I Wonder, I wonder…

Suddenly, and twice in the last 45-days, I got mail about how the new and contemporary 7-Wonders of the world were being decided, and how the Taj Mahal was faring poorly in the polling. The messages also admonished me for the situation, and how it could be that despite our huge numbers, such a situation was coming to pass - the Taj Mahal may no longer be one of the Wonders Of The World!!

I thought the first message was some kind of a joke, so I didn’t even try to explore it further. But when the second one came along, I got puzzled enough to consult the oracle, i.e. google. And got directed to ‘…the election of the New 7 Wonders of the World.’ By jove! This was not some weird joke!!

Speaking for myself, I’m not sure that I’d put Machu Picchu, the Great Wall, the Statue of Liberty & the Sydney Opera House in the same list. And also include the Great Pyramid, which happens to be the only survivor of the 7-wonders of the ancient world. Why should you then leave out the Golden Gate bridge? Why not the Potala Palace?

The job of the panel was an extremely difficult one. At the end of 2005, they had to choose just 21 potential wonders from among the 77 sites which attracted the most votes throughout the campaign. The choice of the international experts was based on the architectural and cultural importance, as well as the beauty of the monuments and structures.

My initial reaction of skepticism (which still lingers) was somewhat mellowed by wandering around the site and reading about the motive behind the effort, viz.

The New7Wonders Foundation, which is the body behind the New7Wonders campaign, has the express aim of documenting, maintaining, restoring and reconstructing world heritage under the motto:
“OUR HERITAGE IS OUR FUTURE.”
The New7Wonders Foundation calls on all citizens of the world to support it. Through film, television, the Internet and books, people shall be alerted to the destruction of nature and the decay of our man-made heritage. Monuments in jeopardy, perhaps in a dangerous state of decay, can be saved by publicizing their beauty and highlighting their plight to the international community.

It appears that the process has been underway for some time now, although the specifics are not available on the site. There is mention of an original list of 77, but no further details. The ‘expert panel’ short-listed 21 based on votes and their views, but nothing about the specific mechanisms followed. If preserving our heritage is the aim, then wouldn’t age be an important factor? Wouldn’t the ‘threat’ that the site faced be extremely important? The Bamiyan Buddha Project of the N7W Foundation is definitely a wonderful initiative according to me, and also makes the inclusion of the Sydney Opera House rather incongruous.

And I wonder about the sense of an Internet/voting based mechanism of deciding something like this. It results in things like “India Unites for the Taj!” hoardings that have suddenly appeared. And that vexes me - the either-or nature of things; should I not be wonder-struck by Angkor and the Acropolis? Why should we have to compare between the Taj & Petra, are they both not magnificent representatives of our shared heritage? And if I’m not even able to compare, how will I ever be able to rank? And then chose one out of the eminences?

Yet I’m not sure that I could suggest some better way. I would have appreciated something less exclusionary, more inclusive. Why only 7-Wonders and not 77, in keeping with the acceleration of our age? More pragmatically, something more elegant than asking me to force a choice in a list where (almost) every entry is so magnificent that comparison becomes meaningless.

So at the risk of sounding unpatriotic, pedantic, idealistic….. whatever, I respectfully decline to participate in the above exercise of ‘Voting to make history.’