Muller, Marion G. and Esra Ozcan. 2007. The political iconography of Muhammad cartoons.
Starrett, Gregory. 2006. Cartoon violence and a clash of civilization.
Huyssen, Andreas. 2002. Twin memories: afterimages of nine/eleven.
Centlivres, Pierre. 2002. Life, death, and eternity of the Buddhas in Afghanistan.
Lucas, Catherine. 2002. The hidden Imam.
Frodon, Jean-Michel. 2002. The war of images, or the Bamiyan paradox.
Comments to be posted by evening of Monday, Dec. 1.
22 comments:
Flood says that traditional iconoclasm is ‘ambiguous,’ requiring that the iconoclast believe that ‘the image is both inert matter and the potential abode of evil’ (648). It is a double-consciousness – the act of destruction is meant to show that the image is no more than ‘inert matter,’ but if the image was really inert matter it would not be worth destroying, so the act of destruction, meant to demonstrate the image’s impotence, is actually an affirmation of its power. This is true both for what Flood calls ‘instrumental’ iconoclasm and for ‘expressive’ iconoclasm, but the ‘ambiguity’ works in different ways for each. ‘Instrumental’ iconoclasm, as part of a calculated, often political move, recognizes that the image has power over others. It falls nicely into Mitchell’s ‘grammar of iconoclasm’ (you, I, we, they), where THEY have idols that they believe have power but WE know better and will smash their idols. But ‘expressive’ iconoclasm, which is a more spontaneous, emotional response to images, involves a more direct relationship between icon and iconoclast. If the act of iconoclasm is ‘emotional’ the icon must wield some kind of direct power over the iconoclast.
The three acts of iconoclasm we read about for this week were the WTC, the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the Muhammad cartoons. Both Flood and Frodon argue that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was a calculated act, a consequence of a contemporary situation under the guise of an archaic tradition (which could be interpreted in multiple ways anyway). It was an act of INSTURMENTAL iconoclasm, directed, according to Flood, not at Afghan Buddhists (which the Taliban claimed didn’t exist anyway) but against a tradition of Western ‘idols’ within our museum ‘temples’ under the guise of ‘art.’ As Flood points out, Gell suggested a similar kind of western engagement with images.
The Muhammad cartoons, on the other hand, were much less calculated. While it is true that the newspaper editors made a conscious decision to publish them, and not the cartoons of Jesus a few years earlier, the act of iconoclasm (directed at the image of Muhammad) was much more emotional. They were created in response to the perceived ‘Muslim threat’ without as much consideration for long-term consequences and reactions. Perhaps this is due, as Sarrett says, to the “issue of human understanding,” but it is also due to our fundamental western bias, Mitchell’s ‘grammar of iconoclasm.’ Flood argues that Muslim iconoclasm is not a monolithic emotional and religious response to images, while Mitchell, Gell, Freedberg, etc. argue that western responses to images are not strictly calculated rational and secular responses. These recent episodes of iconoclasm are excellent examples of this. That is not to say that Muslim reactions to images cannot be emotional (look at the response to the Muhammad cartoons) or Western responses cannot be rational, but that the boundary between east and west is much blurrier, if they even exist, than westerners typically imagine.
As a final comment I want to add that while these episodes suggest that, at its most fundamental level, response to images is a fully human, as opposed to strictly cultural, phenomenon, they also demonstrate the importance of understanding specific cultural reactions to images (as Bahrani argued). It is the ‘issue of human understanding’ – one side can’t understand why the other would ‘profane the holy’ while the other can’t understand why the first would care so much.
Both Flood, and Muller and Ozcan discuss the ways in which an interpretation of all Muslim societies as homogeneous is misleading, especially in relation to iconoclasm. I thought the article from Muller and Ozcan was even-handed, recognizing the "racial biases" of the Danish and the "valid" fear of Islamic fundamentalist which is directly linked to recent terrorism (290). I remember senior year of high school attending an after school meeting of the group "Friends of Islam" and hearing the outrage and anger of a handful of Muslim students over the cartoons. Initially I remember feeling sympathy yet also not being able to understand their anger. When discussing the Muhammad cartoons and the destruction of the Buddhas it is imperative to discuss this homogenization of Muslims as iconoclasts. Since the beginning of the semester we have discussed the move to point out the "other" as the idolater. Here the accusation that a group of people are iconoclasts holds the same negative connotations. The inability to create an image that takes human form is demonized in the same way that idol worship is demonized.
