Seven
world wonders set to be unveiled
Lisbon
- Two millennia after the Greeks listed the seven wonders of the ancient world,
a foundation created by a Swiss millionaire is about to announce seven sites elected
as the modern world wonders in a global Internet vote.
A
glamourous gala event will be held at a huge Lisbon stadium on Saturday to make
public the winners of a competition which has generated enthusiasm outside the
Western world, but come under criticism from art experts and the United Nations.
India's
Taj Mahal, the Christ statue of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Inca city of Machu
Pichu in Peru, the Great Wall of China, the stone city of Petra in Jordan and
Timbuktu in Mali are among the 20 candidates vying to be included among the seven
wonders.
Other
proposed sites are located in Western countries, such as the Statue of Liberty
in New York, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome or Spain's Alhambra
palace.
The
ancient world wonders listed by Greek scholars included the hanging gardens of
Babylon in Iraq, a statue of Zeus and the Colossus of Rhodes in Greece, a temple
of Artemis and the Halicarnassus mausoleum in Turkey as well as the Alexandria
lighthouse in Egypt.
Only
one of the ancient wonders, the great pyramid of Giza in Egypt, still stands.
The
ancient wonders were all in or near the Mediterranean area, and the project launched
in 2000 by Swiss adventurer and millionaire Bernard Weber has aroused interest
in economically less developed countries critical of a eurocentric view of world
history.
When
the Greeks compiled their list, new world wonder enthusiasts point out, they were
not even aware of the existence of the Great Wall of China.
"Putting
the Machu Pichu in the same category as the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum is
very exciting," said Tia Viering of the New Seven Wonders Foundation.
"For
the first time in history, we are creating a global memory," Weber said.
A
panel of experts headed by Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former director of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), selected 20
candidates from among 77 initial ones.
More
than 70 million votes have come in over the Internet and SMS messages in what
is being billed as the first global democratic vote.
Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged citizens to vote for Rio's statue of
Christ the Redeemer, the Jordanian royal family campaigned in favour of Petra,
and the Peruvian government set up Internet terminals to encourage votes for Machu
Pichu.
Companies
and celebrities have joined in, with Brazilian telephone companies waiving the
cost of SMS votes and Indian singers crooning about the beauty of the Taj Mahal.
Spain's
King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero voted for the
Moorish palace-fortress of the Alhambra in Granada, but generally there has been
little enthusiasm in Western countries.
In
the United States, for instance, the candidacy of the Statue of Liberty does not
appear to have mobilised voters.
The
most critical country, however, has been Egypt, which houses the only remaining
ancient world wonder and where officials described Weber's project as unscientific
and "absurd".
The
New Seven Wonders Foundation finally removed the Giza pyramid from the list of
candidates, giving it a special status as an honorary world wonder.
Weber
has also been accused of self-promotion and of seeking financial gain.
The
organisers of the competition claim that publicity will help to protect endangered
monuments.
They
pledge to use half of the funds raised through sponsorship, media rights and marketing
schemes to restore monuments such as the Bamyan Buddha statues destroyed by the
Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
The
Unesco, however, distanced itself from the new world wonders project, stressing
it had no relation with the UN World Heritage Sites.
It
was not sufficient to recognise the emotional value of certain sites, but they
had to be evaluated with scientific criteria and protected with legal measures,
Unesco said on its website.
Weber's
project only reflected the opinion of a public with access to the Internet, Unesco
pointed out.
Voting
was often based on nationalism rather than objective criteria, and there was no
control to prevent the same people from voting many times, observers said.
"You
cannot measure artistic quality with a popular vote," Spanish art historian
Francisco Calvo Serraller said. With such a method, he added, Madrid's Santiago
Bernabeu football stadium - the seat of Real Madrid - could also be included on
a list of world wonders. - Sapa-dpa
