Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights: Take Another Look 1666932817, 9781666932812

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Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights

Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights Take Another Look

Philip Hopper and Evan Renfro

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2024 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-66693-281-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-66693-282-9 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

List of Figures

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Prefacexiii Acknowledgmentsxvii Introduction: Creating, Looking, and Looking Again 1 The Murals of Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction

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2 The Murals of Palestine: A Very Short Introduction

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3 Prescriptions of Power

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4 Intents and Effects in Belfast

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5 Image, Text, and Ideology in Ramallah

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6 Nakba Day: The Ephemera of Martyrdom

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7 The Potency of Childhood Martyrdom

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8 Campus in Camps: Redefining Long-Term Refugee Status

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9 Witness101 10 Guernica: A Symbol of Symbols

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References125 Index133 About the Authors

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1 A Gable-End Mural in the Unionist Neighborhood of Shankill, Belfast. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is a paramilitary group. “You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go “is a reference to World War I. July 2008 Figure 1.2 Upon His Death, May 5, 1981, After a Sixty-SixDay Hunger Strike in Prison, Bobby Sands Became a Symbol of British Brutality and Oppression for the IRA. That same day, according to the Wikipedia entry about Sands, “in response to a question in the House of Commons, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organization did not allow to many of its victims” June 18, 2018 Figure 1.3 The Conflation of the Bloody Red Hand, Symbolizing a Foundational Myth about Ulster, a Six-Pointed Star of David, and the Confederate Battle Flag Flies in Front of a Working-Class Estate in Loyalist East Belfast. These icons together are beyond ironic given the racist, antisemitic connotations of the Confederate flag. June 2018 Figure 1.4 “Free Khadar Adnan” Stencil in Ramallah. September 2012

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Figure 2.1 The Western or “Wailing” Wall Composes Part of the Temple Mount. The Al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount itself. July 2009 Figure 2.2 A Worshiper Enters the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. July 2009 Figure 3.1 On the Left, a Republican Grave in the Falls Road Milltown Cemetery. On the Right, a Conflation of Unionist Symbols in East Belfast. July 2018 Figure 3.2 A Rendition of One Myth Pertaining to the Origin of the Red Hand Symbol in the North of Ireland. This version was photographed in a working-class Unionist estate called Hopewell Crescent. Belfast 2009 Figure 3.3 The Flag of Israel Claims the Skyline within the Old City of Jerusalem Even as the Muslim Call to Prayer Echoes in the Street Figure 4.1 Devenny’s Palestine Solidarity Mural in 2005 on Top. The text reads “Our day will come” in Arabic and Gaelic. He replaced it with the mural on the bottom in 2008 on the sixtieth anniversary of The Nakba. It depicts the Israeli separation barrier and Palestinian children with housekeys. For Palestinians, the housekey symbolizes the right to return Figure 4.2 When the Attack on Gaza, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, Started in December 2008, Devenney Returned to the Nakba Mural, Painting This Reversal of a John Lennon Lyric. Devenney also destroyed his own mural by painting the mounting death count over it Figure 4.3 Unionist/Loyalist Mural Detail in Newtownards. July 2018 Figure 4.4 Bill Rolston Helps Danny Devenny with a Frederick Douglass Mural during July 2005 Figure 4.5 Unionist Graffiti in the Tiger Bay Area of Belfast. July 2005 Figure 4.6 The Text Associated with This Mural that Rolston Refers to as “Down in the Village” reads: The U.D.A. was formed in September 1971, for most of this time it was a legal organization. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant Loyalist areas and combat Irish Republicanism mainly the IRA. The UDA/UFF declared a ceasefire in 1994. It ended its campaign in 2007 Figure 4.7 A Monument to the Victims of “Bloody Sunday” in the Bogside Area of Derry/Londonderry. May 2004 Figure 4.8 Gerry Adams, the Former President of the Sinn Fein Party with the Current President Mary Lou McDonald at a July 16, 2018, Rally in West Belfast

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List of Figures

Figure 5.1 This Mural by Abu Ayyash Is Across the Street from a Parking Lot for Bethlehem University not Far from the Busy Serveech Station in the Heart of Bethlehem. The text by a Palestinian named Nayef Bazzar reads: “My guts declares my identity.” According to Hamza, Bazzar spent six years in an Israeli jail from age sixteen to twenty-two Figure 5.2 Hamza Wrote the Text Himself. It reads: “My hunger carries my homeland.” Hamza’s figure is carrying the historical map of Palestine with his guts. This detail is significant in that it contains a stencil of the iconic Palestinian hunger striker Kahdar Adnan, which Hamza notes in his interview Figure 5.3 According to Ayyash, the Text Reads “The Day We Are Born Is the Day We Die as Martyrs.” A transliteration is simply “Born to die.” The artist painted this work during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. He dislikes the use of stencils because in his words they are “a commercial way to do graffiti.” However, he effectively uses this technique to detail the child angel’s face Figure 5.4 The Stencil Technique Draws Attention to Similarities to the Images of Dead Children from Gaza, Which Regularly Appear in West Bank Newspapers. Download an example here: https://www​.dropbox​.com​ /s​/waua86eyknl8q21​/2012​-11​-20​-23​.50​.28​.jpg​?dl​=0 Figure 5.5 The Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982 Was the Killing in Lebanon of between 460 and 3,500 Civilians—Mostly Palestinian Refugees and Lebanese Shiites. Many of the victims were decapitated. Hamza spent time in Shatila in 2012 (interview) Figure 5.6 The Caption Bash and Ant Chose “It’s Complicated” Written in English (Bash Went to College in the United States) Speaks Not Only to the Local Occupation But Also to the Transnational Aspirations of the Artists. Vrubal’s original caption, “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love” also applies in the West Bank and in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis. April 2013 Figure 5.7 Bash and Ant’s Graffito of the Palestinian Authority Symbol, Blowing Its Brains Out, Remained Surprisingly without Redaction for about Two Weeks in Central Ramallah. October 2013

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Figure 5.8 Ant’s Tag Remains Uncovered amid Texts/Images Critical of the PA that Have Been Painted over on a Wall Behind the Popular Zam’n Cafe in Ramallah. October 2013 Figure 5.9 By June 2014, Someone Had White-Washed Hamza’s Graphic Depiction of an Eviscerated Man in Bethlehem. We can only speculate about the who and why of this act Figure 5.10 Hamza Abu Ayyash in Ramallah. June 2014 Figure 6.1 The Text in Red Reads “Hero Martyr of the Catastrophe.” The text in black that he was a “son of the classroom” in the “literature track” and finally “one year before Tajeeki’ (graduation) Figure 6.2 Khaled Hourani Holding His Copy of An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine. Hourani figures prominently in the narrative. June 2014 Figure 6.3 In 2010, Artist Michael Baers Learned of Khaled Hourani’s Plan to Bring Picasso’s 1943 Painting Buste de femme to Ramallah for an Exhibition at the International Academy of Art, Palestine. His graphic novel Michael Baers, An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine, 2014 documents the process Figure 6.4 The Arabic Text Reads: Palestinian National Liberation Movement—Fatah, Based in Ramallah, Commemorates Palestine’s Martyr, and Hero Nadeem Siyam Nawara Who Was Martyred on the Day of Remembrance of the Nakba Day May 15, 2014 Figure 6.5 In This Image, You Can See the Source for the Poster Image of Nadeem Smiling in Figure 6.1. The inscription on the left-hand photograph of Nadeem reads, “You only live once.” May 2014 Figure 6.6 Composite Photograph by Khaled Hourani Figure 6.7 Khaled Hourani’s Basketball with Koranic Verse Figure 7.1 On the Left Devenny Surveys His Work-in-Progress in Andersontown. On the right a page in the artist’s notebook with a photograph of Julie Livingstone apparently in her Catholic school uniform. July 2006 Figure 7.2 On the Left a Memorial Mural for Kfah Obied on the Side of the Former Family Home in Dheisheh Camp. On the right a neighbor or relative inserts themselves into the photographer’s frame without invitation. June 2006

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Figure 7.3 In the Obied Family Living Room, Kfah’s Younger Brother Poses in Front of a Portrait of His Older Brother. The family resemblance is obvious. July 2009 Figure 7.4 I Am Kfah and Kfah Is Me. From a sequence of ten frames. July 2009 Figure 7.5 I Was Photographing the Mural of Qussay Al-Afandi, a Young Man Who Was Shot and Killed at a Demonstration, When a Young Girl Stepped into My Frame. She waited for me to take a series of photographs and then, before I could ask her name, a woman’s voice called out “Baba?” and she disappeared into a nearby doorway. July 2011 Figure 7.6 An Image that First Appeared in West Bank Newspapers during November 2012 and Israel’s Cast Lead Operation in Gaza Quickly Appeared in Demonstrations in Ramallah on the Left and Transnational Messaging in Arabic and English on the Right Figure 7.7 Kfah Obied Memorial or Shaheed Mural. Dheisheh Camp, January 2013 Figure 8.1 Sandi Hilal Leads a Group of Visitors into One of the Potential Dheisheh Camp “Common” Spaces. January 2013 Figure 8.2 On the Wall of a Campus in Camps Meeting Room Is a Large Visualization, Featuring the Idea of “Unpacking” Knowledge. January 2013 Figure 8.3 Aysar-Al-Saifi Shows Off His Handala Tattoo at a Campus in Camps Event. January 2013 Figure 8.4 A Recreation of an Al-Ali Political Cartoon in Dheisheh Camp. The man on the right is captioned “I will shave my mustache if Israel gives you a country.” The people on the left are captioned “They promised us, so they will give us a country. Handala’s caption reads simply “Khazoog,” which is an informal term for a lie or fake promise. January 2013 Figure 8.5 A Mural Painted by Campus in Camps Participants, Depicting Young and Old Handala. Some participants in the creation of this mural also participated in the following discussion. January 2013 Figure 8.6 Another Version of Al-Ali’s Handala in Dheisheh Camp. The figure holds a pen in the shape of a sword. The text reads: “Gone are the ones you love . . . Gone. Either you be or not be.” January 2013