Surely this desire to create Muslims as a homogeneous mass of iconoclasts corresponds to a post- 9/11 grieving process. Mitchell discussed the World Trade Center as an icon of American capitalism and democracy, or a sign of our prominent position in the world. The terrorists were iconoclasts since they destroyed those sacred objects. This is not to undermine the sincere grief of the many Americans whose families were killed. Rather, it suggests further ammunition for the argument of non-Muslims who label Muslims as iconoclasts (because of these Muslim extremists).
I think Flood's division of iconoclasm into instrumental and expressive (646) is worth discussing in terms of the potency of iconoclasm. While expressive iconoclasm might be carried out by one person, instrumental iconoclasm suggests a group of organized individuals with a precise political goal. We understand the power of idolatry, iconoclasm, and icons best if we can attribute worship or discussion to an easily identifiable group of people. Yet this discussion of iconoclasm is reductive and hinders our ability to see the political nuances of a situation of iconoclasm, as Flood suggests.
Flood says that situating iconoclasm in specific political situations, not solely theological discourse, brings clarity of interpretation, which I can say is true from experience. After we discussed the Muhammad cartoons in the after-school meeting, some Muslim girls went on to discuss what September 11th and the days that followed were like. All had similar horrific stories of discrimination. I was somehow more able to understand their anger towards the cartoons.
The Muhammad cartoons bring up a type of image that has not really factored into our discussion yet -- an image created not to glorify its subject matter, but to demean it. The creation of and reaction to these cartoons is a reverse of the kind of idolatry/iconoclasm that we have seen before. Instead of an image created for the purpose of worship that is subsequently destroyed to prevent such worship, the cartoons seemed to mock the worship of Islam and the protests against them could be seen as an effort to gain back that right of worship. I would be interested to see if there are other historical examples of such "anti-idols" and what the reaction to them was.
In addition, the case of the Buddhas in Afghanistan is different from other "idols" that we have examined thus far. Since, as Flood points out, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas primarily as a political move, and not because they were currently being venerated by Afghani Buddhists (as there apparently are none anymore), theirs was not a typical case of idol-smashing. It was the intention of the Taliban to destroy the Buddhas that made them idols once again, when they had not been for some time. The new idols they became, however, were not idolized by their original worshippers, but by "art worshippers" of the Western world. In the context of the readings dealing with Islam so far, we have seen idols turned into non-idols, but not idols turned into other idols.
I agree with Flood in that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha may represent the protest of the minority against the authority. In speaking of contemporary museums, as Gell argues, museums are silencing the inanimate objects by transmuting them into museological objects. In one sense, it seems that museums do not discriminate the objects because they accept cultural diversity. However, there is obviously discrimination between the objects that are collected and ignored by museums, therefore, museums are authoritative institution in defining the objects as either worthy or worthless. In the process of endowing the value to the objects, the monetary value to those displayed in the museums would be added, which is quite similar to the concept of capitalism. As the side effect of capitalism is uneven distribution of the wealth, there is also uneven distribution of value on cultural icons in museums. In this sense, the Bamiyan Buddha is a capital since it was highly evaluated and took great attention. It might not be attacked by the Taliban unless it is important to western museums. As Flood argues that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha is a protest by minority who are excluded from the international community, I may say that the Taliban’s destruction represented a protest by numerous objects which had been devaluated by western museums. The fact that the attempt by the Met to purchase the Bamiyan Buddha was “in effect legitimizing the practice of looting Afghan antiquities,” (Flood: 651) implies museums’ overlook of the destruction of unimportant objects within their point of view. If iconoclasm can be said as creative destruction, I may say that the Taliban’s iconoclasm was an attempt to protect their devaluated culture by the western society and revive them again, which means that their claim as revival of medieval Islamic culture may not be absolutely wrong.
