The Not-So-Subtle Art of Protesting: Artists and the Public Space

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
(Anonymous protest poem from the 17th century)

In 1762 Jean Jacques Rousseau published his book, The Social Contract, in which he wrote, "In Greece, all that the populace had to do, it did for itself; it was constantly assembled in the public square." Rousseau was well aware of the importance of public spaces when it came to political change. Indeed, the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 showed the power of the populace against armed guards defending the medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris which at the time represented royal authority. Interestingly enough, the decision had also been taken to replace the Bastille with an open public space and the fortress was demolished within five months. Since then many open public spaces around the world have been the centres of political activity. Political art became an important part of these demonstrations and uprisings in the form of murals, political graffiti and carnival floats. Even earlier political art in the poetic form had a role to play in Rome in the 16th century as people posted poems critical of the popes on statues (originating with the Il Pasquino statue) which soon became known as the Talking Statues of Rome.

​Il Pasquino Photo: rfarmer

​
I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
(Nina Simone)

History Goes to the Wall
In the 1930s the Mexican mural movement brought a whole new way of seeing murals and political art to the disaffected public. Artists such as  Diego Rivera, José Orozco and David Siqueiros created murals which not only depicted Mexican society but also incorporated imagery showing the history of Mexico going back to Aztec culture. These murals depicted the revolutionary struggles of Mexico's peasant farmers and working classes on the land and in the factories. Large murals allowed Rivera to bring his imagery of peasants and working people out of the gallery and into the public space where those depicted would be able to see them. The large 'canvasses' of walls also allowed him to create painted works into which he could put depictions of large groups of people, factories, battle scenes, industrial and scientific imagery accompanied with mythical symbolism and images from nature. His artwork changed from a painterly to a more graphic style to allow for this huge increase in subjects and range of subject matter.

​​David Siqueiros inside his experimental studio

Military Paint the Town Red

The depiction of historical figures and current political struggles became synonymous with the political struggles in Northern Ireland as both sides used murals to heighten and strengthen their views on the future of Ireland. The Irish Republican areas were decorated with murals of the local hunger striker Bobby Sands but also murals in solidarity with international revolutionary groups thus making it a truly global art form rather than just a local focus. In some cases the murals themselves became a site of resistance as British soldiers threw paint bombs at them which in turn led to the creation of designs which could be easily repainted.

​​Derry mural vandalised by RUC and British Army

Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.
(Alexander Herzen)
While murals on local infrastructure belonging to the people were generally the case in Northern Ireland, murals on the Berlin Wall and now the walls in the West Bank are a type of 'arttack' on the presence of the wall itself. Like the Talking Statues of Rome, the Berlin wall became a place where people could express their opinions while tourists traveled to see the artwork. Unfortunately this prettifying aspect of the art may backfire as one writer noted that when Banksy "painted large murals onto the Bethlehem walls, a Palestinian onlooker told him that he made the wall look beautiful. Banksy thanked him only to be told, “We don’t want it to be beautiful. We hate this wall. Go home.”" However, connections between the West Bank walls and the Berlin wall can be seen in the visual similarity between the mural of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a fraternal embrace (entitled "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love ") and the recent mural of Trump and Netanyahu sharing a kiss in a West Bank wall mural. In both cases symbolic depictions of these politicians show up real and problematic aspects of contemporary symbiotic political relationships especially for the people who have to endure the hardships of separation caused by the existence of the walls. The presence of the murals on the walls keeps to the fore, like a nagging toothache, the issues raised in a more efficient way than, for example, constant leafleting might do.

Graffiti Grows Up
Unlike murals, graffiti implies text rather than image and in modern times has become known as tagging, which at its most basic is a personalised signature. As an art form it has moved on in leaps and bounds as we have seen in a move from form to content. Political graffiti is now a form of mural on the go as extremely difficult and dangerous times politically do not allow for leisurely mural painting. It can also give rise to a type of Expressionist mural as faster mark-making and very simplified designs become necessary. A striking example is of a simple but effective drawing of Egyptian police beating and stripping a veiled female protester in Tahrir Square, Cairo, based on a circulated photo during the Arab Spring. As one writer declared:

"Indeed, in the past few weeks Tahrir has became a truly public square. Before it was merely a big and busy traffic circle—and again, its limitations were the result of political design, of policies that not only discouraged but also prohibited public assembly. Under emergency law—established from the moment Mubarak took office in 1981 and yet to be lifted—a gathering of even a few adults in a public square would constitute cause for arrest. Like all autocracies, the Mubarak government understood the power of a true public square, of a place where citizens meet, mingle, promenade, gather, protest, perform and share ideas."