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List of Figures

Figure 9.1 A Resident of the Unionist Hopewell Crescent Area in Belfast with His Sunday Newspaper in Hand on a Sunday Morning in Late June 2005 Figure 9.2 A Resident of the Republican Falls Road Neighborhood in West Belfast in Her Housedress Has Fetched a Package from a Nearby Store on a Sunday Morning in Late June 2005 Figure 9.3 A Woman in a Traditional Palestinian Thobe Passes by a Memorial Mural to Ghassan Kanafani at an Entrance to Dheisheh Camp. June 2007 Figure 9.4 In This Recreation of a Naj Al-Ali Work, Handala Is Not Only a Witness to Others’ Suffering, Including His Own Death But Also Embodies the Hope for a Resurrected, Autonomous Palestinian State. Look closely at the left side of the frame and encounter another witness. July 2007 Figure 9.5 The Boy, Badran Abedrabbu, Whose Family Lives in Dheisheh, Was Fourteen at the Time This Photograph Was Taken. Like the symbolic figures in the mural (another recreation of a Naj Al-Ali original) behind him, he too is a witness, and now so are you. July 2009 Figure 10.1 This Recreation of Picasso’s Iconic Work Was Executed by Republican Muralists Danny Devenny and Mark Ervine. Ervine is from a prominent Unionist family. June 2008 Figure 10.2 Wiz Art Reinterpretation of Picasso’s Guernica, 2015 Figure 10.3 Lister, Picasso, 2016 Figure 10.4 A Detail from a Poster Advertising the Picasso in Palestine Show. The original Guernica did not travel there. It was instead the artist’s 1943 painting Buste de Femme. The entire event was in many ways an elaborate joke. October 2014 (see chapter 5 for more about the Picasso in Palestine event.)

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Preface

In June 2004, I was lucky enough to attend a weeklong seminar hosted by the University of Ulster titled Peace and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland. All of the presenters were guarded but optimistic about the future. During this seminar, I took a few photographs and upon returning to New York realized that the most striking of these included political murals. The following year in July 2005, I took a summer teaching assignment in Amman, Jordan, and organized my travel plans to include another Belfast visit. During this visit, as I walked out Falls Road in West Belfast, I met a Republican muralist named Danny Devenny. As a young man, Danny had been incarcerated in Long Kesh Prison for participating in a bank robbery and a failed attempt to raise money for the Irish Republican Army. Later, according to his account, he became the Director of Communications for the Irish Republican Army. His current work is both local and international in scope, often making pointed political commentary about U.S. foreign policy. He now, on occasion, collaborates with a Protestant muralist named Mark Levine. Much has changed in Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Sectarian tensions have not disappeared but despite the efforts of splinter groups they are relaxing. In June 2006, after another teaching assignment in Jordan, I visited the West Bank. Leila Sansour, the Director of an NGO named Open Bethlehem, had arranged for me to stay in the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp. This was an important turning point for me. The public political artwork there, like in Belfast neighborhoods, is striking. My interest in vernacular, public art that comments on and represents these geographically distinct yet ideologically related conflicts resulted in a Fulbright Scholar Award in the West Bank during 2012–2013. I then extended my stay through June 2014 with a contract to teach and continue my work for xiii

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another year. On Nakba Day, May 15, 2014, two high school students named Nadeem Nuwara and Mohammed Daher were shot and killed at a demonstration near Ramallah. Surveillance cameras revealed that neither of these young men posed a threat to the soldier (or soldiers) who executed them. Nadeem lived in my neighborhood near the Old City of Ramallah. He was the cousin of one of my students at the university. She told me “he was just a normal boy who really liked to play basketball.” I recognized him from his martyr or shaheed image as having once held the door of a local grocery store for me as I struggled with my bags. Then, I realized that one small thing I could do was to speak about my experiences in the West Bank in a voice meant to encourage others to in some way engage there as well. The idea for a comparative cross-cultural photo-essay emerged from early encounters with images painted on urban landscapes in both locations. These images shape social, cultural, and political space in ways that are both mundane and profound. Some images simultaneously share these attributes. Both conflicts, in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians and in Northern Ireland between Loyalists and Republicans, are regional yet have far-reaching international implications. There are also vast differences. The central idea though is that these conflicts beg for comparison precisely because in one case a peace process is working, and in another, it is not. In the chapters that follow, in tandem with my colleague, Evan Renfro, we look for clues in visual cultures as to why this may be the case. We will take an interdisciplinary approach that combines a study of content and composition with an inquiry into how these images function as public political displays. We both believe we have much to learn from careful, qualitative, long-term examination. As for Renfro, a scholar of international relations and critical theory, he too has traveled in the communities analyzed here, as an average Ugly American tourist, a military intelligence analyst, and a scholar. While Hopper’s most gifted expertise lies in documentary images, Renfro’s specialty is connecting the image with the geopolitical stakeholders. His research stems from cultural studies, particularly affect theory. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst, Dr. Renfro received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Before coming to Northern Iowa, Dr. Renfro was a Fleet Professor at the United States Naval War College in Pearl Harbor, HI, where he taught the seminar on Strategy and War to career military officers on track to senior leadership positions. With a research agenda focused on the nexus of international security and culture, Renfro has published in such outlets as the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Marine Corps Gazette, Joint Force Quarterly, Cultural Studies, Humanity and Society, and the International Journal of

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Žižek Studies. Ultimately, the question for Renfro is: Who gets to live, and who gets to die around the world, and why? We are both native English speakers, as well as conversant in Arabic, which allows for interviews with the relevant artists whenever possible. This is a crucial point, because as we make clear throughout this book, there is a world of difference between Banksy-style graffiti tourists and the people who live, love, work, and die within view of the images we discuss. Philip Hopper

Acknowledgments

The authors are especially grateful to the following scholarly journals and scholars for their permissions and advice, respectively: • Portions of chapter 6 were previously published by Philip Hopper (2016) “Nakba Day: The Ephemera of Martyrdom,” UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: Vol. 11: No. 1, Article 15. Available at: https://scholarworks​.uni​.edu​/universitas​/vol11​/iss1​/15 • Portions of chapter 7 were published by Hopper in the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal, Volume 1 (Summer 2016). • Portions of chapter 10 were drawn from Philip Hopper and Evan Renfro. “Speaking Graffiti: Imaging Human Rights from Belfast to the West Bank.” Humanity & Society 46, no. 2 (2022): 202-225. The authors would like to thank Dr. Bill Rolston for his hospitality and insight, Hamza Abu Ayyash for his talent and time as well as many others who have made this volume possible. Sandi Hilal and Allesandro Petti were instrumental in setting up the Campus in Camps program and also deserve our thanks. Two artists from Dheisheh Camp, Ahmad Hmeedat and Aysar AlSaifi whose work is featured here deserve mention. Dr. Jayme Renfro, Evan’s better half, was instrumental in editing and organizing much of our “chaotic” first manuscript, and for this, both coauthors are grateful. We would also like to thank Alaeldin Dafalla, a former student of Renfro’s, and a native speaker of Arabic, for his invaluable help in translating some of the graffiti in the following pages. Unless otherwise noted, all translations were conducted by the authors and/or Alaeldin, who was our gracious supervisor in getting many of the idiomatic expressions contextualized. Last, but not least, we thank our

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editors at Lexington Books, Emma Ebert and Courtney Morales, for their kindness in guiding us through this process. Thanks to all—any mistakes are our own.

Introduction Creating, Looking, and Looking Again

This is a book about political graffiti in Northern Ireland and occupied Palestine and the way in which occupied and oppressed people use graffiti in public spaces in order to communicate resistance, create community support, remind locals of the history of the armed struggle, and mark space. It offers a comparative perspective between Northern Ireland and Palestine in order to argue that, whereas in the case of Northern Ireland, the peace process is actually working, in Palestine, it is not. Thus, it is not simply the different geographical, historical, and political contexts that explain the different types of political graffiti in each place but also the relative success or failure of efforts to end long-standing conflicts, and thus the relative ability of local communities to remember or forget past inequities and atrocities. Public political art in its vernacular form comes in all shapes and sizes. From crude graffiti scrawled quickly in the middle of the night to large, sophisticated murals painted in the light of day using scaffolding and with full community support. Icons, symbols, and text range from almost unrecognizable or precise to the point of compulsion. Images of martyrs and victims stare back at us from walls in Belfast and Bethlehem as if the dead are bearing witness or perhaps that we are bearing witness to the dead. Artifacts of armed and political struggle become potent symbols graven in and shaping public spaces and the consciousness of those who live there. Political graffiti is an important and fascinating form of expression that allows individuals to convey their political views and dissent against the establishment in a public and often provocative manner. It can serve as a powerful tool to challenge the dominant discourse and to raise awareness about issues that are often marginalized or ignored by mainstream media. Political graffiti has been used throughout history by various social and political movements, from resisting authoritarian regimes to the American civil rights movement to 1

