Palestinian
Embroidery: An innovative adaptation to preserve Palestinian
heritage.
Resistance Art Calendar 2013
Artwork by the Artist Najat El-Khairy
To trace the origin of the cross-stitch
needlepoint, one has to go way back in history to the time of
the Canaanites five to six thousand years ago. The Canaanites
are the roots and origin of the Palestinian people who lived in
this area for thousands of years.
Man cultivated his land since the copper age.
Later in time, raw materials such as cotton, linen and silk were
produced, encouraging the mastery of spinning, weaving and
dyeing. Beautiful textiles were produced to make remarkable
clothes embellished with embroidery.
The mural at the Beni-Hassan Tomb depicted a
group of inhabitants from southern Palestine offering presents
and gifts to the Pharaohs; repetitive geometrical motifs
decorated their clothes. The abstract geometrical patterns recur
as symbols in the weaving of the wandering Bedouins of Arabia &
Palestine.
Before the partition of Palestine in 1948,
the Arab population lived in over eight hundred villages where
the art of embroidery developed.
The Palestinian village women embroidered all
sorts of things: from dresses, head veils and caps decorated
with coins, to cushions, coasters and covers to beautify their
homes. While they helped their husbands in the fields, they
still managed to find time to embroider.
Most of the heavy embroidery was concentrated
in southern Palestine. Costume wearing showed the degree and
social role of the individual, whether he or she was a town
dweller, villager or Bedouin. The more heavily embroidered
dresses were kept for special occasions as they represented
wealth and richness of talent.
Each region in Palestine has a distinctive
style of costume and embroidery.
From each attire, one could know the region from which a person
comes
whether from Ramallah, Haifa, Hebron, Gaza, Bethlehem, Beit
Dajan and so on.
An outstanding characteristic of Palestinian
embroidery is its strong & vibrant array of colours that express
the powerful personalities of the village women. They play a key role in this unique art form.
The dominant colour is deep red in various
shades. It is highlighted with touches of brilliant orange,
pink, green, violet, fuchsia, yellow and white. Black is used
to contrast and outline the patterns.
Bright rich embroidery indicated happiness.
It was worn as a sign of rejoicing during celebrations. The
unmarried girl had her dresses very lightly embroidered as it
was considered shameful to wear heavily embroidered ones before
her marriage. The same goes for the elderly or when a woman is
in mourning; the traditional embroidery colour is blue.
As soon as a girl is old enough to wield a
needle at the age of six or seven, she is taught by her mother,
grandmother or sister how to neat cross-stitch. Countless hours were shared between them to
learn the rich, highly detailed and intricate patterns that have
been passed on through generations.
Later on, she would start embroidering her own trousseau, which
she will proudly show off to the other women in her village.
Most of the embroidery on a Fellaha or
village woman’s dress is concentrated on the chest panel, around
the neck-line, vertical lines on the side panels and the sleeves
and rectangular panels above the hem at the back of the dress.
The position of the embroidery is almost always the same on each
dress. The acceptance of new patterns and motifs differentiated
each dress and gave them their unique appeal. Mistakes can be
detected in old Palestinian embroidery, but they do not spoil
the beauty, on the contrary, they add charm. In fact, deliberate
errors were sometimes made because of their belief that only God
is perfect.
Each pattern or motif has a different name.
The village women picked them from their surroundings: “Palm
Leaves”, “Ears of Corn”, “Cypress Trees”... Other names were
taken from domestic life such as “Bars of Soap “and “Lamps”; yet
others date back to the Ottoman times such as “The Road to
Egypt” and the “Tent of the Pasha”. Some motifs have humorous
names such as “The Old Man’s Teeth”, “Old Man Upside Down”, “The
Baker’s Wife”! The shapes and forms of triangles,
rosettes, and trees used by the Fellaha are geometrical patterns
that lead one to assume she had a great sense of math and
symmetry, as successful embroidery requires careful counting of
fabric thread and the stitches which make the motifs.