Sarah E
Of all the things that were discussed in the readings this week, I was most intrigued by the Muhammed cartoons because, as mentioned briefly in the post before mine, they present a new type of iconoclasm/clash that we haven't really touched on in class yet: the creation of images in order to damage an idol or idea. At first, these cartoons did not seem to me to be able to be considered a case of iconoclasm because of the creation of the image as opposed to the destruction of it. However, after thinking about it, the creation of images as a form of iconoclasm seems almost more common than the destruction of images, and has the capability to be as powerful as the destruction of an image because it is not the physical materiality of the idol that is being attacked, but rather the spiritual entity inside. With the case of the cartoons, the power of the image is demonstrated through the attack religious ideals through a misrepresentation rather than through a destruction.
I agree with Flood that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was "not a timeless response to figuration but a calculated engagement with a culturally specific discourse of images at a particular historical moment" (Flood 642). I would extend this argument to pretty much every case of iconoclasm that we've looked at thus far; it brought to mind especially the instances of violence against images in museums by people who were then institutionalized but who clearly had very specific motives for attacking the images that they chose (and Flood does mention Mary Richardson's slashing of the Rokeby Venus towards the end of the article, 653-654). Like the destruction of the Buddha statues, the iconoclasts mentioned in Freedberg's article from a few weeks ago also participated in an "iconoclasm ... often stigmatized as an act stemming from ignorance [or perhaps mental instability], [yet] a gesture that was particularly well informed about its own historical precedents" and symbolic implications (Flood 652). Clearly the Muhammad cartoons and the destruction of the twin towers were also firmly grounded in the specific details of culture and time.
It always shocks me how violent people can become when faced with offending images. The obvious example of this is the attack on the World Trade Center. It is both interesting and frustrating to think of the towers simply as images. Huyssen almost makes it sound like just because they symbolized a capitalistic society they led to death and destruction. Flood writes about a similar kind of violence (albeit on a smaller scale) when he writes that "the offending iconoclast was eventually lashed and stoned as his punishment for defacing the mauscript" (645). Just because violence was done unto an image, the person who defaced it was physically punished with violence. It is as if when it comes to religious and political beliefs, both idolators and iconoclasts have trouble distinguishing between images and living things. The idea of double consciousness is basically removed and there is a single consciousness that the idol is an animate being.
I found Flood's article to be a particularly revealing look at modern culture as well as iconoclasm. As Jeff said one of the most intriguing arguments he made were those around the double-consciousness of idols and the actions taken against them. His discussion of this idea reminded me of this study i recently heard about showing how we naturally have a double consciousness. When a person looks in the mirror saying how ugly they are even though it is them saying it the brain still feels it as though someone else is saying it. The study was more detailed but basically it showed how we naturally think we have a certain understanding of something but it is never so simple as that. We both consciously acknowledge the nature of a thing in one way and unconsciously react to it as though its nature is different. However, I also found his clarification of the misconceptions about Islamic iconoclasm to be particularly interesting. I think it says a lot about western misconceptions about the world around us and how even though we think we have developed past ideas of seeing foreigners as less advanced "others" we still fall into those ideas easily. The west views the destruction of idols by the Taliban as part of an antiquated iconophiliac belief system. However this view comes from a refusal to acknowledge the complexity of the situation and the subjectivity of iconoclastic behavior around the world. In our limiting view of the iconoclastic actions of the Islamic world and specifically the Taliban we may react in a certain way that is completely irrelevant to what is actually going on. I also really liked his ideas about instrumental versus expressive iconoclasm. I think its important to acknowledge both these motives in our study of idolatry as well as an anthropologists study of cultures. These actions are products of economic, political, and religious issues as well as both being used to affect something and express the feelings of those doing it. And even though it is important to realize that at the root of iconclastic acts is an attempt at affecting the potential agency of the icon it is also important to acknowledge the layers of the problem, as Latour would've said.
Flood outlines two distinct types of iconoclasm – instrumental iconoclasm in which some type of iconoclastic action is performed with a specific goal in mind, and expressive iconoclasm in which the iconoclastic act is a mode of expression of one’s beliefs. According to Flood, the destruction
of the Bamiyan Buddhas was an instance of instrumental iconoclasm, the goal being to make a statement against western idolatry, museums as temples etc. Further, just as Flood suggests that we distinguish between different forms of iconoclasm, he also stresses the point that we should not look at this instance of iconoclasm as merely a continuation of something inherent in Islamic culture but as an “iconoclastic moment in Islamic history”. It is also important to note, here, that, as Centrelivres points out, the destruction of the Buddhas created a new form of idol, making this apparently politically motivated act of destruction also an act of creation.