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contemporary protests against police brutality. Additionally, it allows for an alternative form of historical record and serves as a reflection of the political climate at a particular place and time. While often considered vandalism by those in power, public political art remains a powerful form of expression for those seeking to challenge the status quo and fight for social justice. Though there are many places that could be highlighted in a book such as this one, because of our experiences, we have chosen to focus on Northern Ireland and Palestine. Northern Ireland and Palestine share some similarities in their histories of conflict and division. Both regions have experienced long-standing and complex conflicts that have been shaped by issues such as religion, ethnicity, nationalism, and colonialism. In Northern Ireland, the conflict between the predominantly Protestant unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom and the largely Catholic nationalists who wanted to see a united Ireland resulted in decades of violence known as “The Troubles.” Similarly, in Palestine, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over control of land and resources has led to a protracted conflict that has resulted in decades of violence, displacement, and suffering. Both regions have experienced peace agreements and periods of relative calm, but the underlying issues and tensions remain unresolved. In 2018, Israel passed a law declaring itself a Jewish nation-state, and indeed, many of its laws reinforce the primacy of Judaism within. There is a significant minority population of Arabs and Christians though, especially in the Palestinian territories, where Muslims make up the majority of inhabitants. In Northern Ireland, sides of the conflict are more evenly divided. Fortytwo percent of Northern Irish identify as Catholic and 37% as Protestant (19% as not religious or other religion). In terms of more direct views on politics, 26% are unionists and 21% are nationalists (53% consider themselves neither). These demographics do not even begin to tell the whole story though. In neither of these locations are community opinions monolithic except for overarching themes like resistance to occupation. Quite the opposite is true with factional, familial, or tribal ties determining outlook. Symbols, such as the bloody red hand in Northern Ireland that we will discuss later, are not always agreed upon in either usage or meaning. There was a spate of films in 2012 about the conflict in the West Bank, including the acclaimed documentary Five Broken Cameras among others. There is also a rise in activist or citizen journalism (Shooting Back in Occupied Territory). However, in this writing, it is still much easier to get a political message, words, images, or both, in any form out of West Belfast than it is to get a message out of the West Bank or Gaza. Indeed, as of this writing in late October 2022, cities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are locked down by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

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The book asks questions not just about the themes, symbols, inspirations, and (when available) authors of this wall art, but also about what happens to this political graffiti once it has been affixed to a wall: How does its meaning change over time? Why, when, and how is it defaced, and by whom? What are the different responses to political graffiti from ordinary members of local communities and from the “official” or “traditional” leadership of the resistance movements (for instance, the IRA in Northern Ireland or the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and parts of the West Bank)? Finally, who is allowed the privilege of creating political art that is in “good taste”? To do that, we will begin by discussing the history and present state of public art in both of our locations. The full histories of conflict in each are far too unwieldy to appropriately summarize, much less fully cover in a book that is focused on graffiti; however, we offer suggestions for extraordinarily researched and presented resources on those topics as well as provide broad brush strokes to give some background to the public art, past and present. Further, we use our own experiences, interviews with artists and scholars, as well as stories and legends to provide context and depth to our readers. You may be seeing these pictures inside of a book rather than on a wall in an alley somewhere, but we hope to bring about some meaning for all of us who have the luxury of living outside the physical conflict they represent. In any conversation about political points of view, or about any artistic communication, the intentionality of the communicator is a prime factor. As such, another purpose of this book is to discuss the objectives of the artists involved. We will frequently classify the intentions of individuals or groups who make these images and the communities who promote and harbor them in using three overlapping terms: consolidation, intimidation, and provocation. Murals, graffiti, posters, and so on have long been used to consolidate community opinion and intimidate outsiders or provoke the “Other.” As conditions change, in Belfast, for example, intentions may overlap and produce special purpose messages having to do with culture in general or advertising for a football club in particular. Our further analysis then has to do with the actual effects of these public images. Do communities really use them as a rallying point, a form of public memory, or are they political decorations? Are they allowed to age and deteriorate eventually to be replaced by something else or are they repainted and maintained? Are they defaced and if so by whom? One constant is that martyr images fuse self-identification and secondary witnessing. In the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp (PRC), children pose with images of the martyrs (shaheed). Their body language reads “I am the same as this person but here I am alive and looking back at you.” These are informed essays not quantitative or even traditional qualitative research. As such, we hope to be forgiven a few educated guesses.

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Finally, as we attempt some understanding of vernacular image-making in the face of conflict, we examine the nature of cross-cultural markers. Will close study reveal similarities in regard to composition and structure? Are there thematic similarities? The broad answer to the first question is that dominant cultures tend to produce a more prescriptive form of image-making. This is true in Israel where the Magan David is merged with the identities of religion and state. The Israeli flag flies atop the Mount of Olives in contested Jerusalem and appears carved into wooden benches at bus stops near settlements in the West Bank. Repetition of icons and symbols has been an earmark of unionist image-making in Northern Ireland as well. This characteristic, however, is becoming diffuse there as Republican political power grows. One answer to the second linked question about thematic similarities is that child martyrs are used as potent symbols by subordinated cultures. These images of young victims are sometimes graphic in ways that would not emerge in a dominant culture. “Good taste” is the privilege of dominance. We contend that the answer to both of these questions about composition and thematic character is a resounding yes, and we expand upon this idea in subsequent essays. Interspersed within the analysis that deals with these questions will be other stories of our own experiences and the experiences of others. It is our hope that the journey this book describes will itself be a form of witnessing. One cannot do a good job though of bearing witness alone. Witnessing requires the participation of others to create a consensus. In another era, we would have been tempted to call this a series of photo-essays. Much has changed though since the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In an era before that, at the very beginning of photography in the midnineteenth century: “The vast library of American and European Holy Land books (created in the 19th Century) created a thick textual lens. As a result, engagement with the actual place was mediated through an elaborate set of repeated conventions” (Bendixen and Hamera 2009, 147). Many of these mostly Protestant tourists, or pilgrims if you like, were disappointed in the Holy Land. Mark Twain lamented in the nineteenth century that “Palestine sits in sack-cloth and ashes . . . Palestine is desolate and unlovely” (Twain, 2010, 607–08). The disconnection between biblical vision and actuality continues today. Israel relies on religious tourism to help legitimize its claim to Jerusalem and at the same time scars the landscape with artifacts of military occupation and annexation. We are hopeful though because at the end of the day, decade, era, centuries perhaps, these conflicts are “essentially no more than a territorial conflict over the painful question ‘Whose land?’ It is a painful conflict between right and right between two very powerful, very convincing claims over the same small country” (Oz 2010, 61) or in the case of this book, countries.

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In her influential book, On Photography, Susan Sontag suggests that photographs require historical narratives and that lacking this context their meaning becomes interpretive or outright fiction. Artists and academics have created reams of work exploring this idea. “To spies, meteorologists, coroners, archaeologists, and other information professionals, their value is inestimable. But in the situations in which most people use photographs, their value as information is of the same order as fiction” (Sontag 1977, 13). Sontag went through a very long arc between On Photography, published in 1977, and Regarding the Pain of Others, published in 2003. She often seemed to refute previous assertions but came back finally to this central idea. “Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about. It calls these ideas ‘memories,’ and that is, over the long run, a fiction” (Sontag 2004, 67). We, seekers of visual truth are spies, performing autopsies sometimes in archeological digs. In other words, despite the emergence of fake news as a doppelganger of journalism, we refute that Sontag’s idea is an absolute truth. The problematic relationship between evidence, memory, and fiction, as Sontag has it, manifests in the relationship between written texts and photographs. Or to be more precise, it is the lack of written text about an image that provides the fictional cloak. Today, in our early twenty-first century, when the transmission and circulation of images in digital forms has accelerated at an astonishing rate, this dissection, the separation of eyewitness description from the thing being described, seems inevitable. It is true that there will always be a point of view and a motive for recording what we see. Objectivity is like justice: it is something to strive for but impossible to obtain. If we demand that people who record documentary evidence have no points of view, no motives, what are we left with but the banal? For these reasons, please know that we are writing as verifiable witnesses. The following chapters provide our credentials.

Chapter 1

The Murals of Northern Ireland A Very Short Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to give the reader an overview of vernacular public political imagery in Northern Ireland and especially in the capital of Belfast. Fuller histories exist in print and online. Marc Mulholland’s (2003) book Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction and The Guardian’s online web portal “A Brief History of Northern Ireland 1919–1999” are both easily accessible. BELFAST, JULY 2005 In July 2005, the Divas Tower, a large apartment building on Falls Road just outside Belfast city center, bristled with antenna and surveillance cameras. British security forces took over the top two floors in the 1970s to use as a surveillance platform during “The Troubles.” In the shadow of that building is Republican graffiti, calling for the tower to be demilitarized. In the vicinity, and oddly it would seem at first, was a graffito that read “Free Palestine.” On Falls Road were also a few Palestinian flags left on lampposts as remnants of an earlier more extensive display. In response, the flag of Israel was reportedly flown in some unionist/loyalist areas. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and oppose a united Ireland. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism can be understood as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants, a variation of British nationalism. The term “loyalism” is usually associated with paramilitarism. Fundamentally, where you find nationalism, you find degradation of human rights. After all, if my group is superior, then it is only logical to do “what needs to be done” to maintain that status. The Ulster Defense Association (UDA) served as a legitimizing cover for violent paramilitary groups like the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). For 7

