Bamiyan Buddha Statues Were Destroyed By Taliban Not Al Qaeda

An uninformed individual might be better respected, and revered than an ill-informed individual who tries to knowingly spread incorrect information based on speculation. An uninformed individual cannot test the plausibility of an assumption, or, claim that is being made in a topic. Moreover, this uninformed individual cannot be blamed for being ill-informed; rather, the source of the misinformation should be blamed.

To be precise, recently, an article was published on The Wall Street Journal which was titled: Afghan Hazaras Emerge as Power Brokers in President Elections. It is well-written, and it is worth reading, but not everything has said is necessarily true. Halfway down the article, you will find this line: “The destruction by al Qaeda of Bamiyan's historic Buddha statues in 2001.”

When I read this, I thought this must be an unintentional mistake. I tweeted the article, a few minutes later, my tweet was retweeted by Nathan Hodge, one of the writers of the piece. Then I tweeted him:

@nohodge this is a big unhealthy claim, I'd like to know how did you hear about it and in where?
— Nasim Fekrat (@NasimFekrat) March 8, 2014

Al Qaeda had no role at the destruction of the of Bamiyan's historic Buddha statues which happened on March 11, 2001. The Buddha statues were destroyed by the Taliban regime, inspired by their sheer tribal barbaric mindset who not only rejoiced in the destruction of the most ancient historical monuments, but they also glorified themselves by slaughtering thousands of innocents of Shiite Hazaras in Bamiyan, and other cities. Though Al Qaeda were as extreme as the Taliban in their religious belief system, they did not involve themselves in local matters, their main focus of interest was in the United States, and in other western countries. Of course, the Taliban regime did not fail to pay heed to the Al Qaeda advices in some areas, but particularly, not in the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues.

In fact, today is the 13 years anniversary of the destruction of Buddha statues by the Taliban regime, and I posted a photo alongside a short post on my photoblog. One should bother reading a little bit before putting his, or, her pen to paper because we are all responsible toward what we write about people and for people.

Though such mistakes in western media is abundantly describable, I do not see myself in a position to judge, and notice others' mistakes, in this case, count it on my brusqueness, and I appeal for your pardon.