The Violent Potential of Unconditional Claims in Conflict: Reflections on the Discourse concerning the Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan

Abstract

On a general level, the article analyzes how the clash of unconditional claims between secular rationales and religious narratives is prone to engender violence. To provide this discussion with material evidence, the case of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and its media coverage is put under scrutiny. The author shows how the marker of “religious violence”, otherness, and irrationality was (re)constructed in this context. In the last analysis, the article demonstrates that a parasitic relationship obtains between an occidentalist brand of reason and its presumed other (epitomized in the gestalt of “religious violence”).

Keywords

• religious violence
• orders of violence
• occidental reason
• Buddhas of Bamiyan
• Taliban