However, if we consider the case of the Muhammad cartoons, these same distinctions seem to be more difficult to apply. These images, too, seem to be acts of iconoclasm, here directed at the image of Muhammad. However, it is not entirely clear if these would be considered instrumental or expressive acts of iconoclasm. Further, this does not seem to be an “iconoclastic moment”, but instead a “reflection of racial
biases that have been building up inside Danish society well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks” (Muller and Ozcan). If we consider the cartoons themselves we can see the underlying Orientalist approach to Muslims and
Islam that seems to be an ongoing issue in the relations between the
“West” and “the standard bearers of an “Eastern” culture, Islam” (Frodon). (On the other hand, it is also important to consider the many similarities between these two instances of iconoclasm and the motivations and reactions surrounding each case.)
After reading Flood's "Between Cult and Culture", I became very interested in the idea that "the shift in signification inherent in the resocialization of the artifact within the museum" parallels "the semiotic structure of iconoclasm itself" (653). This recontextualization and "fetishistic privileging of inanimate icons" made me think about media and the way that it restructures or privileges the meaning of an image. The specific example I'm thinking of is the photograph of Saddam Hussein's statue being "neutralized" (physically attacked) by angry Iraqis. There are multiple layers of meaning present: first, there seems to be a need by the Iraqis to neutralize the image by physically engaging with it; second, there is controversy surrounding the original dismantling of the statue. Some say that the whole thing was planned and coordinated by the U.S. government, and that the accompanying Iraqis were merely pulled randomly to the scene. This underlines the issue of understanding the historicity of the statue, the political relations between the U.S. and Iraq, and what sort of intent was present in the taking of the photograph. This relates to Flood's point, that there needs to be more attention paid to "subjects as actors in historical contexts" (641). This may be a stretch, but I wonder if what the media does by privileging certain images and events is somewhat similar to museums' treatment of icons and, subsequently, similar to acts of iconoclasm.
Flood speaks on how the obliteration of the Bamiyan Buddhas indexed a calculated engagement with a culturally specific discourse of images at a particular historical moment. Flood makes the whole act seem politically motivated, yet religion is certainly present, especially in the ideals of not only Muslim states, but of those in the West. It's not possible to separate religion politics, religion, or even ideologies anymore. There is one comment I'd like to make about Flood's terminology of defacement, decapitation, and recontextualization. "Visiting vengeance or shame on the image as if on the body of a living person, iconoclasts engage with th image as if it were animate" (648). This statement of course ties in with many of the other articles we have read. "The recontextualized idol indexe a bringing into the fold dependent on the shifting economic, cultural, and military frontier" (651). The recontextualized show a dominance of one religion; the dominated is literally under the foot of the dominant. If idols are seen to be animate objects of the divine, is this not an attack on religion? Constant walking and sitting on a supposed divine object seems a blatant attack on the other religion. In fact, the keeping of the image is almost worse than obliterating. It shows a constant dominance and smearing of the other religion. The constant smearing of the ever-present image is similar to the smearing of the prophet Muhammed. Granted, Muhammed shouldn't have been represented in the first place, but his always present appearance leaves room for constant iconoclash.
This from Sara R:
Flood's discussion of the various interpretations of the role of museums as locations of idolatry or as iconoclastic institutions themselves was particularly interesting for me as a Museum student. He points out the distinction that is often made in "Western" epistemology between art object and cult object but cites Gell's challenge to this division to point out that the museum is a type of "secular temple" in which the distinction between theological and aesthetic veneration is not clear cut, and is perhaps non-existent. What is interesting then, is the shift to discussing the museum as an iconoclastic institution, which removes art, artifacts, cultural heritage from their original context, placing the objects in a new stage in "the social lives of things," as Arjun Apadurai describes it, in essence destroying the original image and creating a new one. This argument calls to mind a debate about the notion of a shared global cultural heritage, supported by organizations like UNESCO, which is an idea not everyone believes in for the very reason that the removal of an artifact from its original context can be seen as a type of effacement. Flood writes, "it can be argued that the shift in signification inherent in the resocialization of the artifact within the museum, its transmutation from cult image to cultural icon, has much in common with the semiotic structure of iconoclasm itself" (653).
