The mullahs of Afghanistan have a point, we concede, amid the international horror at their stunning decision to destroy all statues in the country, from a renowned 175-foot, 2,000-year-old stone Buddha to relics in museums.
"All statues will be destroyed," said the country’s information minister, adding that this sacred mission is already under way. The objection to these items is the Islamic prohibition against the depiction of the human form in photographs, statues or paintings.
An appropriate outpouring of protest, too late it appears, is coming from the world of archaeology and cultural preservation, many governments, and Buddhist nations that view the destruction as desecration.
One of the Afghan mullahs aptly wondered, however, why his nation’s statuary seems to arouse more world concern than "the sufferings of the poor Afghans," who after all have endured hellish conditions from Soviet occupation, civil war, religious persecution and international sanctions for more than two decades.
Never mind that a major portion of those privations is attributable to the same Taliban government that has ordered the statuary destruction.
"We do not understand why everybody is so worried," said the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mohammed Omar. "All we are breaking are stones."
Wrong, wrong.
