To the Editor:

One of the world’s wonders, the monumental Buddha statues, had stood in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan since the 6th century. In March 2001 Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the Buddhas destroyed. They were subsequently blown apart and left in rubble. The world was horrified.

It was art, culture and history that was being destroyed. The individual they depicted, Buddha, lived hundreds of years before Christ and a thousand years before Mohammed, yet still had the power to engender…

July 1, 2020