Flood argues that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas "has largely been conceived of as a theological impulse" and in this paper, like in the one we read last week, he tries to highlight the complex politics of the "culturally specific discourse of images at a particular historical moment." While I think his analysis of the political context is complex in itself, I do actually think that most people perceive of this and other recent acts of iconoclasm, grouped under the label of "Islamic iconoclasm," as mostly political in nature and that what should be explored more is the interaction between political, theological, aesthetic motivations in the vein of Latour's gathering.
All I could think about while doing these readings was the cascade of images. The destruction of the Buddhas simply left a new image of the mountain with a void in it. The Buddhists themselves claimed that the void may have represented the very aim of Buddhism. This seems like an obvious observation, and certainly one we've talked about in class, but it seemed particularly applicable to these readings. Every one seemed to just continue with image on top of image. The destruction of the Buddhas in Afghanistan has even encouraged the further proliferation of Buddhas to the point of full scale reproductions of the ones that were destroyed. There was also attention to the possible religious meaning of the Buddhas. The Afghans justified the destruction because there are no Buddhists in Afghanistan and therefore they weren't religious objects, until of course they are imbued with religious meaning by being destroyed. Attention was paid to the fact that scholars were upset by their destruction and obviously not for religious meaning. Also, ironically, if anything the destruction had a larger religious effect for Muslims than Buddhists since the Buddha does not live in statues.
Icons seem to be more and more apparent in society. As Flood pointed out, icons can be non-religious, but remain important because they are cultural icons, still representing ideas and power. Flood states "one can make a good case that what was at stake here was not the literal worship of religious idols, but their veneration as cultural icons. In particular, there are reasons for thinking that the Taliban edict on images represented an onslaught on cultural fetishism focused on the institution of the museum as a lucus of contemporary iconolatry" (651). In understanding icons as cultural icons, it should come to no surprise that the Twin Towers and Pentagon were chosen for destruction, as they represent America and the American capitalist system. I liked the fact that Flood brought in the museum to his discussion. He states that the "museum is a type of secular temple, a 'temple of resonance,' within which modernity is equated with the desacralization and even 'silencing' of inanimate objects by their transmutation into museological artifacts" (652). Gell goes on to say that "we have neutralized our idols by reclassifying them as art" (652). I was appalled that Montebello offered to buy objects targeted by the Taliban in order to "save" them by making them into cultural artifacts in the museum, or "works of art and not cult images" (651). Although I can understand the feeling of urgency to preserve culture, Montebello pointed out the very concept that I have been wrestling with this semester and am writing my paper on, that it is a form of iconoclasm to change the meaning of the icons, to silence them by placing them in museums. I also found Flood's distinction between iconoclasm to be interesting, the difference between instrumental iconoclasm, "in which a particular action is executed in order to achieve a greater goal, and expressive iconoclasm, in which the desire to express one's beliefs or give vent to one's feelings is achieved by the act itself" (646). How can employ these distinctions when trying to understand acts of iconoclasm today? Flood points out that the destruction of the Buddas was not what the Western world considers "classic Islamic iconoclasm," and stresses, as other authors have, that the politics surrounding acts of iconoclasm must be reviewed and not simply dismissed as tied to religion.
Meditating over the entirety of this semester, whether this is a fair assumption or not, theoretically our class discussions have moved from the divine first image to the complex and multi-various secularized image, one that may still contain remnants, the shadow, of some divine Gellian homunculus, but indexes so many different agents in the process of its production, maintenance, and if this occurs, ultimate iconoclastic destruction, that religion appears to have been brushed aside while politics, economics, and society (the international and the national community) replace our theoretical forefront. For me, personally, I’ve really been struggling with, as Catherine Lucas states it, “the removal of the sacred aura from these images” (Lucas 226) and how the relationship between image and observer changes. Beyond all of the poignant arguments of this week’s eclectic selection, presenting a plethora of analyses attempting to debunk biased stereotypes of the motives and “naïve beliefs” of Muslim iconoclasm and reconstitute a world of Islam where iconoclasm can effectively hold meaning behind the destructive act—Flood’s “instrumental iconoclasm”—aren’t we forgetting the inherent animating factor of all images? Or maybe that is just the case. The emotionally-charged and uncanny response to images may be universal, but this universality doesn’t always have to relate to some dangerously uncontrollable, animated interior.