​Mural of Egyptian police beating and stripping a veiled female protester

When it comes to war, we focus more on the mainstream coverage of the event, rather than the event itself. People dying is never funny. Protest puppets are always funny.
(Mo Rocca)

Floating Your Boat
However, the most articulated form of political art of recent times is the papier-mâché floats of the German carnival, Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday, on the streets of Cologne and Düsseldorf. Political satire is the main theme of the floats and no politician is sacrosanct. The papier-mâché sculptures show politicians and political symbols in various compromising positions, e.g. Donald Trump humping the Statue of Liberty. They are political cartoons reified and yet a form of political satire on the go as floats are paraded through the streets for carnival (like a modern Saturnalia) that would never be allowed by the state as an official or permanent type of sculpture in a public space.

​Rose Monday carnival papier-mâché floats

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.
(Will Durant)
The difficulty for modern public resistance is the rationalisation of the public space with CCTV, satellite mapping and photography and militarisation of police forces. Like the 18th century inclosure of the commons acts, modern governments seem determined to limit access to the public space by licensing, movement restrictions and police intimidation of demonstrators. The use of the public space in recent colour revolutions shows how certain elements combine social media and public space activism to bring about Western political agendas, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The existence of snipers in critical public situations has also caused fear and panic that could easily create a potential reticence to use the public space as a form of political resistance.

Virtually Contained
Moreover, it could be argued that the virtual public space has replaced the actual public space with social media. Yet it can be seen the internet is gradually being censored in different ways by governments around the world. The future of political campaigning on the web is uncertain. However it is interesting to see another art form, performance (e.g. the 'die-in'), being used by demonstrators dedicated to people who have been killed by police in the USA in recent years. Performance, like political graffiti and carnival floats, is art that can inhabit or be created in the public space quickly, thus reducing reaction from the state. It also shows that protest or activist art can involve everyone, not just professional artists and designers. Posters and hand-held signs also allow demonstrators to intensify their participation in activities in the public space. Music and ballads often play an important role in demonstrations - particularly ballads - as often an event is converted into a ballad faster than any other art form.

Here we shall stay
sing our songs
take to the angry streets
fill prisons with dignity
(Tawfik Ziad)
Art in the public space has always been contested. In Ireland, many colonial sculptures were either removed or blown up (e.g. Nelson's Pillar) to be replaced with nationalist sculptures instead. Murals are often painted over by state officials. Political posters are taken down or removed not long after they are put up. Performance protesters are removed by police. However, art in all its forms has a role in uniting and giving meaning to struggles the world over. Gathering in the public space is still the most effective and direct form of collective resistance despite state paraphernalia (riot police, water cannons etc.). If, at some time in the future those struggles are successful through the combined activities of a risen people, then the necessity for resistance art will wither away.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/ .

Language Wars

If it is a truism that after a war the victor writes the history, then it could be argued that the victor also chooses the language in which the history will be written. If it is a war of the colonised against the coloniser then the language takes on a special significance as typically the coloniser imposes their language on the colonised. 

Paulo Freire described the way in which cultural conquest leads to the cultural inauthenticity of those who are invaded. They then start to take up the outlook of the invader in terms of their values, standards and goals. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire wrote that cultural invasion would only succeed if the invaded believed in their own cultural inferiority. When convinced of their own inferiority they would see the coloniser and his culture as being superior. Over time, as people become more alienated from their own culture they would see only positives in the culture of the invader and desire to become more and more like them, “to walk like them, dress like them, talk like them.”[1]

However, post-revolutionary, post-colonial situations are complex and reversal of cultural norms a difficult process. The African writer Chinua Achebe wrote about the problems of communication in post-colonial African countries asserting that African writers wrote in English and French because they are “by-products” of the revolutionary processes that led to new nations-states and not just taking advantage of the global French and English language book markets.[2]

This then leads to a difficult situation with competing groups, some using the native languages for the first time on a state level competing with the remnants of the old order who may only be able to speak the language of the former coloniser. As new nation states, post-revolution, usually have more pressing practical problems that need to be dealt with, and in a language the majority can understand, the cultural aspects tend to be put on the back boiler until some time in the future when they may even be forgotten about entirely.

Yet, the regularity with which language issues crop up around the world today is significant and points to a sharpening of political tensions. As inter-élite competition increases, language becomes a battleground upon which political power is augmented or maintained.  The Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci identified the problem very clearly when he noted that the rise in language issues meant that something more serious was bubbling below the surface. He believed that the makeup and widening of the governing class and their need to have popular support led to a change in the cultural hegemony in society.[3] This usually happens when different ethnic or language groups in society become dissatisfied with the services and benefits the state bestows on them and assert a new identity based on language and ethnic history.