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hundreds of years, the subordinated group in Ireland and Northern Ireland, especially after partition in 1921, were Catholics. In Northern Ireland, then many Catholics identify a reunification with the Republic of Ireland, as part of a nationalist or Republican agenda. Some members of this group belonged to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which waged a war of independence from Great Britain and reunification with Northern Ireland beginning in the nineteenth century. On January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday happened in Derry or Londonderry. The Troubles exploded and did not really subside until the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. Today, there is a double bind for unionists in Northern Ireland, which is that they support a status quo no longer fully supported by the policies of Great Britain. The history of this is long, complex, and best left to texts designed to elucidate it. Unionists and Loyalists “Mural painting has been a feature of unionist popular culture since the early years of the twentieth century when images of Prince William of Orange (King William III of England) and other symbols began to adorn the gable walls of the working-class areas of Belfast” (Jarman 1998). These unionist images were often painted in conjunction with rituals celebrating unionist culture. Foremost among these rituals is the celebration that commemorates the Battle of the Boyne on July 12, 1690. On “The Twelfth” Prince William was victorious over King James, winning the English throne and assuring that Ireland would officially remain Protestant. Predictably, King Billy constituted the primary icon in loyalist murals. These celebrations and displays were formalized “making seasonal affirmations of loyalty much more permanent,” now known generically as marching season, by groups that became the Orange Orders (Jarman 1998). Murals, glorifying King Billy, helped to transform areas where Protestants lived into “Protestant areas.” By implication, this should also mean that some areas were accepted as “Catholic Areas.” Such was not the case, however, immediately after the Partition of Ireland in 1921. At that time police in the north “were utilized to ensure that the nationalist population did not develop a similar tradition within a British Northern Ireland. Although an area could be acknowledged as inhabited by Catholics, it could not easily or readily be regarded as a ‘Catholic area’ since all Catholics were regarded as Irish nationalists and therefore a threat to the status of Northern Ireland” (Jarman 1998). Mural painting or anything else indicating an Irish national identity would be met armed and badged force. King Billy astride his prancing horse can still be seen today as a proud remnant or a fossil, depending on your orientation. As the formerly dominant group in Northern Ireland, unionists or loyalists drew heavily on varied but prescriptive types of images. These include heraldic devices, invoking allegiance to Great Britain and British royalty, the initials of paramilitary groups and men, often hooded, brandishing guns. Now

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that the balance of power is changing, these prescriptions are becoming less obvious but are still visible and, in some cases, more strident (see figure 1.1).​ It is a fact that Protestant murals for the most part rely on a predictable iconography and compositional style. Symmetry, suggesting stability or stasis, is a common characteristic of loyalist murals. The tradition is old and has always been about reinforcing a status quo. This status quo no longer exists. The murals themselves, though they are changing, often look as if they were painted using templates by a cabal of secretive professional sign painters. Parliament recognized this, and in 2006, earmarked 100,000 pounds to change loyalist paramilitary murals into murals oriented toward culture, furthering the trend away from provocation and intimidation in the visual culture.

Figure 1.1  A Gable-End Mural in the Unionist Neighborhood of Shankill, Belfast. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is a paramilitary group. “You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go “is a reference to World War I. July 2008. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Beginning in the 1960s, there has been a “splintering of unionism” (Bill Rolston, personal communication with author, October 1, 2019). This fragmentation process seems to be ongoing with the latest manifestation being unionist factional feuding, riots during the summer of 2005, and annual conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. These conflicts often accompany marching season and the run-up to the annual July 12th celebration. Unionist paramilitary images were still very much in evidence in 2018, no doubt partly as conflict tourist destinations, though the concept of marking territory and intimidation through these images, though fading, seems ingrained. Rolston notes, there has been a “changing face of Republican murals” the unionist murals often seem static or in his words “what we have we hold.” This seems “increasingly anachronistic decades into a peace process” (Bill Rolston, personal communication with author, October 1, 2019). The question arises as to whether the meaning of paramilitary images, icons, and symbols are historical or contemporary. The Unionist Party ran a one-party state in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. At a recent election though, there were three unionist parties vying for the unionist vote: the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, and Traditional Unionist Voice. At the Westminster elections of 2017, for the first time since the foundation of the state, the total of unionist votes was (slightly) lower than that of all other parties, including nationalists and Republicans. For a state founded on promising a Protestant majority forever, this was an existentialist shock for unionism. Republicans Ascendant: Sort Of Nationalist or Republican murals did not emerge until around the time of the Republican hunger strikes in 1981 (see figure 1.2). Most of these early IRA murals depicted specific hunger strikers, in particular, Bobby Sands. This is the iconic image that today is painted on the side of a Sinn Fein bookstore on Falls Road in Belfast. Danny Devenny, who painted that mural with others said: “Usually we repaint them but we got to kind of like that one” (Danny Devenny, interview with author, August 6, 2005). More recently, Devenny wrote this email in response to our query: Tuesday, 14 December 2021 Hi Danny, Could you say a few words about why the Bobby Sands mural on Falls Road is so persistent? Other murals in the area are replaced from time to time but not that one. I hope all is well. Phil Hopper

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Reply from Devenny: Sorry only seeing this now . . . answer is public demand! . . . we did at one stage consider reversing back to using that wall (best viewpoint coming up the Falls) to highlight some contemporary issues but local residents and activists were against it .  .  . some residents even said it was a marker for everyone coming into West Belfast . . . Like . . . where shall we meet.? . . . where do you live? . . . Where is Culturlann? . . . answer: two streets up from Bobby Sands Mural . . . three hundred yards across the road from Bobby Sands mural . . . about a quarter of a mile on the left further up the road past the Bobby Sands mural . . . ​

The Bobby Sands mural and the “Solidarity Wall” a short distance away, consisting of a block-long series of murals, are probably the most photographed locations in Belfast. According to Rolston, “with the end of the hunger strike Republican muralists turned their attention to a range of other themes.” Notable in this regard are the murals representing solidarity with other political struggles, including South Africa, Nicaragua, Cuba, and especially for the purpose of this investigation, the Palestinian people. “From the beginning Republican muralists represented their armed struggle in murals.

Figure 1.2  Upon His Death, May 5, 1981, After a Sixty-Six-Day Hunger Strike in Prison, Bobby Sands Became a Symbol of British Brutality and Oppression for the IRA. That same day, according to the Wikipedia entry about Sands, “in response to a question in the House of Commons, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organization did not allow to many of its victims” June 18, 2018. Source: Philip Hopper.

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But this theme never predominated in Republican murals to the extent it came to do so in loyalist murals” (Bill Rolston, personal communication with author, October 1, 2019). Belfast 2008 Double-decker buses run up and down the streets, radiating out from open-air stations adjacent to Belfast City Hall. Modern light-rail service has replaced many of the older trains. European Union tourists fill the hotels, and the city center is crawling with humanity all day, every day, during the long summer hours. Construction cranes ring this downtown area, and direct, international flights now arrive at the Harbor Airport from the United States and other locations. Northern Ireland is emerging from isolation and the vicious cycle of violence that was considered by many, not too long ago, to be intractable. As of spring 2007, home rule has been reinstated. Political parties that would not speak to one another are speaking albeit not sitting together in the Stormont cafeteria. The visual culture of public political art here reflects this change. In Belfast and elsewhere, murals depicting hooded gunmen are defaced with graffiti and not repainted. Images of culture and history, including memorials to the dead, indicate a past tense regarding this conflict. Images of popular unionist and Republican soccer heroes have appeared. These sports heroes are difficult to differentiate without a scorecard, and to be sure, the people are keeping score, but it's a game. The people here are ready to move on. However, “In the post-conflict stage a metaconflict can emerge—a conflict about what the conflict was about—to a point that memory and commemoration can become in effect war by other means” (Bill Rolston, personal communication with author, October 1, 2019). “Because the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement did not grasp the constitutional nettle and identify a settlement for the conflict itself, what has changed is merely the form in which the conflict is now fought out . . . but it is mercifully a much less violent conflict than once it was” (Wilford and Wilson 2006). The images from Northern Ireland are well known. Both Republicans and loyalists have learned the value of exporting images, either as photographs taken by tourists, in book or postcard form or electronically via television or the web. In fact, many of the murals in Belfast and Londonderry have become tourist attractions. Google Earth features murals from both sides. Their value as factional representations of conflict is enormous as is their public relations value. This is an idea that has been readily embraced by Republicans who as one observer noted have been “more strategic in their image-making” by embracing international causes (Neil Jarman, personal interview, August 8, 2005). Indeed, they have been more strategic and more successful at ­transnational imagemaking—as well as in the peace-making process.

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Bitter Residue: June 2018–2019 Despite the progress in Northern Ireland, there is a bitter residue. This is evident on the Republican side in violent splinter “dissident” groups like the New IRA. An example is the murder of journalist Lyra Mckee on April 18, 2019, as she observed rioting in the Creggan area of Belfast. A statement by the New IRA published in The Guardian reads, “In the course of attacking the enemy, Lyra McKee was tragically killed while standing beside enemy forces. The IRA offer our full and sincere apologies to the partner, family and friends of Lyra McKee for her death” (Weaver and Rawlinson 2019). Years later, The Guardian reported, “Two men to stand trial for murderer of journalist Lyra McKee” (Carroll 2023). McKee grew up as a gay teen in Northern Ireland. Her Tedtalk, “How uncomfortable conversations can save lives” has become a touchstone for many (McKee). On the unionist side, this residue visibly involves territorial feuds over drugs and money. A recent Belfast Telegraph headline reads “Murder victim Liam Christie gunned down over missing drug money: LVF-linked gang killed career criminal for ‘stealing their cocaine and pocketing the cash.’” The article begins: “Career criminal Liam Christie was gunned down by an LVF, (Loyalist Volunteer Force)—linked drugs gang following a row over missing money. His loyalist cocaine suppliers believed he was stealing drugs from them, selling on the side and pocketing the cash” (The Belfast Telegraph 2022). In the hypercomplicated world of this conflict, Christie was born Catholic in the Republican Ardoyne district of Belfast and ended up selling drugs for a loyalist paramilitary group. Christie’s case may be somewhat unique but sadly drug-dealing, and the attendant conflicts are not. Furthermore, it seems to this observer that something has curdled within loyalism. Republican support for various international causes, including Palestinian statehood, has been visible in Catholic neighborhoods for some time. In what many assume is a response the flag of Israel has been observed in Protestant neighborhoods. During our most recent visit to Belfast in 2018, the Confederate Battle flag conflated with other icons was observed in the Protestant working-class neighborhood of East Belfast (see figure 1.3). ​ There is a general shift away from paramilitary images in both loyalist and Republican neighborhoods. The most important question in this regard seems to be how much instability within paramilitaries will affect the peace process going forward. The problem for loyalists, to paraphrase Rolston, is how to “oppose British policies for the sake of remaining British” (Bill Rolston, personal communication with author, October 1, 2019). The problem for Republicans is how to contain violent splinter groups that are fighting to remain relevant. One problem is broad the other narrow. Both can be lethal. The Think Tank for Social Action (TASC) argues for new “constitutional arrangements which recognize the sui generis (unique) character of Northern

