If the perpetrators were targeting the two statues deliberately, they were likely Islamic hardliners. Besides removing supposed temptations to idolatry, Islamic jihadists want to destroy the artifacts of non-Muslim civilizations, because doing so testifies to the truth of Islam, as the Qur’an suggests that the destroyed remnants of ancient non-Muslim civilizations are a sign of Allah’s punishment of those who rejected his truth:
Many were the Ways of Life that have passed away before you: travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those who rejected Truth. (Qur’an 3:137)
This is one of the foundations of the Islamic idea that pre-Islamic civilizations, and non-Islamic civilizations, are all jahiliyya — the society of unbelievers, which is worthless. Obviously this cuts against the idea of tourism of ancient sites and non-Muslim religious installations. V. S. Naipaul encountered this attitude in his travels through Muslim countries. For many Muslims, he observed in Among the Believers, “The time before Islam is a time of blackness: that is part of Muslim theology. History has to serve theology.” Naipaul recounted that some Pakistani Muslims, far from valuing the nation’s renowned archaeological site at Mohenjo Daro, saw its ruins as a teaching opportunity for Islam, recommending that Qur’an 3:137 be posted there as a teaching tool.
“Small bombs hit Thai beach, damaging Golden Mermaid,” Associated Press, December 27, 2018 (thanks to M.):
Police in Thailand are investigating two small bombs, one of which damaged an iconic statue on a popular beach in the country’s south.
Police in Songkhla province say they’re looking into whether the bombs were related to a Muslim separatist insurgency that has wracked nearby provinces since 2004, taking almost 7000 lives.
The Golden Mermaid statue, which is an unofficial symbol of the province, was damaged by one bomb. The other took place about 300 metres away, near the beach’s Cat and Mouse sculpture.
The insurgency has mostly affected the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat, which have Muslim majorities in predominantly Buddhist Thailand….
Anjuli Pandavar says
Those Europeans who are so in love with Islam will not get around to doing a cost-benefit analysis of their folly before Muslims show them the result of that neglected analysis. Costs (severely abridged):
Destruction of all churches, chapels and cathedrals, especially the grand ones.
Destruction of all crosses and crucifixes.
Destruction of all nativity scenes, all Christmas cards, all Christmas Trees, etc.
Destruction of all other infidel religious buildings and symbols.
Toppling of all statues and pulling down of all sculptures.
Burning of all paintings and defacing of all frescos.
Smashing of all musical instruments.
Burning down of all libraries.
Destruction of all museums.
Burning down of all theatres, music halls, dance studios, conservatoires, concert halls, etc.
Shutting down of all breweries, wineries, distilleries, bars, taverns and pubs.
Destruction of all ancient monuments, buildings and structures, especially Greek and Roman.
Destruction, or at least defacing, of all friezes and bas reliefs depicting living things.
Benefits: Feel-good for the guilt-ridden.
Now it might be objected that some of these things continue to exist in some Muslim countries, but not for Muslims’ lack of trying to destroy them, on the one hand, or despite their universal indifference, on the other. If Islam is to be Europe’s fate, then those who will achieve such a nightmare will have to be much closer to Muhammad in single-minded savagery and brutality than ISIS. All those clerics and propagandists doing the index-finger salute, including Linda Sarsour and Erdogan, know this very well and are preparing for exactly this.
Prabh108 says
Thank you for your blunt language analysis ji. The sort of bluntness shown in your comment is needed in an age when direct truthful and honest communication is considered to be “impolite”. The real age of ignorance will start if dystopian islamoCaliphate comes into being – all peoples must unite to prevent formation of internationalCaliphate dystopia.
Prabh108
mummymovie says
Great post, Anjuli.
Forget about direct implementation of sharia into governments via legislation (an oft-ridiculed prospect by our skeptics and opponents); it is these components of society that first vanish out of fear of violent vigilante islamic reprisal as a means of sharia enforcement, transforming once vibrant, activity-teeming towns, districts, communities and societies into quiet, tense, crime-ridden ghettos and no-go zones that are characteristic of the plague-like spread of the disease called islam.
gravenimage says
Thailand: Cops investigating whether Muslims set bomb on popular beach that damaged iconic statue
…………………..
Quite likely. Muslims hate all art.
Ewanda says
Islam moves in and purposefully destroys history and historical records. Then they say that there is no proof for when we try to refute their fouled up versions of history, science, geography – and no one so far points to the fact that the proof is gone because Islamic invasions systematically destroy as much accumulated knowledge and history of the ages as they can. They burn everything.
Islam is the longest running Human Experiment in Sensory Deprivation and is pretty well a blight on everything that is human and meaningful.
Remember Jesus came with the Blueprint for the Survival of Mankind and Mohammad has religiously outlined and followed the Blueprint for Last Man Standing.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Mr spencer, you have misconceived Quran 3:137,it is not talking about ways of life of ancient people. it is about archeological materials left behind by ancient people who committed inequities like the body of Pharaoh preserved in Egypt up-to today, not destroy those archeological materials as misguided wahhabists has been doing. In fact the verse is even calling for observation of such archeological materials to learn a lesson. what Islam do is to take what is good in those ancient civilisations and throw away bad ones. Eg, Muslims took Greek philosophy and persian architectural designs and astronomy, but threw away their pagan beliefs of worshipping the sun and fire. But, in that golden tomb showing a naked women like mithraist christian west reviving stone age way of life, there is nothing to learn about that idiocy.