Attack on cultural heritage

Standing before a 3,000-year-old stone carving of Buddha, which sits proudly amid more than 2,000 other ancient artifacts secured behind their glass showcases, vivid images of an era long past are conjured up. But these priceless pieces of history, housed at the museum in Chakdarra, a small hilly town some 200 km northwest of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), are at the centre of a raging local controversy. While some in the community want to preserve the museum and its contents right where they are, others, including the local administrators want it moved to make way for a girls' college. What is the use of stone and clay statues which are thousands of years old? This question is echoed in this deeply conservative region of Islamic Pakistan, where the presence of idols is an abhorrence to some. "They call it [the museum] Butkhana [a local term for a house of idols] and they want to get rid of it," Dost Muhammad, an activist of the Dir Museum Defence Council, told IRIN. "Not many people are benefiting from the museum and we want to build a girls' college by shifting the museum," countered Muhammad Rasool Khan, a Naib Nazim or deputy district administrator of Dir in NWFP. Most of the artifacts displayed in the Chakdarra museum were excavated in the district of Dir, which, about 2,000 years ago, was the centre of the pre-Islamic Buddhist Gandhara civilization that flourished in parts of today’s Pakistan and Afghanistan. While efforts are under way to rehabilitate Afghanistan’s cultural heritage, the situation is not encouraging in neighbouring Pakistan. Local social activists are desperately trying to prevent the relocation of the museum and its artifacts and many more historical sites in the province need to be conserved. Experts believe that with some investment, the NWFP’s numerous archaeological sites can attract tourist dollars and boost the fragile regional economy. Once attacked by a mob during political unrest in 1992, the Chakdarra museum has already lost some 86 artifacts. Now the district’s local government, overwhelmed by Jammat-e Islami, a conservative, fundamentalist political party, and the provincial government are eager to move the museum. "Only people who are employed by the museum want it to stay there," Khan maintained, adding that after the formation of a local university, the community desperately needed a girls' college in the area. But those who want to keep the museum in the small town say there are other alternatives. "We have a lot of land available and the museum building is not fit for converting into classrooms," a frustrated Muhammad told IRIN. "Museums play a very important role, not only as custodians of cultural heritage, but also as centres of learning," said Farhat Gul, a national expert with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Gul maintained that preserving archaeological artifacts not only showed respect and tolerance for other cultures but also lead to a culture of peace. "The responsibility of preservation rests with the government and the local communities," she said. Farzand Ali Durrani, a local archaeologist and former vice-chancellor of the Peshawar University who contributed to the establishment of the museum in early 1970s, told IRIN that instead of moving the museum, there was actually a need to develop it even further. "It will be a big mistake," he said. "We have so many artifacts that we can fill all the museums in the country." He warned that there was a risk of damaging the precious artifacts during any move. Highlighting the economic significance of cultural preservation, he maintained that tourism was based on the preservation of cultural and natural resources. "[Cultural preservation] will resolve many of our financial problems by attracting tourists," he said. 70-year-old Durrani has spent his entire life promoting the preservation of cultural heritage. Now he is trying to preserve whatever remains of the thousands of years of history in his native city of Peshawar, which was also a centre of the Gandhara civilization. He is part of a small advocacy group, the Sarhad Conservation Network, which is striving to protect many monuments in Peshawar’s old city which has lost so much to housing, pollution and neglect.