The secular, modern, westernized world we’ve now entered seems to be filled with images that represent—mimesis in a sense—but do not wield that dangerous power we encountered so early on in class within Ellen’s essay—the dual power between the idol and the idolaters that results in a continuous battle between both agents to effectively control the Other. Instead, it appears that the offending image is offensive, not of its own volition, but as a mediator between the offended groups—most likely iconoclastically acting out against the image—and those who produced the offending image. Perhaps the dangerous agency of the divine that provides possibility for animation of the images has been replaced within our secularized reality by humanity itself.
This was the impression I received when reading Andreas Huyssen’s theoretical exploration of the issues revolving around 9/11 and its memorial to come. Specifically this quote, “the objective problems of representing and memorializing traumatic events in built space, especially if that space is a death zone still in living memory” (Huyssen 9) really struck a chord with me. Until we have effectively sterilized the hole of where the Two Towers once stood, that space is a locality of dead bodies, of floating souls, still tied to individuals living within New York City and to the memory of anyone and every American who has seen some image of the destruction of the Two Towers. Without the achievement of this cleansing ritual, any memorial is analogous to a Saint’s Idol with its hollow interior, trapping those 9/11 victims’ souls inside and thus animating the memorial to an uncomfortable status the secular modern world wishes to reject and avoid.
As much as I rejected Mitchell earlier on in the semester, I guess maybe this is where a discourse between his work—asking the image what it wants—and Gell’s might really contribute to conclusively explicating whether or not the images of the modern world can be analogously animated compared to a religiously-constructed idol (an Egyptian statuette within its shrine within its temple for example)—but in the place of the divine, some other modern “spirit” resides within.
In all the case studies of iconoclasm we have read, it seems clear that a major motivation for iconoclasts is the manipulation of power. What is the greatest form of power? How can man wield the greatest amount of power? It seems that iconoclasts can gain great power through iconoclastic acts. In the case of the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Taliban used “the destruction of this symbol of their heritage […as] an attempt to symbolically retrieve the power that was slipping out of their hands” (Clement 218). Throughout history groups of people have tried to erase the history of their predecessors in order to gain power, and it seems that the destruction of the buddhas by the Taliban was a similar move. They were physically removing the evidence of a different and historical belief system that threatened their own place of power in the present. Their fear of history shows that that past, and the artifacts that index the past through physical remains, still are able to impact the present. Past events still have bearing on the present, even if they are far removed in time and space. I can think of other examples in other cultures where the groups of people in power tried to destroy the evidence of their predecessors in order to secure their power positions. The Inca of South America come to mind, and the Chinese emperors who would rewrite history with every succeeding dynasty.
Besides the importance of history and images in present day power-plays, I was also struck by the power of the absence of images, as the case studies of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the Twin Towers show. Both the buddhas and the towers were monumental images, that, which representing many things to many different people, ultimately stood for the success and power of their creators. Thus, the gaping holes left behind after these monumental objects were destroyed indexed the power and success of their destroyers. The power of absence is unsettling because it is unfamiliar. People can get to know an object well through their powers of observation. But the space where an object once resided is a void, it is mysterious, and it cannot as easily be perceived by human senses. More than the power of images, the power of the void scares people, because there is no way to destroy it as with images. The absence of things can only be filled up with new objects/images. Thus the cycle of destruction and creation moves on as successive groups of people attempt to work out their power struggles on the material world through their objects.
The consistent message of the articles on the Bamiyan Buddhas was that the image destroyed was considered an icon of Western notions of an international community and of the veneration of cultural objects, and that the Taliban acts were a very contemporary response to modern conditions rather than a perpetuation of an essential doctrine against images. This was consistent with the notion of iconoclasm as a complex practice that incorporates spiritual as well as political strategies. The same was broadly true of the discussions of the Muhammad cartoons, that the Islamic outrage reflected an ideological conflict that extended beyond the question of whether figures could be conscientiously represented. The theme of further images in the wake of alleged destruction was also present: the empty shadow of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the journalistic attention, as well as coverage of the spectacle of protest following the Danish cartoons, all stand as images that follow the engagement, however violent, with an initial icon.