In most post-colonial situations language issues centre around struggle over which languages will be taught in schools, the language used in parliament and national media, and even placenames and personal names. In a recent article by Aatish Taseer, he writes about the changing politics of India where placenames have become sites of contention.  He notes the fact that there are many competing ideas of history and even “names reflect that very basic need of having the world see you as you see yourself.” He believes that a former self-confidence in India has given way to a new oversensitivity and a desire to control India’s image.[4]

Taseer sees the source of this oversensitivity as the strengthening of Hindu nationalism which has undergone changes in recent years. In the past people referred to Varanasi by its multiple names including its Muslim-era name Banaras and its ancient Sanskrit name, Kashi. The rise of Hindu nationalism has politicized culture and, according to Taseer, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been built on a weaponized idea of history. Ignoring Muslim sensitivities as a minority ethnic group in India, the B.J.P. president, Amit Shah, described the Muslim period as part of a thousand-year history of slavery in Goa last year.[5]

This monolithic view of Muslims and Muslim culture only serves to stereotype and demonise Muslims and imply that a minority group is oppressing a majority rather than the other way around. The maintenance of power by a linguistic and/or political majority by imposition of its beliefs and linguistic norms on a minority has a long history in Ireland since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. While initially the conservative nationalist forces which won the civil war after British withdrawal (except for the northern 6 counties) brought in some measures for the protection and promulgation of the Irish language (Gaelic), the project declined and soon became associated with the radical nationalist ideology of the defeated forces instead.

The weakness of the current situation for Gaelic can be illustrated with an example of a conservative backlash which played out in Dingle in 2011, a popular small town in the southwest of Ireland. The difficulties and complexities of name change could be seen in the decision to officially rename the town 'An Daingean', its original Gaelic name. As placenames in Ireland are in English (Anglicised versions of Gaelic names) and Gaelic, they can become focal points for cultural conflict as Gaelic speakers try to move away from historical colonial influence. The local people fought back and after six years the President at the time, Mary McAleese, reinstated the town's name back to the Anglicised version ‘Dingle’.[6] Many of the local people saw the Anglicised name as a tourism brand and feared a loss of business through tourist confusion with its Gaelic name.

Similar preference for the language of the colonizer can be seen in a recent article on Algeria in The Economist. In the article the competing school languages of French and Arabic were joined by Berber, made even more complicated by the lack of decision on which of its six dialects to teach. Berber is spoken by around 25% of Algerians and was only recognized last year despite independence from France in 1962. The writer notes that “Algeria’s French-speaking élite prefer their old masters’ lingo.”[7] One adviser to the education minister, Nouria Benghebrit, stated that Arabisation was a mistake and that Algerians “shouldn’t confuse the savage, barbaric colonialism of France with the French language, which is a universal vehicle of science and culture.”[8]

These negative overtones towards Arabic and Berber have parallels in Ireland that Gaelic speakers will recognise from Irish history. In the late nineteenth century, the increased support for Gaelic provoked reaction from various quarters particularly in the academic field. T. W. Rolleston, speaking at the Press Club in 1896 described the language as unfit for thought or consideration by educated people. Supporters of Irish and other aspects of Gaelic culture were seen as parochial traditionalists looking backward and trying to hold back the tide of history.

The struggle for the recognition of Irish as a modern language meant suffering the indignity of a challenge from Rolleston to prove that a piece of prose from a scientific journal could be translated into Irish and then back into English by another translator, without loss of meaning. This was duly carried out successfully by Hyde and MacNeill, two leading Irish nationalists, and accepted by Rolleston. (Of course, the strong historical connection between Arabic and science should also be mentioned here.)

The dubbing of Gaelic speakers as ‘parochial traditionalists’ is still used to swipe at people who assert their linguistic rights [Gaelic is the first official language of Ireland alongside English], won through many decades of political and cultural struggle with the state. The association of Gaelic with radical nationalism has always been a thorn in the side of conservative Anglophiles in Ireland.

Linguistic issues around the world are shaped, as in Ireland, by problems such as negative attitudes, the difficulties of learning new, or old, languages, and élite control of the state and the education system. As Gramsci notes, when cultural conflicts arise we can be sure that something more serious is happening entailing a closer look at local ideologies of inter-élite and class struggles. In Ireland, the fortunes of the Gaelic language rose and fell according to the cultural and ideological needs of the ruling class. The language movements were harnessed when considered a political threat and dismissed when weak.

This can be seen globally where the role of language can be positive or negative depending on the politics of the groups involved. Language is not inherently progressive or reactionary but acts as a carrier of culture as well as a means of communication. Openness towards diverse and different languages and cultures in society implies openness and tolerance towards different groups and a guard against monolithic simplification and racist provocation. When language issues arise they can also demonstrate that for minority groups, the survival of their language depends just as much on social and economic issues (emigration, unemployment, poverty) as the rights it is accorded by the state.

In Ireland, the refusal to accord linguistic rights by British colonialism to Gaelic speakers played an important part in the move of cultural nationalists to political nationalism and the subsequent War of Independence. Colonisers and conservative dominant élites both learned that their own ‘parochial traditionalism’ could be the author of their downfall in the play of history.

 

 by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin (26 August 2017)

 

Notes:

[1] Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Penguin, 1990) 122.

[2] Ali A. Mazrui, The Political Sociology of the English Language: An African Perspective (The Hague: Mouton, 1975) 218.

