Afghanistan wants its 'Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism' back from UK

[emad]

The Independent
By Nick Meo in Kabul
12 November 2004


The Afghan government is to request the return of the "Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism" from the British Library, amid concerns the priceless manuscripts were looted during civil war in the early nineties.

Afghanistan's Minister of Culture will formally ask for the 2000-year-old scrolls to be sent from London to the newly restored Kabul Museum in the next few weeks as part of a campaign to bring home stolen treasures from foreign collections.

The British Library, whose conservation experts saved the scrolls from crumbling, has admitted it has no idea how they came to London from one of Afghanistan's most famous historical sites at Hadda near the Khyber Pass.

Museums and archaeological sites were looted to order by gangs during the years of turmoil in the early nineties, with treasures from Afghanistan's past being dug up or stolen from museums and shipped abroad, usually by Pakistani middle men selling to rich collectors in America, Europe and Japan.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=582016

[htuttle]

1. I don't think so

I'm normally 100% in favor of repatriation of historical artifacts, but given the treatment of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, I think it would be best if the scrolls stayed where they were for now. Maybe in 5-10 years or so, depending on how it goes.

[liberalnurse]

4. You got that right......

[AP]

5. The Taliban is gone.

[Tempest]

8. No they're not

The Taliban control about 1/3 of the southern half of Afghanistan.

They also are still fighting the U.S. and the new Afghan army.

http://tinyurl.com/6jaym

[DrWeird]

12. And on top of that...

The Taliban just defected and changed names. Same people, same Sharia laws.

[ixion]

7. yeah, that was my thinking as well

They've already destroyed so much Buddhist history... who's to say that the Taliban will never again reoccupy the area where the scrolls would be kept? At that point, they would be destroyed.

Sorry, the puppet government of Afghanistan doesn't really deserve it, IMO.

[AP]

10. It's not the west's place to be the benevolent curator of the rest of the

world's treasures.

[ixion]

13. true, but it's also not right

to turn over priceless pieces of world history to a puppet government that cannot adequately store, much less protect the item, IMO.

[AP]

17. They're not the UK's. It's not their call. I don't think there's a legal

principle in any country that says you can steal something and keep it just because you think the real owner would destroy it.

[ixion]

18. Then they should give them to the Dali Lama

or they should give them to a Buddhist who will see they are taken care of.

[AP]

19. They are a treasure of Afghanistan's. If the UK or you are so worried,

then give them back to Afghanistan along with a million dollar trust that pays for guards and vault to protect them.

[ixion]

22. well, of course they're not mine to do anything with

I'm just stating my opinion.

That aside, Afghanistan is not a legitimate nation at this point, really, but a puppet regime installed by the US, so I would question the legality of their claim at this point.

[AP]

23. Whether you like a country's government isn't the factor which lets you

steal things from its citizens. How would you like it if John Major came to the US sometime before 1997 and took the Declaration of Independence because he didn't trust Clinton?

Afghanistan's heritage belongs to Afghanistan. If you're worried about the integrity of their property, start a fund to protect it (in the same way you give money to, for example, the Democratic Party or to BBV to protect the integrity of democracy).

I just wish people could see how patronizing, imperialist, racist, and ridiculous it is to be making decisions about what to do with the property the west has stolen from other countries. Afghanistan is dirt poor. The west promissed them a lot of money to help them get their feet back on the ground after fucking them over for years. We're not giving them the money. The least would could do is give them back the valuables we've taken from them.

'The Taliban blew up some statutes. OK. That was fucked up. But what do we really know about that? Maybe the CIA funded that because they wanted to make Americans feel better about invading Afghanistan. Who knows? But the west can not go around the world, stealing everyone's everything and then act like we're judge and jury of who can have what. That's really really arrogant and dangerous.

[fujiyama]

25. In this case

I'd rather have the artifacts survive than be destroyed by a senseless barbaric regime that has the potential of coming back to power.

Flame me if you wish for calling regimes like the Taliban barbaric and savage. I'm not interested in any sort of moral relativity. I cannot forgive the regime for what they did to the Buddha statues and Hindu citizens (they forced them wear fuckin labels...fuckin religious Nazis).