The case of the Muhammad cartoons is interesting in that we can see at least two perspectives of offense on a provocative set of images. The cartoons were offensive to Muslims because they transgressed the taboo of depicting Muhammad, and did so with what appeared as intentional scorn and mockery. The cartoon's image, perhaps, indexed the agency of the artist and also of the Danish audience as recipients who would presumably appreciate that sort of disrespectful depiction. So the reaction to a depiction of Muhammad as distasteful is at least in part a reaction to the circumstances and actions that caused it to become public. At the same time, there is an offensive element to the image for the Danish (and probably other European) audiences as well. Here it is the prototype's agency which comes through as is intended with a political cartoon. The offense is against the actions of Islamic extremists or even more moderate but socially conservative Muslims. The liberties taken in caricature are part of the process of indexing the prototype's agency materially. The “prototype” itself is most directly Muhammad, but then he might also stand in, in this reading, as an index of Islamist ideology. But still, the specific reactions to the image itself diverge, and for that we need to consider the ontologies of images in particular contexts, as discussed in last week's readings. Anyway, with all this Gell stuff I just wanted to point out a further way in which iconoclasm and iconaltry (?) were present from multiple directions.
What I took from this week’s readings is the political nature of iconoclasm today. Of the three significant and well documented acts of iconoclasm that were discussed, all of them used religiously motivated iconoclasm as a veil for making political statements. Flood makes clear that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was inconsistent with previous Muslim and Taliban feelings towards the giant images and that the impetus behind the iconoclastic moment was not religious fanaticism, but rather probably from the labeling of the Buddhas as world cultural icons. Flood says, “ Although the act invoked the rhetoric of the Islamic past or was represented as a reversion to medieval practice, by either standard destruction of the celebrated Bamiyan Buddhas was highly anomalous” (p 651). The other readings seem to confirm this as well.
The iconoclastic instances of 9/11 and the Muhammad cartoons additionally illustrate instances where religion is cited as an explanation for iconoclasm on a grand scale when actually politics and power the motivating factors. These examples plus the destruction of the Rokeby Venus and other examples make me wonder whether modernity has fundamentally changed the way we view iconoclasm. In the age of instant media coverage and the seeking out of spectacle, do we also seek out iconoclasm? And do we expect iconoclasm to provide us with a (political) message? Does the simple, emotional, belief motivated iconoclasm still exist?
Today our images are highly disposable and yet extremely resilient. We are still able to view the Bamiyan Buddhas with the click of a mouse and even several of the authors were not ready to acknowledge that they were actually gone. Huyssen says “I take comfort in the fact that in the back of the cave, the human outline of the destroyed statue is still visible, if only barely: another afterimage, supporting another memory that lingers” (p13). Centlivres talks about the proliferation of giant Buddhas after the destruction, in many different media, in many different locations around the world. The events of 9/11 share the same outcome. In his blog, archaeologist Michael Shanks describes the near immediate reaction to museulize and document the attack. “Less than a month after the attack a meeting of representatives of thirty-three museums, headed by the Smithsonian and New York’s City Museum, considered how they might document the event, asking what things should be collected and preserved for display and for posterity” (http://metamedia.stanford.edu/~mshanks/weblog/?p=40) From now on, any piece of World Trade Center wreckage can represent the Twin Towers. These violent acts perpetrated in the name of iconoclasm actually achieved the opposite of what they intended. I agree with Flood to say it is naïve to say that the Taliban and the planners of 9/11 were unaware of these consequences. If they were not seeking to destroy these images then, one of the few explanations left is political retaliation or political statement making (the same as image making?).
Becky
CENTLIVRES Pierre | Life, Death, and Eternity of The Buddhas in Afghanistan
The frustration pointed to here is that either side taken in the instance/s of the Buddhas lobs poor arguments, ones that are easily taken as indicative of an opposite, and polar, viewpoint that is culpable. Those who wish to protect the Buddhas as artifacts claim “the Taliban were demonstrating impious pride” (75). An attack on the morality that structures their iconoclastic gestures was thought to be injurious, prodding. Yet those iconoclasts, those of the Taliban asserting their validity, nay, their duty in destroying the Buddhas, argue “if they have no religious character, why get so upset; it’s just a question of breaking stones’” (75). In other words, the only reason to protect them, to desire their preservation is giving them value above the hills that surround them; essentially, to worship them in some capacity.