One of the rules of cross stitch is that the
top stitches, or the second row, should lie with the same
direction. However, the Palestinian embroideresses alternate
sometimes the direction to give a special effect and to cause
the light to catch the colour from different angles, especially
with the areas of solid embroidery.
Only one kind of cross-stitch is utilized.
However the outcomes are incredibly varied. Other stitches are
also used such as the couching stitch of Bethlehem that was
usually done with metallic silver and golden thin cords, and the
louza (satin) stitch.
This Lavish
embroidery was executed on beautiful linen, cotton and silk
material by using silk floss with exquisite beauty and
shininess, but during the years of 1930-1940, it became
difficult and too expensive for the Palestinian Fellaha to
obtain the silk floss from Syria and Lebanon. This is why Perlé
cotton made by Dolful Mieg et Cie (called DMC) was imported from
France and used as a substitute.
Since these wonderful dresses and items are
made of material and fabric that can perish with time, Najat El-Taji
El-Khairy began looking for new ways of preserving
Palestinian embroidery. Reclaiming and
documenting Palestinian art by painting it and preserving it on
a lasting porcelain surface to show the beautiful and distinct
richness of Palestinian heritage became her mission. As it
happens, Najat means rescue and survival.
To embroider, certain tools are utilized.
They consist of a canvas or fabric, a thread, and a needle. To
implement the idea, she replaced these tools with tiles or
porcelain squares, paint, and a fine pen, respectively.
This innovative merge of two art forms was her way of protecting
and preserving the heritage of Palestinian art for generations
to come. She utilizes a variety of
proprietary painting techniques developed over her career. Every
piece is hand-painted, unique and original requiring critical,
meticulous precision work with strict attention to detail. After
painting, the porcelain undergoes several high temperature kiln
firings that preserve the artist’s creation. It is a
“Renaissance “of Palestinian embroidery.
Each design is carefully chosen according to
the subject, and therefore the combination of motifs conveys the
message she wants to relay...In this sense she speaks through
her art. And that is why she paints-- to safeguard Palestine’s
exquisite artistic heritage.
The Artist says: “It is my way
of immortalizing Palestine’s Heritage and thus, My Cause".
=================================
Mahmoud Drawish
1941-2008
We dedicate the "Colors from
Palestine" 2012 Calendar to the memory of Mahmoud Darwish,
who has quietly
left us on Saturday 9 August 2008 after 67 years of a life
jumping from one peak to another, rising higher every time, He
was able to see what no one else can see: in life, politics, and
even people, expressing his visions in a language that seems to
be made only for him to write with.
Mahmoud Darwish
In the presence of Absence
Born on 13 March 1941 in Al
Birweh, a quaint village in the Galilee, Mahmoud Darwish went on
to live a life that is a poignant example of how far talent and
determination, combined with a precarious life, can carry an
individual from a simple background into the international halls
of fame. At the early age of seven, Darwish and his family were
forced to flee to Lebanon to escape the ongoing massacres by the
Israeli Army as it occupied Palestine and, in the process,
destroyed the poet’s village (in addition to over 400 other
Palestinian villages). Returning “illegally” to their country
the following year, he and his family were subjected to military
rule and emergency regulations of the State of Israel
established over expropriated Palestinian land. They were given
the status of “present-absent alien,” a status that will mark
the poet from that point onwards, preventing him from ever
finding his homeland, except in his language and his ever-loving
audience.
It was as early as 1950
that the poet first realized how the poem can be “a threat to
the sword” as he was harassed by the Israeli military governor
for writing and reciting poetry that expressed his strong sense
of Arab and Palestinian identity. These “harassments” were to
continue until 1970 when he left to Moscow and then to Egypt, to
finally settle for a while in Beirut until the Israeli invasion
in 1982. After Beirut he became a “wondering exile” in Arab
capitals, settling in Paris for a while, then Amman, and finally
Ramallah, moving a step closer to the home which he still cannot
reach. The circle is not yet complete….
“There is no age sufficient for me
to pull my end to my beginning.”
