‘A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas’
April 24, 2013
When I first traveled to Afghanistan in 2004, I immediately fell in love with the country and its people, and I was optimistic that the young people in Kabul would soon have better lives. Yet my hopes dimmed as I learned about a revolving door of exploitation at the hands of the Russians, Americans and now the Chinese — who have begun mining Afghanistan’s plentiful natural resources and threatening priceless national heritage sites.
In 2007, the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (M.C.C.) won the rights to mine copper at a site called Mes Aynak. Situated in volatile Logar Province, Mes Aynak is home to one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits — worth more than $100 billion. Yet, as this Op-Doc video shows, the site also houses the astonishing remains of an ancient Buddhist city, which archaeologists are now racing to save. An international team has only until June to finish the excavations, which began in 2009. So far they have uncovered golden Buddhist statues, dozens of buildings and fragile Buddhist manuscripts buried within temples. Yet perhaps 90 percent of the site remains underground and unseen. To finish the job could take decades. In all likelihood, the destruction of the Buddhist sites will begin later this year. The Afghan government is letting this happen — it’s a tragedy that echoes the notorious destruction of the Buddhas at Bamiyan in 2001.
Yet, even after four trips to Afghanistan to report this story, it’s difficult for me to know for sure what will become of Mes Aynak. Recent repeated attempts to contact the M.C.C. to confirm the mining timeline for this story have gone unanswered. There is widespread corruption and virtually no government transparency in Afghanistan, and the M.C.C. contract has never been made public.
I have heard arguments in favor of the mining. The copper deal is the largest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan’s history. There is hope among some Afghans that this Chinese deal will bring real and positive change to Afghanistan — jobs, infrastructure and money to help fuel economic growth. Some of the Buddhist artifacts are being rescued, and it’s possible that not all of the ancient sites will be destroyed by the mining.
But I worry that nothing positive will come from this mining project. I fear the mineral resource is being undervalued, that money will be lost to corruption in the Afghan ministries and that jobs at the mine will go to Chinese immigrants. Geologists tell me that, as a result of the open-pit style of mining, the site will most likely become so toxic that nothing can ever live there again. Money can come and go, but these precious historical artifacts will be gone forever.
*Brent E. Huffman is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He is expanding the material in this Op-Doc into a feature-length documentary. This article appeared on April 23 New York Times
If Media Covered America The Way We Cover Foreign Cultures
By Eric Garland -April 24, 2013
Eric Garland
You really need to be following the writing of Sarah Kendzior this week as she rips the major media outlets for their utter incompetence in understanding the role of race, ethnicity and nationality in the Boston Marathon bombing. The fact is: we don’t know what motivated these men. There will be a trial – and then we will know more. In the mean time, the American media has been throwing out every possible stereotype (indominable mountain men!!!) and disjointed factoid from Wikipedia their interns could gather.
Now, Juan Cole isn’t really “the media,” and I normally enjoy his analysis of Middle East affairs quite a bit – but I was perplexed by his trying to use 19th century literature to explain Monday’s actions in absence of thorough knowledge about the motive’s of the alleged bombers.
“They were playing the nihilists Arkady and Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons,” explained scholar Juan Cole, citing an 1862 Russian novel to explain the motives of a criminal whose Twitter account was full of American rap lyrics. One does not recall such use of literary devices to ascertain the motives of less exotic perpetrators, but who knows? Perhaps some ambitious analyst is plumbing the works of Faulkner to shed light on that Mississippi Elvis impersonator who tried to send ricin to Obama.
Read more here
*Eric Garland is a writer who focuses on the future trends that are changing life for everybody. He is the author of three books on future trends, a regular public speaker, and a professional bassist.
