Conclusion: The Uncertainty of Reality

In the political realm, time is not unilinear. The past, even when literally carved in stone, is subject to erosion, revision, and erasure. The 1,700-year-old stone statues of Buddha destroyed by the Taliban, the antiquities wrecked by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the gradual disappearance of America’s Confederate monuments, and the colonial-era monuments and statues smashed and removed from their pedestals throughout Africa all show how fleeting even history carved in stone can be.¹ In all these cases groups currently wielding power sought to erase the memory of a history now inconsistent with their views and visions of the future.