Centlivres points out that the Buddhists who are pinned as the main culprits of idolatry in regards to the Buddhas do not, as the Taliban would have it, worship the Buddhas as gods: “’The Buddha is not in his statues’”, and “the very aim of Buddhism ... ‘ironically finds ultimate truth in nothingness’” (77). The fuller picture here is a naive belief in naive belief (I wish we could come up with a more concise term for this) on the part of the Taliban.
The question then becomes for me, are we not doing the same in accusing the Taliban of having a single-minded approach to their assault on these statues? Do they not also have other reasons, other thoughts on the matter?
Centlivres points out the economic side of the issue: “To finish off the giants it took the considerable pyrotechnic means implemented by the Taliban” (75). Surely all those materials, all that labor was very costly. If religious zeal were truly the only reason they pursued the monument, they would not have involved the press. Doing so suggests an exercise of power both in showing the use of forceful weaponry, but also in showing the widespread effect their ‘simple’ act had on their Western enemies.
I enjoyed reading Flood’s work first, and then processing the three acts of destruction we are to discuss: the Bamiyan Buddhas, the cartoon of Mohammed scandal, and the attacks on the World Trade Center. I admit that I had not really concerned myself with the idea of expressive iconoclasm until this point. Practically every iconoclastic gesture we have studied has been instrumental iconoclasm. Our idea of the idol smasher is one who understands the importance of an idol to its worshippers and willingly destroys it, knowing it will have a great impact on the community of worshippers. While the case of the Buddhas seems clearly instrumental, the other two are less than clear, if only because the iconoclastic action was less than clear. In terms of the World Trade Center, the attacks killed thousands of people. It was not simply an attack on an idol. It was an attack on human beings as well. While the twin towers were iconic, I am not sure who was a worshipper of the idol of the towers. Obviously they could be expanded to represent capitalism or America, but I think that is less than clear. The involvement of significant human death complicates the issue. On the other hand, the cartoon of Mohammed was, while created with the intention of demeaning an idol, a misunderstanding between humans as Starrett would say. This too seems like a clearly instrumental iconoclasm, yet I worry about placing this in the same category as the destruction of the Buddhas and the attacks on the World Trade Center. The violence truly and distinctively separates these incidents. And with the twin towers, I am not sure that we can extract the idol smashing from the deaths that occurred in that incident. In any case, it seems to me that the greater the level of violence, the less clear the iconoclasm. The Mohammed cartoon is the clearest iconoclasm of the three as it is simply and purely the destruction of an image by means of another image. The Buddhas, a physical attack on an idol, too is clearly iconoclastic, though the idea of the protest\ of the minority against the majority can cloud the act. The World Trade Center attacks, being the most violent, causing the most death, are intrinsically linked with death rather than simply the destruction of an image.
I thought that Flood's distinction between expressive and instrumental iconoclasm didn't really address the charge being laid at Islam. I tend to think that "neutralizing" an image has very little difference then destruction if one views the object as a type of living thing. Turning a statue into a corpse instead of a pile of rubble is still fundamentally a violent and destructive act, however it is administers. His description of the re-use of these "neutralized" images in the new mosques reminded me not of an effective use of old materials, but as a violent political message. Hindu converts walking into their newly commissioned mosque would walk past the bodies of their idols much as Roman slaves walked past teh crucified army of Spartacus on the Via Appia.
I really focused on the react on a political and intellectual level against museums. I think that many Native Americans would appreciate the animosity towards the Western need to collect this culture. I wonder if the lack of Buddhist worshipers was pure rhetoric. The line about the statues being unused stones very closely mimics the writing of the Ottoman official who gave the British permission to take the artifacts that included most of the Met's Near East collection.
If I were to interpret the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas through Latour's system of identification for iconoclasts, the Taliban perpetratos would definitely be "C" people. They destroy not just all images, or images as a "freeze-frame" but only those images that are not related to themselves. Since there were "no Afghan Buddhists," these idols were not special to them. However, since they are important to the global community, especially to the western art-lovers, they must be destroyed. By destroying these idols, they were indeed buying into the powerfulness of the images.
Post a Comment