AFGHANISTAN: Saving Afghanistan's cultural heritage
Ambassador Said T. Jawad
Diplomatic Traffic
05/09/2006
Excerpts of speech on the preservation of Afghanistan’s
archaeological, historical, and cultural heritage, given on
April 17, 2006, at the Embassy of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a land bridge connecting Central
Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. The ancient
Silk Route, which carried both goods and knowledge, and connected
China to the heart of Europe, passed through Afghanistan. Today,
Afghanistan is once more playing its historic role in bridging
cultures, countries and civilizations. Over 60 counties have
joined together to help rebuild Afghanistan.
The first archaeological excavations in Afghanistan
began in 1922. American, French, British, Japanese, Italian,
Indian and Russian archeologists worked alongside their Afghan
counterparts to unearth Afghanistan’s hidden past. What
they discovered over the intervening decades exceeded their
wildest dreams; layers upon layers of relics, a testament to
the many kingdoms, cultures and civilizations that rose and
fell in Afghanistan throughout the centuries.
What took our archaeologists 70 years to discover
took extremists less than a decade to sell off, burn, mutilate
and demolish. The hollow cavities where the Giant Buddhas once
stood in Bamiyan are a testament to the suffering of our country
under the Taliban. Their absence speaks to the other voids that
exist today in Afghanistan, the ruins of buildings and schools,
the young men who were cut down too early in life, the children
who were not permitted a childhood, the landmine victims missing
arms and legs.
Bamyian is a well known example, but many other
Afghan Archaeological sites of equal wealth have also been looted
and destroyed. During the war, illegal excavations at historical
sights became commonplace, a practice that sadly continues to
this day. The Hellenistic city of Al Khanum, which could have
become a major tourist attraction and center for scholars, was
badly damaged when looters used bulldozers to search for treasures.
The Buddhist site of Tepe Shutur-e-Hadda was plundered and much
of its priceless art destroyed. The Minaret of Chakari, one
of the most important monuments of the first century B.C.E.,
collapsed into a pile of dust and rock. Only one-third of the
Minaret remains standing.
During the civil war, the Museum was on the front
lines. Rockets vaporized wall paintings with Greek, Buddhist
and Hindu motifs. This same fire engulfed priceless frescoes
from Islam’s artistic flowering under the Ghaznavid dynasty.
Of course, fire does not discriminate between Buddhist or Islamic
art. The human costs of our war were staggering enough, but
our cultural losses compounded the tragedy.
During this cultural genocide, there were many
acts of individual heroism, many of which were preformed by
the people in this room, Mr. Massodi especially. In 1994 museum
staff risked bodily harm to inventory the objects that had survived
the shelling, as well as to clear some of the rubble, and weatherproof
and secure the collection. They cleverly painted over the images
that would offend the critical gaze of the Taliban, created
hidden rooms to preserve film footage, and rescued countless
objects from the National Gallery, the Afghan Film Archives
and the Presidential Palace. The people in this room are much
more qualified than I to speak about their individual contributions
to the preservation of our cultural heritage. Our nation is
stronger thanks to their bravery.
Tragically, many of the objects that were not
destroyed have been stolen and sold to foreign countries. 50-thousand
year old Palaeolitihic tools, Greek and Aramaic inscriptions
from the Third Century B.C.E. and more than 30,000 precious
coins have been pillaged and their whereabouts are unknown.
Many of these pieces have been smuggled to Islamabad, London,
Tokyo and New York. In place of our national treasures, we have
burned ledgers, emptied crates, tire tracks and thousands of
pounds of debris. As the international community helps Afghanistan
rebuild, they must also be vigilant within their own borders,
and return all stolen items of Afghan cultural heritage to Afghanistan.
When the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan’s
Buddha statutes, they were not attacking mere relics. This was
part of a greater plan, which included the eradication of all
symbols of faith that they could not control and all traces
of foreign influence. It was not enough to destroy Afghanistan’s
identity and culture, the Taliban tried to erase our country’s
historic tolerance for other cultures as well. This dogma is
shared by every totalitarian regime in recent history. It is
our duty to condemn such cultural terrorism in its earliest
phases, so that we do not need to watch helplessly as another
world wonder crumble into dust.
The next step is to build our human capital through
education. Many of our specialists in the fields of history
and archeology went into exile during the war. Thankfully, many
of them are coming back, temporarily participating in new excavations
or settling permanently to train a new generation of professionals.
Our famous archaeologist Professor Zemaryali Tarzi is searching
for the fabled third Buddha of Bamiyan. In the process he has
discovered other objects of immeasurable value. Professor Tarzi
gives us hope for the promise of the future.
A bill is now before the U.S. House of Representatives
that would allow the President to impose emergency protection
for antiquities illegally excavated and exported from Afghanistan.
We have a chance to stop this despicable trade dead in its track
and reverse some of the damage that has been done. The work
will be slow, painstaking, meticulous, but so is the work of
rebuilding a country. We are patient. But more importantly,
we are proud. And it is through this belief in ourselves, in
our history and our culture, that Afghanistan will persevere.
Said T. Jawad is Afghanistan's ambassador to the
United States