(Mural)
His life in the exodus
somehow helped to ignite the poetic flame within him and exile
became one of the sources of his literary creation. However,
despite his geographic separation from his homeland, Darwish
continued over the years to disrupt the status quo in Israel
through the medium of poetry. In 1988, his widely circulated
militant poem “Passers by in Passing Words,” a poem that he does
not think highly of in literary terms but that nevertheless was
met with great acclaim amongst the Arab public, was cause for a
great uproar in Israeli circles, both the right and left wing
alike. A book in French entitled “Palestine Mon Pays: L’affaire
du Poeme,” published by Les Editions de Minuit in 1988,
documents some of the articles that were written in defence of
Darwish and his poem. In a similar manner, but this time in
March 2000, Yossi Sarid, then the minister of education in
Israel, suggested the inclusion of Darwish’s poetry in the
Israeli high school curriculum. This suggestion resulted in a
very close no-confidence vote for the Barak government.
The year 2000 witnessed the
publication of Darwish’s twentieth book of poetry, Mural, a
masterpiece epic poem which synthesizes his experience and
poetry spanning 36 years as he contemplated impending “eternity”
in a hospital bed after having undergone life-threatening
surgery in 1998. In addition, he has five books of prose, and
his work has been translated into more than 22 languages.
His most recent
translations in English, “Mahmoud Darwish: Adam of Two Edens” (Jusoor
and Syracuse University Press, 2000) and “The Raven’s Ink: A
Chapbook” (Lannan Foundation, 2001) include a host of Darwish’s
most acclaimed poems written between 1984 and 1999. Even though
“he is known the world over as the poet of Palestine,” as
Margaret Obank says in her review of “The Adam of Two Edens,”
Darwish’s poetry “has been published only sparingly in English.”
These two volumes are an excellent introduction, in English, to
this poet who is considered to be “indisputably among the
greatest of our century’s poets.” (Carolyne Forche)
It is perhaps Darwish’s
very special relationship to the Arabic language that has set
him apart from other Arab poets of his time. Putting the
political cause aside, a double-edged sword in the case of the
poet’s literary career, Darwish has created a new zone in the
Arabic language that he can call his own: he constructs his
kingdom – homeland in language. Considered by one prominent Arab
literary critics as “the saviour of the Arabic language,”
Darwish manages to describe mundane events and uncover his (and
his people’s) innermost feelings through words juxtaposed in the
most idiosyncratic of contexts, creating fascinating new images.
The symbols, metaphors, and style in his poetry are carefully
chosen; yet at the same time they reflect an integrity and
clairvoyance that are a unique characteristic of this writer. A
number of his poems have even been called “prophetic.” With his
artistic intuition and acute political common sense, he manages
to see and read what very few people can. When that
understanding finds its way into a poem, it gains a totally new
significance to the readers, because it usually is an expression
of what they fear most but are unable to utter.
This is true of his
character even in politics. In 1993, when Darwish resigned from
the PLO executive committee to protest the Oslo Accords, he
could see at the time, as very few people within the PLO could,
that there was a structural problem with the accord itself that
would only pave the way for escalation. “I hoped I was wrong.
I’m very sad that I was right.” (New York Times interview)
His relationship to
language remains unsurpassed by any relationship he has with
anyone or anything. Having a special talent for uncovering and
creating the music in language, his poetry has been a fertile
ground for musicians all over the Arab world to compose the most
beautiful and popular of songs. The fact that his words
translate so easily and splendidly into musical lyrics resulted
in a wide array of beautiful songs that are as much a credit to
the poet as they are to the musicians.
Choosing to spend most of
his time during the recent Palestinian Intifada in Ramallah,
under siege, Darwish wrote three extraordinary poems of
resistance slightly reminiscent of his early poetry. “Mohammad,”
“ The Sacrifice” and “A State of Siege” were published in
newspapers in Palestine and the Arab world during 2001 – 2002.
