[Opinion] Acts of Vandalism

Foreigners visiting Louvre Museum in France and Great British Museum in Britain first marvel at the sight of priceless treasures on display. Their admiration, however, soon turns into wrath. Many of the treasures are in fact from other countries. Brits and the French did not go through a due process of purchasing most times instead they just took them away from other peoples. So after they finish looking around, visitors get outrageous and talk to themselves, `Unscrupulous thieves!`

After waging wars to expand their influence and steal rich resources from weak countries, they still refuse to hand over cultural treasures to such countries as Egypt and Greece. They are eager to defend their positions. There is a Greek statue called `Samorake`s Statue of Victory` in the Louvre. It was found off the coast of the Aegean Sea in 1863 by a French. At that time, it was almost completely destroyed without a head part. French people brought the statue into the country and restored the beauty of the sculpture after long work. And they now say that without their efforts, the statue must have remained mere a piece of stone, arguing that they have contributed to protection the world`s cultural heritage.

Acts of destroying and looting cultural treasures called vandalism mostly target foreign countries. Now, however, Iraqis are doing just that to their own cultural treasures and the world is watching the scenes and wondering why. Looters stormed the national museum in Baghdad and took away some tens of thousands of treasures. When they looted government buildings, people thought it was to find something to eat or to vent out their anger after 24 years of oppression. But it is just beyond our comprehension that Iraqis destroy their national treasures from some 7,000 years ago. After all those acts of vandalism, they will find it hard to urge Brits and French people to return their Mesopotamian cultural treasures in the future.

Before the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan had to pay a high price for ruining its own cultural inheritance. When the regime broke down the world`s largest Buddhist stone sculpture 52.5m tall and 34.5m wide, the world turned its back against the hard-stance Muslims. They were not able to win compassion even when U.S. warplanes bombed the country to ruins. People in the world raged at their act of vandalism because the stone Buddha was the cultural heritage of mankind. It seems that we are now living in an age of crimes against humanity. We just feel sorry that short-lived humans commit too many crimes against the lasting history of mankind.

Bang Hyung-nam, Editorial Editor, hnbhang@donga.com