[AP]

27. I find that thinking slightly racist and very imperialist.

The west stole the cultural wealth of Afghanistan and Afghanistan wants it back. If the west is so interested in protecting it then come up with plan where Afghanistan gets its property back and it's protected while it is in Afghanistan.

The way you're thinking doesnt' stop with just art. It's the way the west feels about the natural resources (land and oil) in places like Afghanistan too.

The only way countries like Afghanistan will become places where people don't blow up Buddhas is if they're allowed to take their natural and cultural wealth and use it in a way that benefits everyone, and not if people in the west make decisions about what they're allowed to keep and what they aren't allowed to keep.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. You said exactly what I wanted to say. Good idea, but let's wait.

[fujiyama]

24. I agree with you completely

The country is way too unstable and I don't think the Taliban is completely out of power.

Maybe in time.

[AP]

29. Deny countries like Afghanistan their cultural and natural wealth and you

make it MORE likely that that the Taliban will take over agaiin and not less likely.

You want them to have their wealth and to be able to use it to make people culturally, economically and politically more powerful.

Think of art, oil, and land all in the same way. Cultural imperialism is the leading edge of economic and political imperialism. I don't know how the west is going to let go of the second two if it can't see past it's obsession with the first.

[shaolinmonkey]

2. Yeah, so when the Taliban retake Afghanistan

they can blow them up. Aren't there other loose ends that could be addressed in that country? Sheesh.

[demnan]

3. Afghanistan can't be trusted

with anything Buddist after the destruction of those beautiful Buddas in 2001.

[AP]

6. And America can't be trusted with the constitution since Bush started

trampling on it. Maybe we should send the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to Kabul.

Regardless of what you think about Afghanistan, it's their property to protect or destroy.

You can't steal things from people, bomb the shit out of their country, and then argue that they're too irresponsible to give them back their shit.

[Elidor]

9. Yes we can! We're Americans!

/sarcasm

The Brits will not let go of them easily. Afghanistan has a long slow fight on its hands.

[Liberal_Andy]

14. Maybe give the scrolls to the recognized head of Buddhism, whoever that is

:shrug: You know, like the Buddhist Pope.

[htuttle]

16. Unfortunately,

He's currently living out of a suitcase in India.

[vajraroshana]

20. There is no single leader of Buddhism

There are leaders of individual schools of Buddhism, but no single authority over all Buddhists. The school of Buddhism to which the Afghan manuscript fragments mostly were from is the Sarvastivadin, which is extinct except for the Vinaya (monastic) lineage which survives in Tibetan Buddhism.

[fujiyama]

26. That's an interesting idea

Maybe India could keep them for the time being. They are much closer related to Buddhism than Britain is. After all India was the birthplace for the religion. Plus, the country is relatively stable.

[maxsolomon]

15. come over & try & take it

britain stole all that stuff when the host countries did'nt give a shit. if they hadn't, it would be destroyed like so many giant buddhas carved in cliffs.

the parthenon was used for TARGET PRACTICE.

[VegasWolf]

21. Did not the dead sea scrolls contain the keys to the alternate

"gnostic" gospels. Maybe awol's puppet government in
Afghanistan wants them back so that Falwell can destroy
them in order that are no contradictions to the gospels
of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

[northzax]

28. yeah, good luck with that, guys

ain't gonna happen. if the Brits won't give back the Elgin Marbles, they ain't partin' with these either.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. There's a lot more chance these will go back to Afghanistan

A decision was taken to leave the provenance issue aside and buy them to ensure their survival.

They had been stuffed into a pickle jar and it was believed that they had not been unrolled for centuries.

A spokesman for the British Library said: "It is not for the library to speculate upon the future safety of any items returned to Afghanistan, but we note with approval the present regime's concern for the whole of Afghanistan's important cultural heritage, Buddhist as well as Islamic." He said the library would be willing to consider a claim.

which is a significantly different position from the Elgin Marbles.