Offensive cartoon Vs Buddhist statue

While watching the protests that are still going on all over the world regarding the cartoon that depicted the Prohpet Mohammad , the founder of Islam as a terrorist .

I was also reminded of the similar , or worse Blashphemy . In 2001 in Afghanistan , ruled by the intolerant Talibani's , one of the Worlds famous and tallest standing Buddha Statue was destroyed by them . Why ? Because it was against Islam !!

Quoted from BBC news :"The larger of the two statues - which stood at 53 metres (175 feet) - was believed to have been the world's tallest standing Buddha. The other statue measured 38 metres (120 feet).

Both were among Asia's great archaeological treasures."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1242856.stm

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/03/12/afgh an.buddha.02/

It caused International outrage !! Infact India and U.S had both made a request to Afghanistan that they were willing to transport the statues out of Afghanistan into India . The land where Buddhism was born . But the Talibani's did not give in even to this request !!!!

My debate topic is that why did such an outrageous thing not spark as much hate , feeling of revenge and anger ????

Is it because the Buddhist and Indians are a peacefull lot ?

Or do you think they do not love their religon as much as Muslims love Islam ??

Do you not think these show double standards too , while the East is shouting that West has double standards ???????????

We are blaming the entire West for the depiction in those cartoons that show anti Muslim feelings , drawn by a cartoonist . But while can we blame the entire community for what the Talibani's did ????

interesting question Aparna.

I have two theories as to why there was no Buddhist outrage towards the destruction of these statues:

1) Buddhism has been nearly wiped out of the country of its birth - India. Buddhism is more prevelant in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China. However, they are dispersed communities - based on three major sects : Theravada (Sri Lanka), Mahayana (China, Japan) and Vajrayana (Tibet). You cannot imagine how different these sects are in their ideologies - only certain threads hold common to them, such as attainment of Nirvana.

It could be argued that the Buddha's statue would be a unifying factor for these sects, but this is not the case. The Theravadins do not worship the Buddha - His statues are merely a reminder to them of the goal they wish to achieve - to become enlightened (arhat)

The Mahayanists focus more on different Bodhisattvas (Buddhas on the threshhold of enlightenment, who remain behind out of compassion) versus the figure of the Historical Buddha.

India in itself never had a Buddhist stronghold. If it were a statue of Ram or any other Hindu god, it would have been a different story. I am surprised however that countries with major Buddhist populations did nothing.

But, the second reason may explain why they stayed silent:

2) Buddhists in general believe in the idea that "nothing is permanent". If everything is impermanent, then "clinging" onto material things such as statues just causes suffering when they are destroyed. The main goal of Buddhism is to "blow out" this flame of desire for permanence in a world of impermanence. In short - get Nirvana.

da west is responsible as a maasive majority of its countries defended denmark in its anti islamic actions and reprinted da cartoons in their newspapers so dats y its da "entire west" responsible
y wud one keep one doing sumthing when it wud know dat its offending sum1 and instead of trying to hide their mistake they carry on doing worse thingz

aparna ive already told u taliban r not considered as muslims they're just an extremist group wid no knowledge of islam at all and r just showing da wrong impression of oure religion wheras becuz of so called muslims lyk taliban and al qaida the entire muslim population is considered violent and as terroristz y y y?
dis entire west thing is true and ppl rnt accepting it but dis entire muslilm thing is wrong but da whole world believes in it?

T. I loved the way you explained this theory. I don't know much aboug Bhudhism, however, I'll have to talk about this nirvan theory with my friends from Nepal and Japan. But I also agree that Bhudhism is not that aggressive religion overall. Usually we don't generalize the mass by saying that "all Muslims are terrorist" or "all Hindus are veggie" etc. but Bhudhist so far seem to be very calm and silent religion. And this also relates to what T. just explained about belief that nothing is forever specially the materialistic theory. I would go with yoru first question aparna..i think budhist are really peaceful community. And it's not that they don't love their religion as much as mulim but its the belief in their religion which does not want you to be intense in anything.

euro_pakigal, I agree with you. Al-qaida and Taliban consider themselves to be strict Muslims, but no where in Islam does it say to kill innocent people in the name of God. That's plain stupidity. Its because of them that Muslims have been given a bad name and seen as terrorists.

TO ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT MUSLIM: We are NOT terrorists. We have nothing to do with Al-qaida or Taliban. For us, God was, is and will always be everything and nothing else. There is nothing more superior to us then God. We repect other religions and consider everyone our brother and sister. Again, Islam doesn't justify killing innocent people to spread Islam over the world.

As for the Buddhist statue incident, Islam does not allow any picture or statue to be seen or worshiped. That is what I know and learned, but whatever happened happened and we can't change the past. However we can learn from the past and to bring this issue up again it completely ridiculous. Didn't anyone learn their lesson the first time when the Buddist statue was removed? Everyone saw what an uprage was brought up then so why would they do the same by drawing such a insulting and disrepectful drawing of the Prophet (p.b.u.p).?

What is the world coming too? 😕

i think the problem is, people don't want to accept that Islam exists 😕 😕 😕
they don't want Muslims to exist, they want people to be a certain religon, thats all 😕 😕

In 2001 i was 10 so i didn't really know about this until now but i still believe that it is wrong what they did. ISlam is about respecting all religions, so what happened in Afghanistan was wrong withoyr doubt. But i keep asking people is the reason that people are insulting islam revenge? because if it is then it doesn't make any sense because thats right there a message that we dont differentiate between the moderate muslims and the radicals and extremist we dont like all of u. I dont think anyone can honestly say that it was the right thing to do to break the statues of Buddha but i dont believe in this sort of retaliation either. I dont think that the people have double standards because any educated person muslim or not knows that u respect other people's religion even if u dont agree with it.

I agree mkzara. Part of Islam is about respecting ALL RELIGIONS no matter what they are. What I don't get or understand is that these stupid stunts pulled by both sides are leading to fights, protests and innocent lives being killed. Do both parties not realize that there is such a thing called "retaliation". If one shoots, the other is gonna shoot back and its gonna go on back and forth back and forth. Sept 11 happens and what happens in retaliation, US invades Iraq and a war starts. Disrepectful cartoons are made, and now protests are going on and innocent people are dying.

Its always gonna go back and forth and no one seems to understand that. Muslims are not realizing that although their anger is justified, innocent people are dying. Westerners didn't realize and were pretty stupid to think that such a cartoon wouldn't creat this chaos, and what happens, again innocent people are dying.

How stupid and cruel can people be. The meaning and purpose of Islam is falling apart and its only in God's hand to change that now.

Historically Buddhists too had tough times at the hands of Hindus and the decline of Buddhism is attributed to this. As pointed out by T it is the dominance of one particular religion and articulation that gets attention.
As for breaking of the statues in kandhar, the entire world watched taking no action, it was the collective apathy of the entire world that allowed the incident to pass by.
More than the religious significance the statues and the entire area is of great historical import but for the ZEalots these things do nor have any importance.
Past is history that cannot be ignored it teaches us much more and one time or the other one has to accept that before Islam or christianity took roots there were great religions and respect should be accorded to our collective heritage.