Did we really need new 7 Wonders?

I actually don’t know how they chose the old 7 wonders of the World but each of the wonders was pretty worth the title it was given. How and when did this need or may be desire to choose new 7 wonders arise? Nobody knows. At least I don’t and I also don’t think most of you even knew that there was a process underway to choose new 7 wonders until the pre-final and final voting started. Most people who voted may still not know what the final 7 wonders are, what they cared for is if the wonder they voted for made it to the top 7.

History of the 7 wonders

The very old 7 wonders (2nd Century BC) known as

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient world

Pyramids of Egypt at Giza*
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus
Temple of Artemis
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Pharos of Alexandria

*The only Ancient wonder that still exists

The new 7 wonders

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Colosseum in Rome
Taj Mahal in India
The Great Wall of China
Jordan’s ancient city of Petra
The Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru
The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico

The new 7 wonders website says

More than 100 million votes had been cast by citizens around the world using modern communications technology in this unprecedented global dialogue

What? Did that text have the number 100 million in it? Lets do some math here, the world population is 6 billion+ and they chose new 7 wonders of the world by considering the votes of 100 million which is a mere 0.01% most of whom were people trying to get their national monument into the list. Forget about the wonders people are  far less interested in electing their political leaders even though every democratic country declares the  election day a national holiday. They want to use the day to relax and get some relief from daily chores. Think of a farmer working on his fields, would he be worried about electing new 7 wonders of the world. So such small turnout can be justified but what about modern communication technology? Leaving alone the developed countries, how many in the world have access to modern communication technology.

The only thing cool about this new 7 thing seems to be the choice of date to announce the new 7 wonders, 07.07.07 (7th of July 2007) at Lisbon which again has 7 letters in it. Strictly speaking it was not really a tuff choice. They at least had to have something interesting to draw the attention of the rich who can donate more and more funds for …. guess what monument conservation and documentation worldwide. Ok monuments are important and they are symbols of various cultures but aren’t there other things like hunger deaths and AIDS which are more important than monument conservation?

The website goes on to say that they have used part of the funds raised to create a 3D model of the statue of Bamiyan Buddha which was destroyed by the Taliban and if the Afghan people are ready to rebuild they are ready to fund that project too. Doesn’t this seem like they are way away from moral thinking? Afghanistan is a country ripped apart by terrorism and war since the time of the cold war when the super powers used it as  a pawn in their strategic moves. Rebuilding some monument would be their last choice.

Well that’s what I think of the new 7 wonders but different people think in different ways, what do you think?