[3] Antonio Gramsci, Selections From Cultural Writings. Eds. David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, trans. William Boelhower (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1985) 183-184.

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/opinion/india-history.html?mcubz=1

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/opinion/india-history.html?mcubz=1

[6] http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/battle-of-an-daingean-comes-to-an-end-for-dingle-dwellers-26756128.html

[7] https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21726743-arabic-berber-french-and-hybrid-three-vie-dominance-battle-over

[8] https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21726743-arabic-berber-french-and-hybrid-three-vie-dominance-battle-over

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. (http://gaelart.net/). His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/.

The Six 'Secret' Tactics of Empire

The 6 'secret' tactics of empire are strategies of change used by governments, usually covertly, to attain political or military ends through means not normally acceptable to the populace as a whole. The strategies are as follows:

1/ False Flag Attacks

2/ Coercive Engineered Migration

3/ Colour Revolutions
2/ Humanitarian Warfare
3/ Proxy Armies
6/ Fake News

The relationship of the state or a political force to the various strategies depends on the political aim. Sometimes there is a direct and openly admitted relationship to the strategy and sometimes it is fervently denied. The outcome of any such strategy is never guaranteed and, indeed, may even have the opposite effect to that intended. This makes the strategies of change high-risk ventures for the participants as well as those for whom the strategy is hoped to benefit. In some cases these strategies of change seem to be perceived as the only way to change a situation, or at least the most expedient. Their role is to manipulate public opinion on a particular government, state or upcoming political movement to suit the actions, thoughts or desires of another internal or external political force. Like a good magician, the perpetrator of the strategy must make people conscious of the ends but not the means. If the people support a changed environment brought about by strategies of change without realizing or understanding why, then the result can be seen as 'successful'.

1/ False Flag Attacks

​
​​False Flag Attack

Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

False flag attacks are actions carried out covertly to look like another group, nation or state were responsible. While in theory false flags are secret, some public individuals have openly called for false flag operations to be implemented to serve as a basis for initiating war against another country perceived to be an enemy. The history of false flags, however, is not secret and information about many past successful and proposed attacks is freely available on the internet.

2/  Coercive Engineered Migration


​

​​Blue Skies, Blue Seas, Blue Gloves

​Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

Coercive engineered migration is a strategy which acts to overwhelm another country's capacity to cope with a large influx of refugees or migrants. This pressure can affect  competing political interests and thereby change the behavior of the target country.

3/ Colour Revolutions

​
​​Colour Blind:
Orange Revolution - Ukraine, Green Revolution - Iran,
Jeans Revolution - Belarus

Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

Colour revolutions are a form of nonviolent resistance utilizing social media, demonstrations and strikes as a protest against governments especially in changing their geopolitical outlook from one radically different in their past. Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and students have been involved organizing creative non-violent resistance and usually pick a color or a flower as a symbol of their movement.

4/ Fake News

​
​​Green Screen

Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

Fake news is a type of news that often uses disinformation to propagate ideas for political advantage through the broadcast media or social media via the internet. It is used to discredit serious media coverage of an event. For example, video footage of riots in one city were used  on the news by one network to portray a city in a completely different country in a negative light.

5/ Humanitarian Warfare [R2P]

​
​Humanitarian Warfare

Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

Humanitarian warfare is an ironic term describing military interventions which give human rights reasons such as protecting a population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity as the basis for their actions.

6/ Proxy Armies

​
​​Proxy Army

Triptych - Oil on canvas - (60cm x 180cm / 23.6 in x 70.6 in)

A proxy army is an army funded and armed by a foreign opposing power who cannot for political or social sensitivities at home fight directly with the country at war. 

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/.

Deportations and Harassment of Irish Group Traveling to West Bank

A trip to Palestine resulted in deportations and harassment by security as the Israel authorities step up attempts to intimidate or frighten future travelers to the area. During our trip we experienced CS gas, checkpoints, apartheid in action and military harassment of Palestinians. Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin relates his experiences as a member of the group.

Departure
I joined the group in Dublin airport on the morning of September 8th and we flew out to Istanbul where we waited in a transit area cafe for a couple of hours. As it turned out our flight departure lounge for Tel Aviv was next to the cafe where we were sitting and we noticed that an extra layer of security was being prepared by ground staff for the Tel Aviv flight. After boarding, and a smooth Turkish Airlines flight to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, we disembarked and queued up for passport control. I was on my own and after 2 or 3 questions (what was the purpose of my trip, had I been to Israel before, etc). I was given a one month visa and waved through. Meanwhile, however, trouble was brewing as I could hear the two Irish girls at the kiosk next to me being asked to bring the group leader over. I went directly through to the arrivals hall as I had not checked in any bags. Then began a long wait as myself and the few who got through unhindered discovered that security had rounded up as many of the group as they could find including those who had decided to wait in the luggage hall rather than in the arrivals hall. In all 21 were detained and 6 questioned, and of those 4 were deported (Elaine Daly, Fidelma Bonass, Joan Nolan and Stephen McCloskey) a few hours later. The four who were detained were informed that they were being deported to prevent 'illegal immigration' even though they had valid passports and return tickets. Around 4am the others were released and we finally boarded the bus and made the journey to our hotel in Bethlehem.

