The Challenges to Nation-Building

in Afghanistan continues...



The rise in fanaticism over the past two decades has seriously challenged

the culture and heritage of Afghanistan.

The issue of looting and plundering of archaeological sites and museums has caused world-wide concern and is symptomatic of a new-found lust for money regardless of the propriety of its sources.

Other contributing factors, as Dupree points out were the absence of responsible governments, consequent breakdowns in law and order, the staggering effects of three years of drought and the decline of the economic situation in general. Survival needs became so imperative that they surpassed all other moral values.

Various important archaeological sites, both new and old were plundered to garner new objects for the international art trade.

Clandestine activities have resulted in archaeological sites being plundered and valuable objects smuggled out of the country. The spoliation of sites continue because there was neither the capacity nor the determination to protect them. Such activities and government inaction reached a peak during the Taleban period.

All aspects of Afghan culture suffered a setback when puritanical attitudes towards dress, music, entertainment established and enforced by the Taleban gripped the country. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas on March 2001 was the culminating point of such assaults on the culture of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar even ordered to destroy an unspecified number of offending objects in the National Museum.

The cultural losses in Afghanistan were irretrievable. The state became the worst enemy of its own culture and heritage, leading to the destruction of several generations for archaeologists, numismatists, and artist historians and collective memory of three thousand years of the history of the Afghan people.

To be continued...