piece of paper. For every photo you do miss, is there not one or two others that you did get, and that becomes the oeuvre that is, exists, here and now?

Rather than care about what was (great 3-5th c. statues in Bamiyam), or what might have been (the wonderful facial expressions during a fleeting encounter between a child and an old woman I saw once on a busy street, but could not take out my camera fast enough to capture it), but what it is that we do have, here and now? It seems the world has lost not only an important glimpse of Silk Route civilization, but also a testament to tolerance and reverance of things from a different time and worldview. Maybe somewhere in the world, a commensurate piece of art has emerged just as the last bits of the statues fell to the Taliban's mortars.

-- Tse-Sung Wu (tsesung@yahoo.com), March 14, 2001.

In the East, they destroy man's works in the name of God. In the West, we destroy God's works in the name of Mammon. Take your pick.

-- Joe Buechler (jbuechler@toad.net), March 14, 2001.

"Why do we Americans so often practice our American pop culture oriented references on those whom it means nothing?"

Mani, what makes you think I am American? Actually, I'm a Brit living (for the past 10 years) in Indonesia. Since this is a very "Americanized" country, Harry Belafonte's song is well known. Maybe in Afghanistan it isn't. In any case, the song itself is irrelevant (just meant as a dumb joke).

What I was trying to impart was that these arrogant, self-appointed arbiters of good taste and religious correctness (the Taliban), who have practised many inhumane acts in the name of their beliefs, quite apart from their current spiteful vandalism, deserve to be ridiculed by the rest of the world, not reasoned with. The USA was quite successful in lowering the esteem of hated enemy leaders during WWII by such means. It was good propaganda, IMHO - I've seen examples in Popeye cartoons: silly but effective. :-)

Regards,

Ray Moth

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), March 14, 2001.

Ray,

"Why do we Americans...self absorption..."

I beg your kind pardon, as an American, himself obviously self- absorbed, and most embarrassed :-)

And I feel I should point out that it was massive U.S. aid to the Mujaheddin earlier with the subsequent destabilization of that country, and the active sponsorship of the Taliban for the most vaguely thought out reasons, by Pakistan with US encouragement, that let them gain power and has thus almost directly led to this catastrophe.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 15, 2001.

According to Ming Pao newspaper report of April 21, an millionaire entrepenure Liang En Ming in Sichuen, China, is going to rebuild a half size duplicate of the giant Bamiyam Buddha in Luosan county of Sichuan. The contruction work is scheduled to start in May and to be completed at year end

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), April 21, 2001.

Another problem with artifacts heritage is the theft of priceless artifacts from third world countries, such as priceless artifacts from Dunghuang and Longmen Caves, which ended up in Museums in the west.

Some museaums in the west is beginning to return these stolen artifacts to the orignal owners

On April 20, 2001, the director of National Museum of Canada returned a Tang Dynasty stone carving lost in the twenties from the world famous Longmen Caves to the National Artifacts Management Department in Beijing.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), April 21, 2001.

The rebuild Bamiyam Buddha will be located in the Castle Mountain in Luosan county of Sichuan, standing next to the largest sitting Budda

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), April 21, 2001.

The destruction of Bamiyam Buddha inspired many nations to build bigger buddhas

Sri Lanka is planning to rebuild a Bamiyam Buddha

India is planning to build a 500 feet tall bronze buddha in Bihar, scheduled to be completed in 2005

China is planning to build a world's tallest bronze buddha (509 feet 1000 ton )in Jiuhuai Mountain in Anhuei to be completed in 2004

Gianxi is planning to carve a 400 meter long 110 meter tall sleeping buddha from a mountain

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), May 08, 2001.