​West Bank wall and turnstiles


Fact Finding Program

Our tour, though coordinated in Dublin, was organised by the Siraj Centre, a non-profit organization licensed by the Ministry of Tourism and based in Palestine. Our Fact Finding Program included meetings with prominent peace activists, political officials, human rights organizations, settlers and Jewish tour guides. This makes the deportation of our group leader, Elaine Daly, even stranger as she has been organising trips with the Siraj Centre every year from Ireland since 2006.

Sat 9th Sept: Day 1 Bethlehem

On our first morning we attended a talk by Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a local university professor and activist, at the Natural History institute who emhasised the strong link between biodiversity, political struggle for the land and its safeguarding for future generations. It was interesting to note that it had been his son who had first drawn the infamous ‘shrinking’ map of the Palestinian territories showing their loss of land from 1946, 1947, 1967 to the 2000s.

​Entrance to Aida refugee camp

CS gas

Afterwards we headed over to the Lajee Center, a cultural centre beside the main Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem for a talk and a traditional dance display from the local children. Soon however they switched off the air-conditioning and when we asked why we were told that tear gas was coming through the system. Directly outside the window local youth were throwing stones at the Israeli army at the far end of the road. Soon more and more tear gas came into the building and the windows and doors were shut. For most on the tour it was their first experience of the burning effects of CS gas yet for the members of the Lajee Center it had become merely a nuisance. After about a half hour we were able to leave and go for a short tour of the area. We passed under the arch of Aida camp with a giant key symbolising the principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants have a right to return. On our left were simple concrete buildings while on the right the street is cut off from Jerusalem by the Israeli West Bank wall and covered in murals and graffiti.

​Wall mural, Aida refugee camp

Sun 10th Sept:  Day 2 Hebron

The next day on the way to Hebron we stopped off at a small park beside a main road containing the tomb of Baruch Goldstein, the religious extremist who carried out the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron. Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers and wounded another 125. He was then overpowered and beaten to death by the survivors. Goldstein was not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery but his current burial site still attracts Jewish extremists. We drove on to the Cave of Patriarchs or Ibrahimi Mosque where the Goldstein massacre took place. There are now two separate entrances, one for Muslims and one for Jews, both of which we were able to enter. This building is over 2,000 years old is believed to be the oldest continuously used prayer structure in the world. However, it was outside the Mosque at the military checkpoints we witnessed Israeli apartheid for the first time. Palestinians are barred from the using the street and our guide was apprehended by two soldiers. Our group complained to the soldiers but only our guide responded saying he would get a taxi and meet us elsewhere. In the end, the group spontaneously applauded our guide for his patience and perseverance as he was removed from the area. Our waiting bus had only been 50 metres around the corner...



​Ibrahimi Mosque, Hebron

We walked through streets of Hebron going through different stages of clearance. In some places only a few Palestinians were left in the old stone buildings and Israeli street signs had been erected pointing to Jewish places of interest. In other streets nets had been used to stop settlers throwing objects on the shoppers below. Afterwards we were brought to meet with a settler where some asked questions about the settlements and their legality but this ended up with some storming out and others realising how it easy it was to become an Israeli citizen and participate in the land confiscations.

Mon 11th Sept: Day 3 Jerusalem

Our guides were Palestinian and Jewish and both were equally as good when it came to explanations and answering questions from our group. As we drove through East Jerusalem it was pointed out by our Jewish guide that Palestinians pay taxes yet their areas had bad roads and poor rubbish collection services.

Tues 12th Sept: Day 4 Nablus

In Nablus we visited Jacobs Well Church, and then to Balata Camp to meet with a representative from the Yafa cultural Center. The centre was set up in 1996 by the Committee for the Defence of Refugee Rights and offers a range of educational and creative programs to camp residents. We were brought around the closely-built neighbourhoods of the camp where some ‘streets’ were less than one metre wide. After lunch we had a tour in the old city of Nablus and visited the Samaritans Museum. The bustling old city gave us a feel for what many areas should have looked like and felt like without occupation.

​Yafa cultural Center, Nablus

Wed 13th Sept: Day 5 Ramalah

We began the day driving to Ramalah to meet with a speaker from Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). BDS has become an extensive movement against Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism. It is also a Palestinian-led movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world (https://bdsmovement.net/). We also met with a representative from Al Haq, an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation also based in Ramallah (http://www.alhaq.org/). According to their website: 'Al-Haq documents violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the OPT, irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator, and seeks to end such breaches by way of advocacy before national and international mechanisms and by holding the violators accountable.' In the afternoon the group were brought on a sightseeing tour of Jerusalem which I did not participate in due to feeling unwell. Instead, I went with our Palestinian tour guide back to Bethlehem on the public bus instead. As the bus approached the wall we all had get off and pass through the many turnstiles and barricaded-off pathways to get to the other side of the wall. The queues moved quickly enough as the military generally do not carry out checks on Palestinians going home to the West Bank from Jerusalem in the evening. It is in the early morning that the long queues form as workers are stopped and permits scrutinised on the way to work in Jerusalem.