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Figure 1.3  The Conflation of the Bloody Red Hand, Symbolizing a Foundational Myth about Ulster, a Six-Pointed Star of David, and the Confederate Battle Flag Flies in Front of a Working-Class Estate in Loyalist East Belfast. These icons together are beyond ironic given the racist, antisemitic connotations of the Confederate flag. June 2018. Source: Philip Hopper.

Ireland [and] should act to ease over time the antagonism between unionism and nationalism, in favor of political debate over the nature of common good.” Furthermore, “Government needs to operate on the principle that the default option for service delivery is integrated rather than segregated—not only to improve community relations but also to provide efficient, high-quality services accessible to all” (Wilford and Wilson 2006). Those words were published in 2006: The debate over the nature of the common good seems to be ongoing but perhaps there is hope. As described by Danny Devenny in this chapter, the mural of Bobby Sands on Falls Road has become a landmark. Sands is an icon whose well-known quote, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children,” is written on walls in West Belfast and near Ramallah in the West Bank. The relationship between Irish Republicanism and Palestinian activism contains many visible strands or tendrils. During one visit to Belfast, Palestinian flags on lampposts lined Falls Road near the Solidarity Wall. Sands died at age twenty-seven on May 5, 1981, in a prison hospital after a sixty-six-day hunger strike. Thirty years later, in 2011, a man named Khadar Adnan who was detained by the Israelis went on a sixty-six-day hunger strike. A stencil representing Adnan appeared throughout central Ramallah in 2012. It depicted Adnan with a

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Figure 1.4  “Free Khadar Adnan” Stencil in Ramallah. September 2012. Source: Philip Hopper.

padlock through his lips, implying that his voice had been silenced by multiple detentions. As a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, he had been arrested twelve times by Israel. Khadar Adnan was finally arrested in February 2023 and died in prison after an eighty-seven-day hunger strike. An opinion piece by Yair Assulin in Haaretz on May 5, 2023 states “We can't draw some irrelevant conclusion about this event. An 86-day hunger strike transcends language, and any attempt to frame it will fail.” When we wrote our original draft of this text, Khadar Adnan was alive (see figure 1.4). ​

Chapter 2

The Murals of Palestine A Very Short Introduction

Similar to chapter 1, here we provide a concise contextualization of the interwoven political, economic, and cultural context discernible in Palestine. A bit of history is provided with suggested readings for further research on this complex issue. Edward W. Said (2003) wrote, The point I am trying to make is that we have to see the Arab world generally and Palestine in particular in more comparative and critical ways. . . . The Palestinian struggle for justice is especially something with which one must express solidarity, rather than endless criticism and exasperated, frustrating discouragement, or crippling divisiveness. Remember the solidarity here and everywhere in Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.

If nothing else, this is a bold challenge for those interested in human rights globally. You can fill a library with what has been written about Palestine. Some of it is quality scholarship. We see little point in yet another chapter on the general ongoing human rights quagmire taking place in Palestine. The world does not need another couple of white professors droning on about the obvious. We would be rushing things, however, to let it go at that. Therefore, in this chapter, we provide a very short overview along with some recommendations for further study of the situation in order to illustrate the context, wherein the political graffiti discussed later in the book is produced. 17

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WELL, YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE One of the many challenges in scribbling about Palestine is the question of where to begin the story. For the sake of brevity, let us begin around the First World War. When Archibald Wavell uttered the words “After ‘the war to end war’ they seem to have been pretty successful in Paris at making a ‘Peace to end Peace,’” he could not have known that the pithy remark would manifest the title of David Fromkin’s (1989) essential work on the subject. It serves as an excellent history of Britain’s role in World War I and how it relates to (and continues to affect) the Middle East. Be it the Ottoman Empire, Zionism, or Arab nationalism, the great trends and their respective causes are explained. All too often, the student of the Middle East is without a solid grounding in the context of why the geopolitical realities in the region are what they are today. Dealing with about the same era, Elizabeth Monroe (1981) has provided a classic and luminous survey of Britain’s rise and fall from power in the Middle East during the time period of 1914–1917. It is the importance of history in this period—which continues to drive today’s conflicts in the region—that makes this a point of continuing significance for any observer of the area. India provided the germinal muse for Britain’s original interest in the region and because the expeditious route to that most important region of the Empire needed vigilant safeguarding, there was a great deal of security concern, which then precipitated increasingly scaled-up military presence to ensure the feasibility of commerce. Throughout this period, the colonial powers’ penchant for breaking promises eventually led to rebellious nationalism in the Middle East. The 1920s might be seen as the years of the most competent British imperial rule. Then Hitler came, and with him the question of Palestine became ascendant. Britain found itself in a most difficult position: it did not want to alienate the Arab peoples of the Middle East, but it could not countenance disallowing European Jewry from seeking safe haven. After World War II, as the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe and the world went on growing, oil became increasingly more important—and along with it—the business and military attention in the region. What has ensued since is the struggle for an independent Palestinian state (Khalidi 2006). Khalidi addresses difficult questions like why the Palestinians failed to create an independent state prior to 1948. A corollary question is: Why do so many critics place the onus—as well as the fault—on the weakest (militarily and as a result, politically) party involved? When all the great powers are against something, why should anyone expect that a weaker entity should overcome such an obstacle? In his sweeping narrative, the first historian of Arab nationalism George Antonius (1938), begins with an outline of the early processes of what he calls “Arabization” and “Islamization” in the Middle East. From that foundation, the Arab nationalist movement

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began in Syria in 1847, with the establishment of secret societies that conducted anti-Turkish, pro-Arab propaganda operations. These activities led to an increase in Arab consciousness regarding independence, and then to a brutal crackdown by the Ottoman Empire, resulting in an even more vigorous opposition movement. The increased operational tempo of various secret societies created a synergistic effect for the Arab nationalist movement. By 1915, the British, who needed the Arabs for their plans regarding fighting the Ottoman Empire on the Eastern Front of World War I, used the Arab unrest for their own purposes. Sir Henry McMahon’s correspondence with Sharif Husain shows that the British government clearly promised Husain an independent Arab homeland. From Antonius’ work back in 1938 and Khalidi’s (2020) work nearly 85 years later, we see that the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration laid the foundation for the eventual British betrayal of the Arabs. Though essential to the Allied victory, the European Powers treated the Arabs as little more than pawns on the international chessboard of World War I and its aftermath. Khalidi (2005) points out, “The Middle East is a region where history matters a great deal; its peoples have a very, very long history, to which they pay a great deal of attention.” Yezid Sayigh has written extensively on the Palestinian national movement between 1949 and 1993. As a service to readers interested in Palestine, his Armed Struggle and the State: The Palestinian National Movement (1997) is an essential read, as it provides the historical facts and analysis to better understand the political realities in that occupied land. Albert Hourani (1983) contributes insight into the main currents of Arab political and social thought from 1798 to 1939. As Arab intellectuals like Rifa’a al-Tahtawi began, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to more fully realize the power of Europe, the key debate became to what extent Arabs should strive to emulate the European system of government and intellectual pursuits. An immediate corollary to this line of thinking revolved around what level of influence Islam should retain. Arab intellectuals wanted to borrow the European thought most beneficial for their particular situation but still maintain their religion and identity as Arabs. Simply put, the mainstream of Arab thought during this period desired political independence and the “westernization” of their political system—allowing the Arab states to compete with Europe on a level playing field. Posing a challenge to the hegemony of what would become the modern state of Israel leads to policy questions concerning how the state achieved and maintained its domination. Analyzing Israeli strategy from the germinal Zionist influences of Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) to the destructive—figuratively and literally—Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Avi Shlaim (2000) has shown the juxtaposition of the historical Jewish longing to return to their Biblical homeland with some Zionists’ early dismissal of the Arab population’s situation, which provides a

