From Hagia Sophia to Takht Bhai, A Global Ethnocentric Hangover
Few pieces of art truly go beyond the seemingly boundless influence of geopolitical dimensions. In the recent past, I found three photo images, one each from India, Pakistan, and Turkey.
The first photo shows a zealot putting a saffron flag over a minaret of a mosque in New Delhi, India. They associate the flag with a Hindu far right group.
The second picture is of a Pakistani zealot hammering and smashing a newly discovered statue of Buddha in Takht Bhai, KPK province Pakistan. At Takht Bhai Pakistan, they found this life size Buddha relic where simple village folks were digging for a construction site.
Before anyone could decipher or contemplate the meaning or significance of the statue, it was in pieces. The locals feared “The curse of the statue” and as advised by the local cleric broke the historical relic. In doing so, the people destroyed not just an old carving of stone, but also in chiseling away a cultural vector holding an ethos that spanned thousands of years.
The last taken snapshot shows the Hagia Sophia museum being recently converted into a Muslim mosque. They held Friday prayers after only 86 years of historical fortitude in the newly carpeted mosque. The imam of this mosque recited the Friday sermon holding the sword of Sultan Muhammad. For Turkey, this symbolized the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1451 AD.
The Modern World Displays Not Just the Longevity of Cultures, But the Gradual Mutation of Them as Well
For western readers, it is easy to find a corporate sector version of Buddhism at airport bookstores-marketed to metropolitan and international taste buds. They litter the first aisle on every shelf with titles such as “Buddha in a Bar”, or “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”.
Before we even delve into why and how a Buddha statue landed in a construction site at Takht Bhai, we have archaeologists ranting about Gandara civilizations all while the KP province serves as a hotbed for archaeological folklore and antique smuggling.
The aforementioned examples show how a once wide reaching and worldly culture can degrade into a genre poster for widespread marketing and how the backbone of any civilization's ideology can bend at the hands of time.
Let Us Not Forget The “Entropy of Civilizations”
One of the iconic milestones in the universal struggle against human progress was destruction of The Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt. From pagans to people of monotheistic faiths, everyone played their part to rid the earth of this bastion of collective human heritage and knowledge. From one account, it took six months to burn the books and scrolls. Founded in 283 B.C. it was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Museion, dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. Julius Caesar was the first one to partake in this desecration during his journey to Pompey in Egypt. If that was not enough, countless other rulers made sure to follow his example of historical genocide upon the conquering of Alexandria.
What everyone tries to forget that there is a natural and unavoidable entropy for all civilizations. Once agreed that every civilization undergoes this entropy then why should one civilisation get a real or imaginary superiority over the other? Every civilisation has its unique historic touch points, high and low, a beginning and an end with a few achievements and some failures. It is important to understand that each civilisation contributed to a greater good to help the rest of humanity progress in its wake.
There are many undercurrents to recent current political and religious fervour. Some allude this to colonial imperialism, slavery, exploits and spoils of the first and or second world war. Quite a few blame on this to clash of identity between east and west.
Come what may, any nation’s ethnocentric arrogance does not stand the test of time. For Turkey it was World War 1, for India and Pakistan it was a caesarean birth from a colonial underbelly- a premature delivery, that was too heavy to carry. Rightly called the midnight children who could not see beyond 1947.
Is There Any Significance Behind a Nation’s Birth Certificate?
Pakistan’s historical continuum starts from Muhammad bin Qasim’s odyssey to 1947 with no other in between historical touch points. For embellishments one may add up the Turko-Mongol and Afghan expeditions carried out by Mahmud Ghaznavi, Zaheer Uddin Babur and Ahmed Shah Abdali.
The analogy of Saffron Revolution in India being same as that of Turkish commemoration of Ottoman Caliphate. There is no true philosopher's stone for the identity of any nation. There is nothing fancy about being a nation state. As for the word ‘nation’ itself is a new construct. Some still call it an inadvertent by-product of 15th-century intellectual discoveries. There is a direct relationship between the concept of racism and nation state.
There were only 77 countries in 1900 and by 2005 close to 230 countries. The cause of these newly found yet historically unknown countries is a War, or a geopolitical disruption on a global scale. In the eyes of the history, an empire could be born, thrive, decay, and perish in the blink of an eye.
There is a possibility that in the search of history’s treasures, these nations may forget, destroy, or deface the common background that made these relics so valuable. Let us value the common and now a global heritage to bring sanity to the euphoric hangover of ethnocentric hyper-nationalism.
Author: Moin Uddin is an occasional writer who loves to write about culture, economy, and psychology. He publishes on www.medium.com/@moinhunzai and tweets @moinhunzai