The last one, “A State of Siege,” is currently being published
in a book in Arabic, to become Darwish’s 21st book of poetry. In
this last poem, he describes the siege of Ramallah and the
Palestinian land in profound images that invoke daily life in a
vivid and multi-layered way:
A woman asked the cloud:
please enfold my loved one
My clothes are soaked with his blood
If you shall not be rain, my love
Be trees
Saturated with fertility, be trees
And if you shall not be trees, my love
Be a stone
Saturated with humidity, be a stone
And if you shall not be a stone, my love
Be a moon
In the loved one’s dream, be a moon
So said a woman to her son
In his funeral
He goes on to add:
During the siege, time becomes a space
That has hardened in its eternity
During the siege, space becomes a time
That is late for its yesterday and tomorrow
(A State of Siege)
Often called “the poet of
the resistance,” and sometimes accused of writing in defence of
Palestinian mainstream politics, Darwish still manages to
constantly defy any strict definition of who and what he is or
wants to be. He wrote the Palestinian declaration of
independence in1988 and many poems of resistance that are an
integral part of every Arab’s consciousness. But he also wrote a
lot about love and death; he wrote poems that can be easily
understood, and others that are so mystifying that many critics
could not begin to decipher. In all this, he remains confident
in his open and honest relationship to his readers. “When I move
closer to pure poetry, Palestinians say go back to what you
were. But I have learned from experience that I can take my
reader with me if he trusts me. I can make my modernity, and I
can play my games if I am sincere.” (New York Times interview)
This intricate relationship with his ever-increasing audience is
best described in this excerpt:
Whenever I search for myself I find the others
And when I search for them
I only find my alien self
So am I the individual- crowd?
(Mural)
Darwish is the recipient of
many international literary awards including the Lotus prize in
1969, the Lenin prize in 1983, France’s highest medal as Knight
of Arts and Belles Lettres in 1997, and the Moroccan Wissam of
intellectual merit handed to him by King Mohammad VI of Morocco.
In 2001, he won the Lannan prize for cultural freedom. This
prize recognizes people whose extraordinary and courageous work
celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry,
and expression. As defined by the foundation, cultural freedom
is the right of individuals and communities to define and
protect valued and diverse ways of life currently threatened by
globalisation.
His reputation all over the
world as a highly esteemed poet and individual is partly due to
the fact that Mahmoud Darwish affirms an open conception of what
being an Arab is. Arab, to him, is not an identity closed unto
itself, but a pluralism totally open unto others. In his
oeuvres, he dialogues with a group of cultures (Canaanite,
Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Persian, Egyptian, Arab, French, English,
Ottoman, Native American) as well as with myths of the three
monotheistic religions. These dialogues create multiple layers
within the poem that may be difficult to appreciate unless the
reader can develop a full understanding of the “I”s and the
“others” of the text.
When Darwish gives a poetry
reading anywhere in the Arab world, a rare event, he easily
draws thousands of people from all walks of life and social
classes. It is as if he has become a personal possession, a
national treasure, for every Arab, regardless of age, education,
background, nationality, or religion. Now in translation perhaps
he will also be embraced elsewhere in the world. No poet has
been expropriated as Mahmoud Darwish has been over the past
thirty years. No one realizes this more than him:
And history makes fun of its victims
And its heroes
Takes a look at them and passes by
This sea is mine
This moist air is mine
And my name-
Even if I spell it wrong on the coffin –
Is mine
As for me,
Now that I am filled with all the possible
Reasons for departure –
I am not mine.
I am not mine
I am not mine…
(Mural)
Author:
Serene Huleileh
Source: www.mahmouddarwish.com
==================================
Colors from Palestine 2011
Calendar
The Power of
Culture Over the Culture of Power
When cultural freedoms are denied, culture inevitably
becomes a political act, and the celebration of Palestinian
culture becomes a form of resistance. Throughout history, art
has always been the voice of freedom under oppression. The
blooming of the Palestinian culture under the harsh Israeli
occupation and oppression is a true example of the strength and
defiance of the Palestinian character. In this light, the sheer
vibrancy of Palestinian cultural life is symbolic of both the
resilience of Palestinian culture and the perseverance of
Palestinian humanity.