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solid background to consequential troubles in the region. This historical longing is often centered, or justified, by claims to archeological artifacts such as the Western or Wailing Wall as depicted in figure 2.1. Shlaim takes care to show that intransigence and overaggressiveness on both the Arab and Israeli sides recurrently prevent peace. More often than not, however, Shlaim faults the Israeli political establishment for purposely avoiding formal peace with Arab states writ large and the Palestinian population specifically. Whether in word or deed, Shlaim shows an Israeli political class completely unconcerned with the welfare of the people whom it occupies. Instead, the reader becomes inundated with incidents of unmitigated (and according to Shlaim, unprovoked) violence perpetrated by a powerful state upon a generally vulnerable population. A Capitalist Connection When thinking about all this, it is crucial to not separate economics from security and neither from politics. Clement Henry and Robert Springborg (2001) have produced the authoritative study of how globalization has affected the Middle East. These scholars argue that the key to economic well-being is political freedom. A liberal, free government will outperform virtually any despotic regime. The dangers of being a rentier state are discussed, and such states would be well advised to adjust with all possible speed, as history shows that a government can only bribe its people into submission for so long. How economics affects politics and vice versa in the globalized world of today is an essential ingredient in any well-rounded student’s knowledge of the field—particularly pertinent to issues of social discourse as global economics is a primary component of deciding who the elite are, and by extension, who is dominated by who. For example, one would have good reason to question the sometimes quite viscous treatment of women in the region. For that, we can turn to Leila Ahmed and Women and Gender in Islam (1992), which is an excellent survey of the role of women in Islamic society. Ahmed begins by outlining the condition of women in pre-Islamic society. The rise of Islam did not really change the subordination of women but brought it in line with the patriarchal traditions already in place in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Furthermore, Ahmed’s research allows the reader to refute the more chauvinistic appraisals of Islam that are often propagated by elite US media outlets. Cultural Connection All of this background leads to yet another problem: the human tendency to deny atrocities (Cohen 2008). Fortunately, we can offer yet another good dose of research for that. Stanley Cohen has discussed several leading theories dealing with the psychology of denial. Issues such as the perceived

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worthiness of the victim in relation to outrage produced, the location of the atrocity, and how the atrocity is represented, all contribute to the action, or more commonly inaction, of the observer. Cohen writes of Israel being a “special case” where there is, “even a special expression in Hebrew—used with increasing irony—to describe the dissociation between action and emotion. Yorim V’Bochim means literally ‘shooting and crying’: after doing all these unpleasant things [to the Palestinians] .  .  . you express loud public regrets, even sympathy for the victims” (2008, 95).” This directly corresponds to what Cohen describes as the “denial of the injustices and injuries inflicted on the Palestinians built into the social fabric [of Israeli life] (2008, 157).” Indeed, States of Denial is an evocative and perceptive book, which is a useful read for anyone concerned with the evident apathy manifest in how “we” respond to human rights abuses against “them.” There are few records of Palestinian vernacular image-making either historically or contemporaneously until the First Intifada. There was, as in all Arab countries because of the Quranic admonition against figurative images and the Quran itself, a long tradition of calligraphic texts. This tradition fed the modern and continues to feed the postmodern strains of Palestinian vernacular image-making and fine art. Hamza Abu Ayyesh frequently works with poets on the written texts for his graffiti (see chapter 5). Khalid Hourani, a Palestinian who is widely recognized as an important conceptual artist, told me in a 2014 interview, “I am a calligrapher.” The First Intifada was a popular uprising that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leadership in exile did not anticipate. It began with the deaths of four Palestinian workers in Gaza during December 1983 and did not subside until the Madrid Conference in 1991. Some date the end of this Intifada (literally shaking off) as late as 1993. During this time “writing graffiti could be part of a performative element in a rite of passage into the Palestinian resistance” (Peteet 1996, 144). At this time, political graffiti and murals began to appear on local walls not only as a form of resistance but also as a channel of communication among the members of a population subjected by an occupying force. This dual intent continues to the present with some graffiti and mural artists now creating images that are not only critical of the occupation but also of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) and the dominant Fatah Party. Palestinian graffiti during the First Intifada echoed the numerous mimeographed bulletins put out by popular resistance groups. It thus became a source of information for many Palestinians, linking resistance and solidarity with the daily lives of residents in the occupied territories. In fact, this form of urban expression remains ubiquitous and the most visible sign of resistance (Peteet 1996, 145). The language of these messages was Arabic; however, the diffused leadership of the popular uprising was also clearly aware of

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the transnational public relations value of other languages. “English graffiti appeared now and then particularly when a foreign delegation was known to be coming to an area” (Peteet 1996, 145). The same is true today (Casey 2014).​ Vortex of Despair The First Intifada was mostly a period of nonviolent civil disobedience. The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was not. It began with then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This location, within the walls of the old city, is home to the holiest site in Judaism, the Western or Wailing Wall, and the third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aksa Mosque (see figure 2.2). For some, the visit symbolically triggered the Second Intifada. Sharon’s motivation for this visit is still a matter of conjecture. Riots, suicide bombings, and extra-judicial killings subsequently wracked Israel and Palestine, marking an escalation in the face of Israeli aggression and Palestinian resistance. The death toll, both military and civilian, is often estimated to be 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis. B’Tselem,

Figure 2.1  The Western or “Wailing” Wall Composes Part of the Temple Mount. The Al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount itself. July 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

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a liberal Israeli advocacy group, puts the number of Palestinian dead at 4,000. The discrepancy lies in differing views of when the Second Intifada ended.​ As an easily accessible form of vernacular communication when other mass venues were foreclosed by the occupation, calligraphic graffiti proliferated. And with so many casualties, it is not surprising that strictly textual messages found themselves in competition for space on Palestinian walls with images of martyrs or shaheed. It was also during the Second Intifada that English and other languages started appearing alongside Arabic in graffiti and murals. This is a trend that continues today especially in and around Jerusalem and Ramallah, where transnational communication through vernacular expressions of image-making is most likely to find its audience. The present power dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians is very different than that of today between Loyalists and Republicans in Northern

Figure 2.2  A Worshiper Enters the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. July 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Ireland, where near parity has been achieved. Israel dominates the Palestinians with military and economic control. The United States is complicit in this arrangement as, at present, the dominant global actor in the region. One of the qualitative earmarks of this dominance is the prescriptive use of icons and symbols in official and vernacular image-making. In the United States, for example, unofficial 9/11 memorials almost always contain one or more of five images: bald eagles, the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers, the American flag, and finally, NYC police and/or firemen (Hyman 2013, 12). In Israel, a state that identifies as Jewish, the dominant prescriptive image is the Star of David or the Magan David. To be sure, there are alternative Israeli vernacular images. In the West Jerusalem, neighborhood of Musrara and nearby graffiti is clearly meant to address the conflict. However, this is rare and localized. Everywhere is a plethora of blue six-pointed stars from official to unofficial manifestations. In touristic tee-shirt stalls from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, the Israeli national and religious symbol is conflated with American cartoon characters and sports team logos. This speaks to Israel’s historic orientation toward the West. More ominous are carvings in bus-stop benches near settlements in the West Bank and Stars of David painted on Palestinian homes and mosques as part of radical Settler “price-tag” attacks. Similar to the Northern Irish Republican early adoption of alternative and “solidarity” image-making, the willingness of Palestinian graffiti and mural artists to take on risky alternate approaches is obvious. In Ramallah prior to then-U.S. president Obama’s visit on March 21, 2013, with Palestinian president Abbas graffiti appeared depicting these two leaders kissing on the lips. Images of the dead, often martyrs or shaheed, sometimes copied from photographs in the newspaper are recreated in a variety of forms on city and refugee camp walls. “Good taste” is not a factor in a brutally subordinated culture’s vernacular image-making—it is in a dominant culture where images of the dead, much less their faces, rarely appear. For some good taste is a privilege.

Chapter 3

Prescriptions of Power

This chapter pushes beyond the more general implications of the previous two by focusing on graffiti’s power to build community (consolidate), create fear (intimidate), and activate (provoke). Public art is used in many different ways. When used for consolidation, public art can help to create a sense of community and belonging among likeminded individuals. It can also be used as a tool of intimidation, such as when gangs or other groups use it to mark their territory or send a message to rivals. In these cases, the communication serves as a warning or threat, signaling that a particular area is off-limits or that those who ignore the message may face repercussions. Finally, it can be used for provocation, often in political or social contexts, where it is employed to challenge dominant narratives, question authority, and spark debate. Public political art has long been used as a form of expression for individuals who feel a sense of rage and powerlessness in their daily lives. Graffiti allows marginalized groups to make their voices heard and assert their presence in a society that may otherwise ignore or suppress them. In this way, public political art can be seen as an act of rebellion against the structures of power that seek to silence those who lack privilege and influence. For many of these artists, the act of communicating like this publicly is a way of reclaiming their surroundings and asserting their right to exist in space. The very act of graffiti is often seen as a challenge to the status quo, as it is a form of expression often not sanctioned by authorities and seen as subversive. The images and words that are created can be powerful and provocative, drawing attention to issues of social injustice and inequality that are often ignored by mainstream media and political discourse. By using graffiti as a means of expression, individuals who feel powerless are able to make a statement and demand to be heard, even if it is through an unconventional medium. 25

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CONSOLIDATION Photographer and colleague Jonathan Hyman has discussed at length his experience dealing with emotionally charged subject matter and icons surrounding the 9–11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The experience and description of the mixed reactions he hears from people who view his photographs suggest there is some disagreement over the meaning and use of certain images. He notes, for example, that most agree on the meaning of the bald eagle and Uncle Sam, whereas the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and the World Trade Center towers have become contested images to a certain degree. An image thus can be inflected by political agendas and emotional states once they exit the hand of the muralist. For the most part, however, unofficial 9/11 murals served to consolidate public opinion in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Hyman’s interviews with muralists reveal that many of them simply wanted to make community members feel better by giving them a sense of security and belonging. Whether or not those images will continue to do so, if they ever really did fill that function, remains an open question. Hyman has returned to murals over the past ten years and those that still exist have not changed at all. Indeed, the imagery, iconography, and texts within them have remained the same, even if a mural has been touched up or repainted in its entirety. This is true despite the upheavals and chaos of the Afghan and Iraq wars, conspiracy theories about the U.S. government, the controversy surrounding health care for the rescue workers at Ground Zero, and two hotly contested presidential elections. Hyman has not found a single oppositional mural in the United States. This lack of image battling is curious, to say the least. Hyman writes “conceive of the visual, vernacular response to the attacks as a genre or a kind of popular art movement that displays fairly prescriptive elements and ideas. I acknowledge that there was much red, white and blue and that the American flag was everywhere. But people told me time and again that the use of the flag was deeply personal” (Hyman, personal communication with Hopper, June 8, 2013). Perhaps, but this too speaks to our, if not “proscriptions,” prescriptions of power. It may also be the case that hegemonic politico-ethnic parties simply do not feel the need to use imagery for other than self-motivational reasons. “Hope” is not something manifest in the minds of the subaltern communities under discussion here in Palestine. There is a very American (at least of the bourgeoisie variety) habit of thinking thoughts along the lines of “it will be better tomorrow.” This, we can assure the reader, is not how perception works within the coordinates of intergenerational occupation, abuse, and disenfranchisement. The closest analogy might be the experiences of the First Nations people in the United States. On reservations throughout the country,

