Against the Climate Taliban

Brief notes on the acts of vandalism against cultural assets perpetrated by the 'climate activists' of the 'Last Generation'

Let’s take a brief break from all things Covid; don’t worry, I’ll have more to say about this, esp. since I’ve asked the public health officials over at the Institute for Public Health for comments about the data Joel Smalley generously analysed. I gave the IPH until noon tomorrow (Friday, 18 Nov.) to respond, and I shall report back to you thereafter.

In the meantime, I don’t know if you’ve heard about the newest fad in Germany and Austria, which is a secretly funded activist group identifying themselves as the ‘Last Generation’. In recent weeks, they’ve made quite a reputation for themselves by gluing themselves to main roads during rush hour and, more specifically, by throwing canned food at pieces of art kept in museums, most notably in Berlin and Vienna.

Disclosure: this piece first appeared in German over at tkp.at (16 Nov.); if you’d like to read it in German, please click here.

Here is their ‘motto’, or mantra, which they proudly declare on their website:

We’re the first generation that experiences the beginning climate collapse, and we’re the last generation that can do something about it.

Notes on (dis)proportionality

It is, indeed, quite perplexing that the much-touted concerns and doomsday scenarios of various activist groups in recent years—from the ‘Extinction Rebellion’ to the ‘Last Generation’—are resorting to ever shriller language; in addition, there are the not unproblematic ‘gluing actions’ on the streets of many big cities, as recently in Berlin and Vienna.

What remains unnoticed in the various actions against art, however, is—our short-term memory.

The Buddha statues of Bamiyan, before (on the left) and after their destruction (on the right), courtesy of the below-linked Wikipedia piece.

In 2001, the Taliban unceremoniously blew up the Buddha statues of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. These were known worldwide and had been elevated to the rank of world cultural heritage by UNESCO.

Despite international protests—Pakistan and Japan appealed to the Taliban to refrain from doing so—, the Kabul-based Taliban proceeded.

In contrast to the quite benevolent, if not outright sympathetic reporting in legacy media concerning the current acts of climate ‘activists’, back in 2001, even mainstream media reported more accurately and openly about these destructive acts.

Here’s what Barbara Crosette wrote in the NY Times on 19 March 2001:

With outrage still fresh around the world over the destruction of two giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan, a Taliban envoy says the Islamic government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation offered money to preserve the ancient works while a million Afghans faced starvation

‘When your children are dying in front of you, then you don’t care about a piece of art’, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, the envoy, said in an interview on Friday…

Mr. Rahmatullah expressed no remorse over the demolition of the two giant Buddhas, carved from a cliff in central Afghanistan 1,400 years ago and considered one of the world's artistic treasures.

An adviser to the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, Mr. Rahmatullah gave for the first time here the Taliban's version of events: how a council of religious scholars ordered the statues destroyed in a fit of indignation.

The destruction, according to his account, was prompted last month when a visiting delegation of mostly European envoys and a representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization offered money to protect the giant standing Buddhas at Bamiyan, where the Taliban was engaged in fighting an opposition alliance.

Other reports, however, have said the religious leaders were debating the move for months, and ultimately decided that the statues were idolatrous and should be obliterated.

At the time the foreign delegation visited, United Nations relief officials were warning that a long drought and a harsh winter were confronting up to a million Afghans with starvation. Mr. Rahmatullah said that when the visitors offered money to repair and maintain the statues, the Taliban's mullahs were outraged.

‘'The scholars told them that instead of spending money on statues, why didn't they help our children who are dying of malnutrition? They rejected that, saying, “This money is only for statues.”’

Since then, the Buddhas of Bamiyan have appeared from time to time in legacy media, e.g., at the 20th anniversary of their destruction over at NBC. If you’re interested in an extensive account, please venture over here, courtesy of the Middle East Institute.

A Spectre is Haunting Europe

The demands of the ‘Last Generation’—ranging from a mandatory 100 km/h speed limit on Germany’s motorways (there is none to-date) to massively subsidised 9 € tickets for public transport—are quite striking in their disproportionality.

Sure, there is also the call for debt relief by the International Monetary Fund, but in view of Europe’s clear subordination to the US-led world system, the activists’ letter to Chancellor Scholz appears to be completely unrealistic and, on top of that, inappropriate addressed. The Masters of West don’t reside in Berlin..

Moreover, their economic—and ultimately also social and general political—ignorance must not go unmentioned: ‘outstanding debts’ are, in fact, the ‘assets’ of the creditors. Hence, simply ‘cancelling’ the former leads inevitably to the collapse of the latter.

This may well be the true intention of the Climate Taliban of the ‘Last Generation’, but it would mean the instantaneous collapse of the current monetary, economic, and world-system. While I’m not saying there shouldn’t be something done about what is essentially predatory lending in international affairs, doing so at a whim makes me shudder at the consequences, so powerfully set in scene by Albrecht Dürer 500 years ago (I refer to his ‘Apocalyptic Horsemen’).

Doing so might also accelerate the Great Reset, but because of the opaque sources of money that are undoubtedly behind the ‘Last Generation’—they are quite mum about their funding on their homepage, but it is known that about 150.000 € came, ironically, from the German government.

Against the Climate Taliban

In view of the repeated attacks by the ‘Last Generation’ on our cultural heritage (to say nothing about their other actions), one core question arises, at least for me: what has become of the outrage over the destruction of cultural artefacts?

It seems all the more strange once one considers the destruction of cultural artefacts by the Taliban in 2001 and the widespread outcry in the leading and quality media at the time.

Why are the attacks on European cultural assets not worth a bad or at least thought-provoking word about the ‘Last Generation’ to the same people in legacy media?

It is significant (but at least worth mentioning in a positive light) that Der Standard, at long last, at least permitted the writer and museum supervisor Constantin Schwab to voice his concerns in their ‘contrarian’ column.

It would be desirable if politicians and media professionals could muster the courage to find words as clear as Mr. Schwab's (my emphasis):

The heroic courage to stand up for the greater cause with one’s own body ends at the museum doors at the latest; it is heroic to stand in the way of a tank, heroic to chain oneself to a tree to stop a bulldozer—but anyone who paws at and smears a painting is never more than a vandal, no matter what the reasons behind it.

There is little more to add to this, except perhaps that it is high time that politicians and media representatives also got their act together to stop idly watching the destruction of our cultural assets.