I have not posted in a long time. Much has happened since then, some of which in my own life I will relate in another post. For this, I want to focus on one thing, the wisdom of returning pieces to unstable countries.
During Asia Week in New York of 2016, US marshalls raided several prominent dealers and confiscated sculptures they claim were looted. https://tomswope.blogspot.com/2016/03/asia-week-2016.html
One of the most prominent raid was on the Italian dealer, Dalton Somare, who was exhibiting at Valois Gallery. During that raid a large sculpture was seized under the claim that it had been looted from Afghanistan, supposedly to be returned to it. While we cannot and do not know the ultimate fate of the sculpture, the news of the past few days confirm my worst fears about this ham handed approach to cultural patrimony issues.
The worst has happened, the moment US troops withdrew, the Taliban retook the entire country without a fight. Being hard line Islamists, the Taliban are the enemies of all the arts, and will seek to destroy every trace of a pre-Islamic past, much as ISIS did in Iraq. Nothing in Afghanistan is safe, not the people, certainly not women, and any ancient art and sites are likely under threat.
The current approach to cultural patrimony issues is completely wrong, and no regard is given to the importance to our common human past. For the objects tell of a larger story than just the history of a particular country, they tell us about the exchanges between peoples and cultures over the centuries. Afghanistan was always a major meeting point between West and East, and the art from there tells the story of those exchanges. As such, it is of importance to more than just the people of Afghanistan, who today are of a completely different makeup from what they were centuries ago through the extensive migrations that have happened in the intervening years.
So what will the Taliban destroy next, and when? It isn't a question as to wether they will, but what and when. I am sure they will not be content with having already destroyed the largest Buddhist sculptures to have ever been created, those of Bamiyan. They now have the entire country to ravage.
