Cause and Effect: The War in Uddiyana

World-class researcher and reluctant scholar, Dr. Dan from Tibet O' Logic (that's the Irish version), has again graced the blogsphere's pixels with notice of Uddiyana -- a point of departure, really, as all world-class researchers are wont to claim -- provocatively entitled "Swat's Good Feng-shui." He takes particular notice of Ron Davidson's work on the theme, and appears to agree with Davidson that Swat = Uddiyana = Swat. By the way: the above photograph is interesting because it documents the speed at which events are taking place. Something that stood for thousands of years came to ruin within five short years.

 

Inevitably, Dr. Dan has been forced to take notice of religious desecration there, which apart from outraging all civilized people (make that civilly outraging all people), has raised the issue of cause and effect. After all, had the Taliban not gone about blowing up Buddhas, the lads in the below picture would not be sporting about in their off-road vehicles, blowing up the Taliban.

As these words are being written, the President of the United States is reportedly agonizing over whether or not he should send more troops to Afghanistan. The outcome of that decision will weigh heavily in Uddiyana, and it could be the factor that decides whether or not Buddhist cultural treasures in the region continue to exist.

In Dr. Dan's article, you will find links to information on the fate of the Swat Museum, seen above, and its priceless collections. With all due respect for regional sensitivities, I don't think this should be left up to Maulana Fazlullah's partisans. 

Maulana Fazlullah has brought misery and pain to the birthplace of Padmasambhava, and has inflicted hatred upon other human beings. He is the man who caused the destruction documented in the above photographs. 

As it happens, he is a deeply religious man who believes he is doing the right thing.

It might seem easy to feel anger toward him, but that doesn't help anything. Actually, if you understand cause and effect, you will feel deeply sorry for him. Similarly, one might be tempted to believe that if this fellow gets knocked off, it will somehow improve the situation. It won't. The man has followers because he speaks to their inner needs.


Again, as this is being written, the President of the United States is readying himself to sign legislation that enables us to offer money to individual members of the Taliban, in exchange for them switching sides. If this were about money, maybe that would help.


Alas, this is not about money. Maulana Fazlullah does not give people money to join the cause, yet those who do join are ready to fight and die at his command.

So, you ask... if we can't kill the leaders or buy the followers, what is left? Fortified villages? Green Berets? A hearts and minds thing? Sorry to say that won't work either. That cake has already been baked. Similarly, I don't hold out a lot of promise for police actions in the region, although that is what we will probably wind up doing.

Really, in the last analysis, the only thing we can truly depend on is cause and effect. As to the issue of whether or not we should speed that along... well, that is a deeper study of the human condition than I am prepared to make in this post. 

War is a terrible thing.