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the dominant perspective is resignation. Communities can only give so much, try so hard, before a switch is thrown, the shoulders begin to shrug, the head hangs, and finally, there is no fight left. A sort of disassociated nihilism proliferates whereby one witnesses an actionless action. A motionless, silent image projects power through a variety of affective mechanisms, but blunt force is one way to do it. So yes, “good taste” is a privilege for the privileged. In some unusual cases, symbolic imagery can be shared across enemy lines. Take the Red Hand of Ulster, for example. The short version of one myth behind this image is that as some Vikings approached the shore of what would become Ireland, their king announced to his warriors that whoever touched the land first would own it. One enterprising individual took his sword out, hacked off his hand, and threw it ashore, claiming the land and foreshadowing a bloody future (see figure 3.2). The image that grew from this (or some other) story has become so ubiquitous that “they say that you are never more than 100ft from a Red Hand of Ulster in Northern Ireland” (Independent 2010). Below in figure 3.1 on the left a carved Republican tombstone and on the right a painted Unionist image. ​ The image is used by loyalists who use it in parades and on banners and posters and also paramilitary groups like the Red Hand Commandos and the Ulster Volunteer Force. Loyalist use of the Red Hand gained particular popularity in the 1990s, along with the Union Flag, crowns, and coats of armor

Figure 3.1  On the Left, a Republican Grave in the Falls Road Milltown Cemetery. On the Right, a Conflation of Unionist Symbols in East Belfast. July 2018. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Figure 3.2  A Rendition of One Myth Pertaining to the Origin of the Red Hand Symbol in the North of Ireland. This version was photographed in a working-class Unionist estate called Hopewell Crescent. Belfast 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

after the passing of the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act. The loyalists saw the Act as a form of cultural oppression, and their murals using these symbols aimed to strengthen loyalist and unionist organizations. Despite laws prohibiting their use, loyalists continued to use these symbols as a means of demonstrating their dominance in culture and unwavering loyalty to Great Britain.​ Even though the Red Hand is most commonly associated with the Protestant loyalists, the Catholic Republicans stake a claim to it as well. They see it as representing the nine counties of Ulster. The hand marks Belfast’s City Hall, it was the logo for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board for many years. INTIMIDATION AND PROVOCATION Israel is often advertised as the only working democracy in the Middle East. Yet the visual culture of conflict there often appears as a prescription of the State. The Star of David marks occupied territory throughout the West Bank and in the contested city of Jerusalem as depicted in figure 3.3. On the separation barrier public, vernacular image-making is either dominated by international proxies on one side or nonexistent on the other. One has to ask why it is that activist Israelis do not engage with the separation barrier (or security

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Figure 3.3  The Flag of Israel Claims the Skyline within the Old City of Jerusalem Even as the Muslim Call to Prayer Echoes in the Street. Source: Photograph by Cole Keister. Used with permission.

fence, depending on your perspective). We believe there is intimidation that has less to do with soldiers bearing arms and more to do with social pressures. What those pressures may be is in discovery, but the processes of “Othering” have been the framework to what Westerners call Western Culture.​ Israel has traditionally looked to the West for cultural and political models. We think the Palestinians may have learned some of these “Othering” processes from their “cousins” in Israel. An argument can be made that what seems to be a mutual disengagement in the visual culture is a conscious choice mirrored in the politics and perennial “peace” processes. As an extension of this, indigenous visual cultures are largely hidden from each “Other” and yet the similarities hide in plain sight.

Chapter 4

Intents and Effects in Belfast

Again, moving from the general to the specific, this chapter will apply much of the more theoretical parts of chapter 3 to Belfast itself as a case study. Fortunately, we were able to spend time with, and interview, key artists with intimate involvement in the city’s political graffiti. PHIL HOPPER, BELFAST, JULY 2005 As I walked west on Falls Road during July 2005, I saw a man painting a mural in the courtyard of an “Estate” or working-class housing project. The mural was a Celtic fantasy of warriors, mystical symbols, rabbits with teeth bared, and trumpeter swans. The muralist, Danny Devenny, explained that he also did “the other kind” of mural. He then mentioned that Bill Rolston would be joining him at noon. I did not know this at the time, but Rolston is the author of a series of well-known photo-essays on the murals of Northern Ireland collectively titled Drawing Support (2003). Danny pushed his cart full of painting supplies out of the estate down Falls Road to an unfinished mural of Frederick Douglass. This mural is (was) part of a metal fence surrounding an industrial complex that abuts a socalled peace line. These separation barriers are scattered throughout Belfast demarcating Republican and loyalist neighborhoods or enclaves. The barrier between Falls Road and Shankill is composed of metal walls and concrete slabs topped with chain-link fence or razor wire, depending on location. At this point in time, heavy steel doors closed off streets to through traffic between the two neighborhoods at night and all-day Sunday. Signs still warn of surveillance cameras at the crossing through a fenced industrial park on the Catholic side then past the gate itself and into a large vacant lot on the 31

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Protestant side. This supposed Peace Line, consisting of panels demarcated by upright supports, has now been in existence longer than the Berlin Wall. Devanny has dubbed the series of murals he painted on the metal fence the Solidarity Wall because many of the images relate to other global, nationalist struggles for independence. This metal fence with its transnational images is effectively part of the boundary, separating the Catholic neighborhood of Falls Road from the Protestant upper and lower Shankill. It is similar in some ways with the Israeli Separation Barrier in that many of the images on it are intended to become transnational. This barrier in Belfast is different though from the one in Bethlehem in that the images painted on it are made by locals self-conscious of the Irish Republican relationship with Palestine. For example, in 2005, on one panel of the Belfast wall, a Palestinian woman confronted an Israeli soldier with text in Arabic and Gaelic that reads “our day will come.” That image was then succeeded in 2008 by an image underscoring the sixtieth anniversary of The Nakba or the “catastrophe.” (An event that is celebrated by others as the founding of Israel.) Devenny is a talented political cartoonist whose work rarely remained static (see figures 4.1 and 4.2).​ ​ During summer weekends, taxis and buses pull up every few minutes to disgorge visitors, mostly from the European Union, with cameras who click a few frames and are then whisked away. One of the complaints about the popular success of these murals is that the tourists never stay long enough to spend any money. The murals are an attractive way to say “I’ve been there,” and in that way, these conflict tourists fall into the same trap as mainstream media. In either case, the intended narrative is bent to a voyeuristic or simplistic agenda. For tourists, the purpose is a kind of political voyeurism. For some media producers, the murals, often framed without context, offer the visual equivalent of a sound bite while maintaining the pose of relevance. In addition to murals oriented toward an international audience and local graffiti, the territory is marked by green and orange curbstones on the Republican side. Passing through the Peace Line from Falls Road into Shankill color schemes, iconography, and symbols change. In the Shankill, these same curbstones change to red, white, and blue. Union Jacks replace Republic of Ireland and Palestinian flags. Images calculated to become transnational change abruptly to paramilitary murals of hooded gunmen, memorials to the loyalist dead, and historical sacrifices. The Battle of the Somme, for example, along with various Republican “atrocities,” is depicted in folkloric detail. The loyalist murals are, by and large, more ominous in subject matter and tone than most Republican murals. Whether this is a remnant of historical intimidation tactics that are external and directed at Republican neighbors or internal and directed at rival loyalist groups is difficult to know. Unionist or loyalist murals for a large part rely on predictable iconography and symmetrical compositions, suggesting stability or stasis. The tradition is old and has always been about reinforcing and maintaining a status quo that no longer

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Figure 4.1  Devenny’s Palestine Solidarity Mural in 2005 on Top. The text reads “Our day will come” in Arabic and Gaelic. He replaced it with the mural on the bottom in 2008 on the sixtieth anniversary of The Nakba. It depicts the Israeli separation barrier and Palestinian children with housekeys. For Palestinians, the housekey symbolizes the right to return. Source: Philip Hopper.

exists. The murals themselves, though they were changing in 2005 and 2008, still looked as if a cabal of professional sign painters using templates created them. See figure 4.3, especially the crown and Union Jack. ​

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Figure 4.2  When the Attack on Gaza, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, Started in December 2008, Devenney Returned to the Nakba Mural, Painting This Reversal of a John Lennon Lyric. Devenney also destroyed his own mural by painting the mounting death count over it. Source: Photograph by Bill Rolston. Used with permission.

Figure 4.3  Unionist/Loyalist Mural Detail in Newtownards. July 2018. Source: Philip Hopper.

