Colors From Palestine 2011
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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
-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.
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.
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 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.
With
your help and support we hope to accomplish the goals we have
set for ourselves.
-Resistance Art
