The Significance of Notre Dame
What Happened
Thousands of people gathered to watch in horror the famous Notre Dame Cathedral burn Monday evening. Many stopped on the street to observe, pray, cry. Many watched from their TV and some listened through the radio. The fire started from the top of the roof and made its way down leading to the whole roof collapsing inwards. The firefighters eventually were able to contain the flames and save the two stone towers as the flames were extinguished early Tuesday morning.
The president claimed that he will do everything in his power to rebuild the cathedral and planned to raise worldwide funds in order to do so.
The fire crew confirmed that the “landmark’s rectangular bell towers and structure of the building had been saved”. Many of the statues had been removed earlier that week from the roof in order to be sent to be restored and were therefore spared from the flames. Some artifacts inside such as the Crown of Thorns and paintings were saved and taken out in one piece.
The Significance of the Cathedral
This cathedral contains “priceless works of art” and is one of the world’s most famous tourist attraction due to its appearance in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’. This site attracts around 13 million people from around the world in a year.
“one of the greatest monuments to Christianity in the world, a place of peace and wonder”
Many of the Europeans claim that “Notre-Dame was not only old stones. It's a part of our identity, it's our nation, European culture.”
Backlash on Reparations
Many people argue that these millions, almost a billion euros given to repair the cathedral should be placed on other issues. To certain people, the idea of placing it towards climate change and trying to advance in the human fight to save the Earth is more important than Notre Dame.
Even issues just within France, such as the high taxations could be lessened with this money with would appease the rioters known as the “gilets jaunes”.
So in the end, should the money go towards the reparations of this cathedral as it was originally intended? Or should the government take a second to realize the impact that all the money could have on mankind in the future, appease current problems, and solve future problems instead of restoring the building which Europeans treasure?
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I totally support the backlash that was brought over the funding of a cathedral that has just been discovered to cost only a couple million dollars. Not hundreds of millions. I find that it shows how our priorities are skewed in the wrong direction and in order to save our planet as you mentioned. I wrote a blog post about this earlier and talked about the faulty system that is holding us back as humans.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the money being pushed into restoration could be used instead for a billion better things. Especially since there's a lot of political protest in France right now over wages and unions, and I'm sure some people would benefit from that money. The counterargument might be that 1) it's an important historical monument and 2) it promotes tourism, which will help France earn money. However, I highly doubt that the Cathedral itself earns that much for the country, and the money could be better used to counter terrorism. Unfortunately, to many of the French, they view the destruction of such an important monument as an attack on their identity and feel strongly about its repair.
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