​Old City, Nablus

Thurs 14th Sept: Day 5 Bethlehem

The next day I went back to Jerusalem from Bethlehem on public bus No. 231. At a major checkpoint a male and female soldier got on the bus while about a third of the bus got off to have their permits checked outside. They questioned a Palestinian woman with children for about ten minutes on the bus before suddenly leaving the bus again and letting the others back on. These checks, the roadworks and traffic jams into Jerusalem added up to about 30 minutes onto our journey, a journey which should have taken only around 20 minutes. In the centre I crossed the road and entered into the Old City through Herod's Gate. I headed through the old city markets to the Al-Aqsa Mosque but at various Israeli military check points I was stopped and informed that the Mosque was only open in the mornings. There were 4 or 5 groups of about 20 Israeli soldiers each walking and singing down the narrow streets towards the Western Wall. The area was being prepared for a swearing-in ceremony for Paratrooper recruits taking place that evening. After walking the Via Dolorosa and around to the Damascus Gate I got the bus back to Bethlehem. Later, after dinner with the group in a Palestinian restaurant in Bethlehem, a few of us took a taxi to visit the Banksy's Walled Off Hotel about ten minutes drive away. The 'Walled Off' sits beside the massive wall which is covered in graffiti executed in many styles by various artists. Boasting the 'worst view in the world' the lobby contains a collection of art and there is a museum upstairs. People sat outside on the veranda between the hotel and the wall having a quiet drink in this most incongruous of places.

​Mural near 'Walled Off' hotel

Fri 15th Sept: The Dead Sea

For our last day the group decided to visit the Dead Sea. After arriving at the resort, getting to the water's edge meant walking down layer after layer of beaches as the Dead Sea evaporates. The recession of the water's edge is believed to be about 1 m (3 ft) a year. The speed and breadth of the recession of the Dead Sea was a fitting symbol for the recession of the West Bank itself as more and more settlements and walls reduce further the size of the Palestinian territories.

Early the next morning we were back on the bus to Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport where there was some anxiety as the security checks were known to be more stringent in the departures area than in arrivals area. (Why? a form of damage limitation?) Once again our group was held up to the last minute for our flight to Istanbul. We had a much more pleasant time in Dublin airport where a welcoming committee was waiting for us with a Palestinian flag. Elaine and the other deportees had decided to hold off publicising the deportations so as not to create any unnecessary difficulties for the rest of the group's departure from Tel Aviv. Of course, our problems were nothing compared to the daily experiences and hardships of the Palestinian people being forced through turnstiles, having to obtain multivaried permits, losing land and dwellings, enduring constant military checks and an oppressive political/legal system (like the 17C Penal Laws in Ireland) all because of a particular nationality or religion. The trip left an indelible impression on us as individuals and as a group which would not be easily removed by the self-serving rhetoric of an all-powerful occupying force.

Since our return the issue of the deportations has been raised in various articles in the national newspapers. It has also been brought up during question time in the Dáil (the Irish parliament). Despite not being able to return to the West Bank again, Elaine is already planning to organise two trips to the West Bank from Dublin for 2018. All aboard!

By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin (September 2017)

All photographs copyright Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. (http://gaelart.net/). His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/.

The Choreography of Human Dignity: Blade Runner 2049 and World War Z

The acceptance of violence in cinema today has become the norm. In almost every genre of cinema (even in comedies [Kick Ass] and musicals [Sweeney Todd]) today extreme violence can crop up at some point during the movie. Some film genres are based on violence: horror, war, westerns, crime, terror.

This is especially true of science fiction and zombie movies where 'replicants' (androids/robots) are executed ('retired') and zombies are mowed down with machine guns. And because replicants (Blade Runner 2049) and zombies (World War Z) are not 'human' then the representation of any form of violence can be used to 'take them out'. In both films the replicants and zombies are in revolt globally. If we were to argue that both films were symbolic representations of contemporary global issues then we could explain this depiction of the revolting masses as symbolic of elite anxieties regarding the ever growing masses of slum dwellers and refugees in the world today.

​Blade Runner 2049

It is believed that 863 million people live in slums and around 65 million people live in refugee camps. We live in a global system which has created these problems but is not able to resolve them. Moreover, these numbers are constantly increasing and no state or international organisation has been able to reverse the figures, hence the anxiety.

In Blade Runner 2049 the fear is that the replicants could start reproducing themselves and overrun the planet and in World War Z masses of zombies have already started to take over the world. In both films the overriding concern is how to stop them. In Blade Runner 2049 a replicant's child must be found and destroyed and in World War Z the discovery is made that inoculation with a pathogen causes the zombies to ignore the humans.

