During the
Middle Ages, there was an outbreak of smashing up of statues of religious
significance – iconoclasm, which literally means the destruction of icons –
which the perpetrators (iconoclasts) regarded as idolatrous.
Statues can
be potent symbols of power that may attract iconoclastic attention should they
be associated with toppled regimes. Many a statue of Lenin and Stalin were
brought down after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in Iraq people flocked
to witness statues of Saddam Hussein biting the dust after his demise.