The immense Arab cultural heritage of Jerusalem is undeniable,
so it would seem an uncontroversial choice by UNESCO to be the
Arab Capital of Culture for 2009. However, Israeli Internal
Security Minister Avi Dichter issued injunctions banning all
events to celebrate the festival in Jerusalem, instructing the
Israeli police to "suppress any attempts by the Palestinians to
hold events in Jerusalem and throughout the rest of the
country". On the day of the launch, hundreds of police and
border guard officials were deployed in occupied East Jerusalem,
and shut down celebratory events, including a soccer match at a
school, and a conference for young women.
The Executive Director for the event, Varsen Aghabkhian,
described the confrontation in Jerusalem, where twenty
Palestinians were arrested: "We had no stones, no guns and no
rockets. We had balloons and white flags. We stood up in front
of the Israeli soldiers and their artillery. They were
threatening the balloons and the clowns. It was very ridiculous,
like if balloons were so scary. The world should know that: The
retaliation is harsh, even when you’re only armed with
balloons".
The same week, Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter
also ordered the closure of the Palestinian Literary Festival,
organized by UNESCO and the British Council. It was decided to
begin and end the festival in Jerusalem to celebrate its year as
a Cultural Capital. The annual event has had an illustrious list
of patrons including Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and Harold
Pinter. The Palestinian National Theatre, hosting the opening
event, was closed by armed Israeli security forces despite the
presence of high profile international authors - including
Michael Palin and Ahdaf Soueif - who were forced to relocate to
the French Cultural Center. The closing event, to be hosted at
the same theatre, was also shut down by Israeli forces:
participants continued the event at the British Council.
While proclaiming its legitimacy as the only democracy in the
Middle East, Israel imposes approximately 1500 military
regulations on the West Bank. Most of the 11,000 Palestinian
prisoners held in Israeli jails are charged with offenses under
these regulations, which include bans on political meetings,
protest marches, and the distribution of articles or pictures
with "political connotations". Military Order # 938 defines
holding a Palestinian flag or listening to a nationalist song as
a” hostile action” punishable by jail term.
The Israeli government is currently seeking to suppress freedom
of expression even inside Israel. The Ministerial Committee on
Legislation in Israel recently approved a bill to ban Nakba day.
Nakba, the Arabic word for ’catastrophe’, refers to the
Palestinian expulsion from their land in 1948, and is
commemorated every year on the 15th of May. Under the new bill,
to mourn this day could result in a three year jail term.
The Palestinian intellectual Edward Said called for the
reaffirmation of "the power of culture over the culture of
power", and the ingenuity with which Palestinians overcome the
Israeli military time and time again to celebrate their culture
suggests they have heard his call. Palestine remains a cultural
hub of activity with numerous visual and performing arts events,
and eclectic art projects.
=================================
Carlos Latuff
A Cartoonist with an edge
In an appreciation of the solidarity work of international
artists, Resistance Art is introducing a "World for Palestine"
calendar series for international artists who are committed to
the Palestinian struggle and social justice in the world. We
begin our "World for Palestine" series with a talented and
gifted cartoonist Carlos Latuff. Carlos is a Brazilian artist
who devoted his art to fight oppression wherever it existed in
the world. Carlos has been a professional artist since 1989. He
started as an illustrator for a small advertising agency and
then worked as a political cartoonist for trade union papers in
1990, but he has been drawing since he was a kid.
Based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Carlos has crafted a style that
can be described as Political cartoonist with a unique courage
that knows no compromise when it comes to supporting the
struggle against oppression.
He has touched on issues like Apartheid in South Africa, the
plight of Native Americans in the US and the oppression of
Tibetans in China. But perhaps his most known series to date is
"We are all Palestinians" in which he compares the actions taken
by the Israeli government towards Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip directly to the Nazi's treatment of Jews.
