The Future of the Bamiyan Buddha Statues by Unknown
Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030513160
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
There are, however, some discrepancies between this description and the reality on the ground. For instance, when in April 2010 we interviewed8 some of the local people who had been involved with the reconstruction, they said that the whole town came to celebrate when the new bridge opened in 2004. When asked if they really meant the whole town, they qualified that, of course, it had only been people from their side who had participated. It has even been suggested that the rebuilt bridge became a symbol of the absence of peace and the possibility of further hostility in Bosnia (e.g. Greer 2010). In this case, it can be argued that the significance given to authenticityâwhich could only be in terms of crafts and materialsâmeant that the reconstruction did not aid reconciliation to the extent it might have, had it been done differently.
Several points arise from the two cases that may be helpful for reflecting on the decisions about the Bamiyan Buddha statues. Firstly, the concept of authenticity has become sufficiently flexible that different kinds of total reconstructions can be done without undermining the significance of a monument, although it will affect it, and authenticity and meaning may shift to very different dimensions of the monument. This should make it possible to open up for more in-depth and sustained involvement of local residents who in turn may play an interesting role in redefining authenticity as something beyond crafts and materials. Secondly, such cases warn about the motivations of international bodies, who, however well intended, may bring external agendas to the reconstruction project. Maybe scrutiny of our agendas should become of greater concern than staying loyal to the Venice Charterâs version of authenticity?
As regards the Bamiyan statues, it is clear that it is not possible to recapture the original monuments, and therefore this cannot be the aim of the reconstruction; but what then are the reasons for reconstructing them now? In a recent volume of the online journal Unesco courier, Christina Cameron discussed the trend of changing attitudes to reconstruction; she stated, âGlobal destruction of cultural heritage, now occurring at an unprecedented scale, brings into focus the question of whether or not to reconstruct significant places as a means of recovering their meaningâ (Cameron 2017, no page, my emphasis).9 Cameronâs discussion is timely including her call for further international guidance, but the expectation that a clear connection between a place and its meaning can be recovered through reconstruction is worth reflecting on. Just like the concept of authenticity, the idea of monuments having meaning is also complex and in some ways questionable. Firstly, monuments do not have just one meaning, they have layers of meanings accrued over time and by different interlocutors (for examples see Sørensen and Viejo Rose 2015). So if we hold that reconstruction should be about meaning, then we need to consider which meanings about the Bamiyan Buddha statues are the reasons for their reconstructionâis it the meanings in the sixth century CE around the time they were
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