​Sweeney Todd

The use of violence to destroy the replicants and zombies is depicted in very graphic scenes. We are being  familiarised with regular violent scenes of 'people' being killed with machine guns, shot point blank in the head, knifed in the heart or executed on the spot. We do not question the morality of such actions because they are 'androids', 'robots',  'zombies', etc. However, when such behaviour is shown in films where humans are depicted, do we question it? Do we think about issues of human dignity, justice before the law, the Geneva Conventions, the abolition of capital punishment? Are we becoming like the mob who shouts 'take him out'?

In film-making the movement of actors before the camera is called 'blocking'. This comes from theatre where small blocks were used to work out the positions of each actor on stage.

Blocking means working out the the details of each actor's moves during filming of each scene. Actors must learn the choreography of hand to hand combat (slaps and punches) and how to work with a gun to look authentic and realistic. The huge increase in realistic violent scenes in cinema has had its physical toll on actors accruing injuries in combat scenes, an increase in stunt actors and ever more realistic computer graphics.

​World War Z

On a symbolic level the human body is becoming more objectified as a dehumanised punch bag, while on a philosophical level there is a move away from humanism to an apocalyptic 'posthuman' view. We are becoming less and less shocked at the sight of torture, pumping blood, bones sticking out, severed limbs, massive gashes in the body, knife wounds and multiple bleeding bullet holes.

It wasn't always like this. In the 1930s Hollywood adopted the self-imposed Hays Code (officially the Motion Picture Production Code) which set out guidelines on what could be depicted in films. While the code covered many aspects of society especially in relation to crime, nudity and religion, it also recommended that 'special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated' such as: 'Arson', 'The use of firearms', 'Brutality and possible gruesomeness', 'Technique of committing murder by whatever method', 'Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime' and 'Rape or attempted rape'.

While some may laugh at the prudery and censorship of cinema during those times (which had been rejected by the early 1960s), others see a more human era when violence was implied rather than graphically depicted.

​Kick Ass

The issues at stake here though are not the problems of censorship or prudery but the depiction and role of violence in cinema. Cui bono? In society who benefits from the constant portrayal of interhuman and internecine violence in the movies? Cinema has a mass popular base and therefore will influence attitudes in society as people watch and discuss films they see in theatres and on television. Cinema is also extremely costly to make and therefore its content is highly constrained by the type of subject matter elites wish to be viewed. It is often said that the director gets first cut and the producers determine the rest.

It is also known that elites foment controversy to keep the people fighting with each other as a form of divide and rule. By recycling controversies in different forms again and again elites create as many divisions as possible that prevent people uniting as one, and, more importantly, uniting against them. In cinema we constantly see people individually and in groups at each others throats arguing and fighting or facing each other off in various types of gun battles.

Fortunately, cinema also has a tradition of film making which revolves around working class unity and solidarity. This comes down to individual writers and directors with a social consciousness who over the years have made films that explored the lives and struggles of ordinary people. Filmmakers themselves are aware of the potential for decline of a film industry without a code of ethics, where anything goes. In recent years the president of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, film director Nikita Mikhalkov, initiated the creation of an ethics charter for the film industry there. The code would be a voluntary, self-regulation of the industry. It is interesting to note that in the United States the Golden Age of Hollywood coincided with the time of the Hays Code.

In the discussion about violence in the cinema part of the debate revolves around just and unjust violence. However, one may ask if the depiction of extreme violence in the revenge of the oppressed is reason enough for the acceptability of its portrayal? Even here the dignity of the human being implies that the ethical imperative is to move away from the horror of extreme violence for the possibility of the creation of a genuinely civilised future.

Misrepresenting the People

The recent article League of Nationalists in The Economist (19-11-2016, pps. 51-54) sets out to answer the question: “All around the world, nationalists are gaining ground. Why?”

Despite noting that “many countries are shifting from the universal, civic nationalism towards the blood-and-soil, ethnic sort”, the authors agree that “comparisons with the 1930s are fatuous.”

The authors also argue that “as positive patriotism warps into negative nationalism, solidarity is mutating into distrust of minorities”. It could also be argued that, with the election of Trump, negative nationalism [Bushism] is warping into positive patriotism [Trumpism] as Americans demand that their multinational corporations be held accountable for their evasion of their responsibilities to the state which they managed through the creation of tariff free areas [in the past state income consisted of up to 90% of tariffs], export of jobs [outsourcing] and  tax reductions [in Ireland their taxes had been reduced to as little as 2%].

According to the article: 

“Many westerners, particularly older ones, liked their countries as they were and never asked for the immigration that turned Europe more Muslim and America less white and Protestant. They object to their discomfort being dismissed as racism.”

They liked their countries as they were before when their countries were less indebted, less involved in military activities abroad and basic services did not roll from crisis to crisis. After all, it was not their decision to be re-designated ‘consumer’ rather than ‘citizen’.