Carlos visited Palestine for the first time in 1999. He was
shocked by the brutal Israeli occupation practices against the
Palestinian. He saw first hand the daily humiliation of the
entire Palestinian population, imprisonment without charges,
house destructions, the closure of cities that last for days and
weeks, the Israeli settlers' barbaric attacks on Palestinian
farmers, the targeted killing of Palestinian political
activists, and the fear in children eyes of an occupation that
has denied them their childhood. The visit transformed his views
and his Palestine related cartoons; He became more forceful in
exposing the Zionist lies about the nature of the Palestinian
Israeli conflict. Because of his sharp condemnation of Israeli
occupation, he was accused of anti-Semitism. In an Interview
with the Jewish cultural scholar Eddy Portnoy, Latuff said,
"regarding cartoons and anti-Semitism, I feel comfortable enough
to make any comparison I think necessary that expresses my
point. Metaphors are the key point to political cartooning. Of
course Israel isn't building gas chambers in the West Bank, but
surely we can find similarities between the treatment given to
Palestinians by the [Israel Defense Forces] and the Jews under
Nazi rule. It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors
of Palestinians. If they were Christians, Muslims or Buddhists,
I would criticize them the same way". He added in another
interview "I produced political cartoons on different issues,
both local (Brazilian) and international. My detractors say that
the use of the Star of David in my Israel-related cartoons is
irrefutable proof of anti-Semitism; however, it's not my fault
if Israel chose sacred religious symbols as national symbols,
such as the Knesset Menorah or the Star of David in
killing-machines like F-16 jets. I can't be blamed for making an
Israeli bomb-dropping warbirds adorned with a religious symbol,
because that's the way Israeli air force planes are. To say my
cartoons are a remake of the past anti-Semitic imagery is just
another well-known strategy for discrediting criticisms
regarding Israel.
His work on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict made him a target
to the Israeli terror machine; to the point that the Likud party
in Israel (the ruling party today) openly called for his
assassination. On the Likud party official web site they called
for "Neutralizing Lattuf by any means necessary". When Carlos
was asked about the open call to "assassinate him, he said "Of
course, we can expect anything from IsraHell. If they can carry
on "selective killings" of Palestinians, and carpet Beirut with
tons of bombs murdering hundreds of civilians, what is the big
deal about "neutralizing" one cartoonist in Brazil? Death
threats, cheap attempts to terrorize me, however, will not
prevent me from supporting Palestinians in their struggle
against brutal Israeli occupation. The most that Likud creeps
can do is silence me with a bullet, but they will never be able
to silence my art."
Carlos art is not for every taste. He does not cater to the
views of the media. His art is made for people living in Gaza,
in Baghdad, in the slums of Latin America, ordinary people, the
populace. He hopes his art can boost the morale of people
suffering and the freedom fighters in every corner of the
planet. Touching the taboo of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
is always controversial, especially when you take the side of
the oppressed. Carlos art breaks the common perception of the
issue and it challenges the mainstream version of the conflict.
You can follow his work and fights for justice on the web
http://latuff2.deviantart.com/ & http://tales-of-iraq-war.blogspot.com
In solidarity
Mohammad Said
Resistance Art
===================================
Does Israel have the right to
exist?
A very frequently used question designed to confuse
and distort the fact of the Palestinian Israeli conflict; to
which the so obvious answer is: Israel does not have the right
to ethnically cleanse 750,000 Palestinian and steal 78% of
Palestine (Known to the Palestinian as an Nakba) so it can have
a place to exist. Israel does not have the right to imprison 1.5
million Palestinians in Gaza after she made them refugees.
Israel does not have the right to inflect horror and atrocities
against the Palestinian people on a daily bases so it can have a
place to exist. Israel does not have the right to terrorize, to
dispossess, to torture people in order to have a place" to
exist". Israel does not have the right to take away other
people's rights. The answer is as simple as that.
Everyone and for that matter everything have "the right to
exist". If one reviews the relevant universally accepted rights.
One should not miss the very first point which is the right of
the Palestinian people to keep their own country, if this is an
accepted right for the Palestinians!! Then when Israel is
stealing Palestinian land on a daily bases and creating an
apartheid system in Palestine; it is Israel who started the
hostilities, not the other way around. Sequencing the
Palestinians as the aggressors and the Zionists as the victims
is a very vicious perversion of the facts. But who perpetrated
this odious shift? Who benefited from that monumental fraud by
breaking the simplest laws of logic and human decency?
