In 2001 the Taliban completely destroyed two giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. The Bamiyan Buddhas were over 1000 years old. The Taliban used enough explosives to ensure the statures could never be reconstructed.
In 2015 in Palmyra, Syria, Isis destroyed the Temple of Bel and the Arch of Triumph. In January 2017 Isis destroyed the Tetrapylon. All of these structures dated to Roman times.
In 2019 the San Francisco School Board allocated $600,000 to destroy a mural in George Washington High School painted by Victor Arnautoff, a W.P.A. artist. The mural shows George Washington, but also shows slaves picking cotton and a dead native American. The artist wanted to show Washington from a different perspective than he is usually pictured.
The School Board believes the painting is upsetting to the students. Members do not want to curtain off the painting or have it moved. They want to destroy it.
The Taliban and Isis are made of of ignorant fanatics. So is the San Francisco School Board.
This information is from Bari Weiss, “San Francisco Spends $600,000 to Erase History,” New York Times, (June 30, 2019), p. SR5, along with various on-line sources.
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