Buddha blown apart by Taliban is restored
THE Buddha of Swat, carved on a cliff in the seventh century, was dynamited by the Pakistani Taliban in 2007. Now it has been restored as a powerful “symbol of brotherhood”.
The holy figure, depicted in a lotus position at the base of a granite cliff in northern Pakistan, was severely damaged by Islamist insurgents in an echo of the Afghan Taliban’s complete destruction of its more imposing counterparts at Bamiyan in 2001.
For some, it was a wanton act of vandalism that struck at the heart of the area’s unique history and identity.
It felt “like they killed my father”, said Parvesh Shaheen, a 79-year-old expert on Buddhism in Swat. “They attack … my culture, my history.”
For Mr Shaheen, the 20-foot (6m) statue is “a symbol of peace, symbol of love, symbol of brotherhood. We don’t hate anybody, any religion – what is this nonsense to hate somebody?” he said. The Buddha sits in Jahanabad, the epicentre of the Buddhist heritage of Swat, a beautiful valley in the foothills of the Himalayas. The Italian government has been helping to preserve hundreds of archaeological sites, working with authorities who hope it will be place of pilgrimage again and pull in sorely needed tourist dollars.
The episode became a marker for the beginning of the Taliban’s violent occupation of Swat, which would only end in 2009 with heavy intervention by the Pakistani army. By then, several thousand people had been killed and more than 1.5 million displaced.