What happened to the Jewish people in Europe was an absolute
evil, and all humanity specially the Jewish people should work
hard to insure that this kind of crime and atrocities never
happen to any one again. It is very sad and wrong for the
victims become the oppressors. What Israel and its Zionist elite
are doing to the Palestinian people is an absolute evil. What
happened (and still happening right now) to the Palestinians
people and to Palestine is an absolute wrong, two wrong never
make a right. Or is there a very special class of people who
enjoy very special "rights", which annihilates other people's
most basic rights? Is this horrible human cost that the
Palestinian ends up having to pay in order to ensure that Israel
has a special right to exist?
The only way that "that right of Israel to exist" could be
special if it implies the right to exist in someone else's
country and in order to do so: the right to wipe Palestine off
the map and the right to do all other necessary horrors to
Palestinians who don't want to be dispossessed of their country,
of their lives, of their most basic human rights. Of course,
these issues are far away from being addressed and always denied
for the benefit of Israel to have the right to exist. If the
Palestinians do not have the same rights, then this situation is
one of the most repugnant case of double standards, once more,
the Israel's core argumentation is an insult to our collective
intelligence, but again there is nothing to stop the reaping of
its benefits. Will you be for or against the RIGHT of Israel to
exist at your place in your own country? And when they are
forced to, they'll condescend to negotiate with you some
leftovers of what they stole from you at the first place. This
obviously rhetorical question was just to make one approaches
how one of the millions of Palestinians could feel
And by the way are you a Palestinian Nakba denier?
-Resistance Art
Naji Al-Ali & 60 years of
dispossession
In a simple and forceful way, Naji cuts
though all lies and disguises and brings the truth to the masses.
Naji is perhaps best known as the creator of the character Handala, who is depicted as a ten-year old boy and appeared for
the first time in Al-Siyasa newspaper in Kuwait in 1969. The
figure turned his back to the viewer from the year 1973, and
clasped his hands behind his back.
“He is an icon that stands to watch me
from slipping. And his hands behind his back are a symbol of
rejection of all the present negative tides in our region.”
Naji
Al-Ali
Handala remains an iconic symbol of
Palestinian identity and defiance.
We
dedicate the “Colors of Palestine” 2008 Wall Calendar to the
memory of Naji Al-Ali. Noted for the sharp
political criticism in his work. On July 22, 1987 he was shot in
the face, at point blank range, as he left the London office of
the Al Qabbas newspaper where he worked. He died after laying in
a coma for 5 weeks.
In the year 2005 more than 170 civil
organizations in Palestine called on the world to help them with
their struggle against Israel apartheid in Palestine, they called
for Boycott, Divestment and sanction campaigns against the racist
state of Israel. Naji believed in ordinary people and their
ability to change their reality, he was convinced if we mobilize
the poor, the hungry and the marginalized they will change the
course of history. Resistance art calls on you (the citizens
of the world) to boycott apartheid Israel, and to assist the Palestinian
refugees to go home and live in dignity and peace on their land.
Let's make 2008 the year of justice for the Palestinian people.
Culture
and art are the soul of human civilizations. Throughout history,
culture and art have always been the celebration of freedom under
oppression. The blooming of Palestinian culture and art under
harsh and thorny conditions is a true example of the strength
and defiance of the Palestinian character. The Palestinian art
and artists have come a long way over the years and are beginning
to enjoy international fame. Palestinian artists ought to be recognized
for their creativity, talents, and persistence.
Resistance
Art is a Palestinian initiative to celebrate the diversity and
richness of Palestinian art and culture. As John Lennon said,
"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding is all
you see." It takes courage to face life with eyes open. We,
at Resistance Art, are happy to present to you a small window
to the Palestinian people and culture. We would like to extend
our thanks and gratitude to all Palestinian artists, who have
been very supportive of this initiative.
With
your help and support we hope to accomplish the goals we have
set for ourselves.
-Resistance Art