They also write:

“Western voters aged 60 and over – the most national cohort – have lived through a faster cultural and economic overhaul than any previous generation, and seem to have had enough.”

It is true they have had enough. They have seen university fees and taxes going up and social services going down. They have seen through immigration as mainly facilitating military adventurism abroad. They are long in the tooth enough to know that there is no real democracy in the EU. They want to wrest control of their society back into their own hands for their future and the future of their naive iphone obsessed children. Maybe for the first time in their lives they have made a political decision that was actually in accordance with all the realisations they have had over the years but never acted upon.

 
They do “dislike the balkanisation of their countries into identity groups” as they grew up with concepts like that of the ‘citizen’ where all were equal before the state in the social contract of rights and responsibilities.

These ‘nationalists’ are contrasted with liberals whose “two sources of identity: being a good global citizen (who cares about climate change and sweatshops in Bangladesh) and belonging to an identity group that has nothing to do with the nation (Hispanic, gay, Buddhist, etc).”  Liberals stress non-nationalist identities and welcoming in immigrants. This is laudatory except they do this without questioning why the immigrants are coming in and doing something about it or else they support the wars of dominance that result in the mass migrations of their victims to safe havens away from the ‘dictators’. The liberal dislike of any state control makes them easy prey to those who really couldn’t care less if Bashar al-Assad, for example, is a ‘dictator’ or not, but, rather whose geopolitical side he is dictating on.

Some populist leaders supporting Brexit tend to emphasise the objectives of ordinary people but studiously avoid the agenda of the 1%. They avoid discussing the geopolitical alignments and re-alignments of their political masters, their agendas for global domination, their constant creation of new free trade areas, their endless sourcing out to the cheapest labour costs in the world,  their unceasing  seeking out of the lowest taxation on their profits and their control of the media and the banks everywhere.

These populists misrepresent people as having narrow concerns like the future of their pensions or racist fears of immigrants ‘taking our jobs’. They seek to rile up anger to gain support for narrow right-wing ends. For the liberals any questioning of the weakness of the state is perceived to be a movement towards ‘fascism’. However, they miss the point. Unlike the liberals, the working class is not afraid of a strong state. People want a state that protects their jobs, strong borders that keep out criminals, and decent health and education systems that their taxes are supposed to be paying for. 

The vote for Trump proves that ordinary people are very well aware of the negative sides of neo-liberalism. Trump has talked about bringing jobs home, controlling immigration, investment in infrastructure and creating a stronger pro-people state and the people supported him. The people are also well aware that the liberal cry that ‘governments can’t do anything about growth’ is a sleight of hand when it is no secret that neo-liberals are doing their damnedest to reduce the power of the state in the first place.

The Economist article sub-heading ‘Nations once again’ refers to the poem A Nation Once Again by the Irish poet Thomas Davis who calls on the Irish people to throw off colonialism and take control of their own destiny. However, the article makes a jump from the nationalism, ‘controlling one’s destiny’, referred to in the sub-heading to a ‘better question’: “what turns civic nationalism into the exclusive sort?”. To want jobs and better services at home and an end to meddling in other people’s countries and economies is anathema to the freedom of the neo-liberal elites to do whatever they like around the world maximizing profits and monopolizing control of world markets.

Sure, Brexit and the Trump election are good examples of passive politics, of people sitting back, casting a vote and hoping for the best, or at least better. There is nothing new in this, it may even be a case of ‘we pretend to vote and you pretend to lead’. In the past the dangers of passive politics were pointed out by various writers such as James Connolly who wrote: “If the national movement of our day is not merely to re-enact the old sad tragedies of our past history, it must show itself capable of rising to the exigencies of the moment.”[1] Frantz Fanon also pointed this out in The Wretched of the Earth:

“We have seen […] that nationalism, that magnificent song that made the people rise against their oppressors, stops short, falters and dies away on the day that independence is proclaimed. Nationalism is not a political doctrine, nor a programme. If you really want your country to avoid regression, or at best halts and uncertainties, a rapid step must be taken from national consciousness to political and social consciousness.”[2]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was aware of the dangers of passive politics. He advocated a more proactive approach of continual political activity. He wrote, (notwithstanding the existence of slavery at the time), “[a]mong the Greeks, whatever the people had to do, they did themselves; they were constantly assembled in the market place.”[3]

It is likely that Trump will disappoint his supporters given the limitations of his new position but the possibilities for change signaled by Trump should give people hope and make them realise that only by getting out on the streets and showing their strength in numbers, choosing their own representatives and leaders and demanding change will anything progress.

[1] P. Beresford Ellis, ed., James Connolly: Selected Writings (Middlesex: Pellican, 1973) 121.

[2] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin, 1990) 163.

[3] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right [1762] (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1998) 45.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist who has exhibited widely around Ireland. His work consists of paintings based on cityscapes of Dublin, Irish history and geopolitical themes (http://gaelart.net/). His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/.