Aisha Chowdhry, "Taliban gone, but Bamiyan still fearful," USA TODAY, 10/25/11

After the explosive destruction of the "Buddhas of Bamiyan" by the Taliban in 2001, the topic of this article is focused mainly on the current prospects of this region of Afghanistan. Yet the issues brought up in this article are dynamic. Despite our culture's efforts to compartmentalize the religious and public sectors into separate spheres, Chowdhry provides a powerful example of the role religion can (and does) play in economic realms. In this way, as the people of Bamiyan attempt to recoup from the terroristic effects from years of Taliban rule, they want to focus on building the foundations for a successful tourist based economy. What became even more interesting to me was the insight into the dynamic between the Islam and Buddhism populations. While the U.S. media coverage of the Taliban seems to be constant, the coverage maintains subtle connotations of their ideology, discussing mainly their threat to the U.S. Because of this, I see the general population often narrowing their view of the Taliban's ideology (especially when associations to al Qaeda are added) to be primarily anti-American. Therefore, this article becomes a rare educative media article, as it discusses the Taliban's motives behind destroying the Buddhas of Bamiyan. As Chowdhry states, "Omar [the Taliban's leader] deemed [the Buddhas of Bamiyan] as un-Islamic idols." Finally, this illustrates how powerfully horrible intolerance can be. Our world could clearly use a few more doses of tolerance.