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PHIL HOPPER, BELFAST, JULY 2018 Bill Rolston is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Ulster’s Jordanstown campus, just north of Belfast. For three decades, he has been researching and writing on politics, society, and culture in Northern Ireland with a particular focus on the causes and consequences of political violence (1992, 1996, 2003). During July 2018, I was able to spend some time with Bill, and he explained the disparity between Republican and unionist imagemaking. Our “discursive meander,” as Bill put it, also ranges broadly around the nature of settler colonialism and names on the land. Phil:  Are there ways that symbols and icons work in conflict here that you can see elsewhere? Are there transparent markers that have to do with subordinated and dominating cultures? Are there any commonalities in the way that works? Bill:  Say you got the chance of transforming conflict, but it doesn’t happen overnight, you may have your cease fire, you may have your peace agreement, but you build over generations, after the basic agreement. So, the question is, what do you do with all the symbolism and culture that was there before? What do you do with that? Logically speaking, there are only three possibilities, right? One is, you continue with the symbolism as before... Phil:  With its connotations of provocation. Bill:  and hope that they come a point where you say, well, that’s just historical, it doesn’t mean anything anymore. The second possibility is that you demolish the previous hegemonic symbolism, and you replace it with the other one that was a subordinate one. Phil:  Could it happen? Bill:  I know you get the elements of that. I mean you get, what was it, something that two and a half dozen street names and public building names and so on in Ukraine changed after Ukraine got its government there back. You’ve got the law of historical memory in Spain, which says that you change the names of streets that have to do with fascism and at that point dictatorship. You know so you get elements of that in places, and not through blood, but you get elements that say, okay, we’re doing away with the old and we’re replacing it with the subordinate or subaltern or the new hegemony which is all we’re peace-loving now. And the third one which, I think South Africa is trying quite well, and actually it’s—Sinn Fein is quite onto this one, in Belfast, is, no, you don’t destroy your past, but you demand equal time and equal respect. So, for example, Belfast City Hall a bastion of unionism. No nationalist was ever in there except in the back door to pay their gas bill, back in the day. Also, they reported a death or a marriage. So you’ve got Queen Victoria at the front of the City Hall, you’ve got the statue about the Korean War, on the grounds, you’ve got a memorial to Lord Dufferin who was the Viceroy of India, you’ve got what

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I regard the most offensive, a monument about the regiment that fought at the Battle of Locust Grove, in South Africa where they slaughtered thousands of Zulus—isn’t that where they started? So they’re all there, never mind what’s inside. And the Shinners (Sinn Fein) who are now the largest party in Belfast City Council said no we want equal time. So now you’ve got the stained-glass window about Irish Republicanism, the history of Irish Republicanism, you’ve got various things that are planned in the future, they want to put some more statues in the grounds that represent the other Republican side of the community, and so on. I think that’s imaginative. I don’t know if Mandela was on about with this but paradoxically, one of the most radical things you can do in a situation like ours is deny inequality, because the system is geared, is built on inequality, therefore it is genuinely radical to try to force the system to act equally. This cuts away the very essence of the system. Phil:  And this is the essence of the problem in Israel and Palestine. There’s no way that Israel can grant Palestinians equality within the current structure, because they’d essentially be voted out of office. Bill:  The ultimate there is they have to decide whether they’re going to be a theocracy or a democracy, and all the evidence is they have no desire to be a democracy. Phil:  And yet they represent themselves as a democracy. And that’s the PR device or Hasbara [this refers to the Zionist public relations, some would say propaganda, apparatus especially in Western Europe and the United States] talking. Bill:  I mean there are some places where it’s less in your face than that. For example: this is one of the things that’s very specific about the Irish language movement here. They’re not trying to remove English, they’re not trying to force a single person in the world to speak Irish who doesn’t want to speak it, but they just want to be able to say they can put their street names in Irish. Or they can be represented in court in Irish. Phil:  Ironically what’s happening in Israel, especially in Arab areas, is that they’re now starting to allow Arab street signs. Bill:  So, they’re officially allowed? Phil:  Yes. And, yet, you see efforts anywhere near a settlement in the West Bank, or in Jerusalem to erase any Arab language place names. Bill:  There’s still that siege mentality here to an extent with loyalism. In fact, most loyalists get really angry and annoyed if you use the word settler in regard to their culture, but historically it fits, you know. I can quote from a moderator of the Presbyterian church who said, “the trouble with my people is that for being the descendants of settlers, they’re remarkably unsettled people.” When settlers were planted here in the Early 1700’s, something like, 1.5 million acres of land were taken from the natives and given to the incomers. Southeast Antrim is the most Protestant part of Northern Ireland, statistically, and there are hardly any Catholics there at all. The history is that when the settlers came some of the natives converted to Presbyterianism, and those who didn’t were

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thrown off the cliffs. And in a way it still has that mentality, but ironically almost every name of every village in Ireland, four hundred years later is Irish. It’s Anglicized, but it’s Irish, right, so they didn’t really rename the land. And I was saying this to an American recently, he said, it’s the same thing in America, I said, wait a minute, New York, Washington? He said, no, no, no, Narragansett, Milwaukee, these are all Native American place names. Phil:  I suspect it has to do with time frame. North America was taken over in a very gradual process. The duration of the settlement or colonization process plays a role. Bill:  But you do get places where places have different names. Derry, Londonderry is a prime example.

Rolston also explained the disparity between Republican and loyalist image-making. This is his response to a question about the taboo in some contexts of showing the faces of the dead in vernacular image-making. It leads to illuminating commentary about the history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland and Belfast in particular. It also sheds light on the disparity in approaches between loyalist or unionist image-making and Republican or nationalist image-making. Bill: There’s no reason why you shouldn’t show a dead hero’s face because there’s no repercussions for that, right? And so they did show dead hero’s faces, for example you remember Hopewell Crescent, the Lower Shankill there were three, there were and still are three heroes of the UDA (Ulster Defense Association). Compliments of Johnny ‘Adair, right? [Johnny ‘Adair was the leader of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Freedom Fighters (U.F.F.)] The point is they had another scenario going which was, look, you know we are the best, we will protect you, and here, you’re protected. So those protectors were live protectors. But they were there for the most part fictionalized. So, it wasn’t any particular person behind the mask, it was just a masked man that was p­ rotecting you, right? In figure 4.4, Rolston on the left assists Devenny on the right. ​ Bill continues:  Now, the Republicans did the same, in the ‘80’s, but the difference is that the masked men never dominated Republican iconography the way they did the loyalist iconography. And there are at least two reasons for that: One is that the Republican Commanders never sought to control the walls, to monopolize the walls. The Loyalist Commanders did, and do, right? And the second factor is that Republicanism is a fairly broad political ideology, and loyalism is a very narrow political ideology. So, when you say to the loyalists paint something else, very often the response you get is: what do you want us to paint? To which the reply is: Who’s the bloody loyalist here, you or me, you know. [Laughs] But, loyal-ism, I mean take the international thing, loyalists look around the world and they say: who’s like them? And at most they get one answer, Israel, at most.

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Figure 4.4  Bill Rolston Helps Danny Devenny with a Frederick Douglass Mural during July 2005. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Phil:  I remember in the upper Shankill there was a big mural of James Madison. Bill:  No, no, it’s Buchanan, he’s still there, very faded, but he’s still there. Okay, so when the Republicans look around the world and ask: who are we like, who is like us? They get a million answers: the Basques, Corsicans, the Catalans, Cubans, Nicaragua, Zapatistas, even though they never did a Zapatista mural, the Kurds, and so on and so on and so on, right? Turkish hunger strikers, and so on. So, when you try to persuade loyalists to reimage themselves there’s two things you can do, you can bribe them into re-imaging, which is what the Re-Imaging Program was, and it was a bribery program, which had limited success. And the other way you can do it is to say, okay, guys, re-image yourselves, and that’s problematic in two senses. Number one, in effect you’re saying to the Loyalist Commanders, give up monopoly control of the walls, give the walls back to the whole community and see what they want to paint, and warlords don’t do that easily. And the second problem of trying to persuade them to do it themselves is back to what I was saying, what would they paint? [Laughs] If a war lord wasn’t painting advertisements for his organization what will he paint? And it’s a real problem for them. So, they paint some history, boring, Siege of Derry, a few things like that. But the main way in which they’ve re-imaged, and especially the UVF, is to turn from painting illegal armed men to painting legal armed men. So paintings about the First World War, Second World War, Afghanistan, Polish Pilots in the Battle of Britain, Gurkhas fighting the First World War on the British side, so there’s a couple of international ­references there. But, again, all in a context of empire. So that’s about where the ­loyalists are at, at the moment. Phil:  And the Republicans? Bill:  They can paint current affairs, but they’re doing less than you might think at the moment. I mean there’s been no Brexit mural, there’s been no Trump mural, and that has a lot to do with very specific things, basically the health of the main muralist. Because he [Danny Devenny] would have been out there. I mean he’s constantly firing ideas.

When I returned to The Solidarity Wall on Falls Road that day in 2005, Bill Rolston had joined Devenny at work on a mural of Frederick Douglass. The image was a partial recreation of a mural Danny painted in New Bedford, Massachusetts during October 2001. Despite the good news in 2005 regarding the peace process in Northern Ireland, the unionist images there could (also in 2018 and still to this day) be quite intimidating. The reality on the ground in Northern Ireland is that Republican use of murals and image-making in general has been strategic in a way that unionists are not. Images that embrace other political struggles and cultures become transnational, or transparent, in ways that images that do

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not simply cannot. The public political face of Sinn Fein in 2005 was Jerry Adams. Despite allegations that Adams was an IRA commander, he currently looks like a retired high school social studies teacher. In 2005, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was an attenuated geriatric named Ian Paisley who once compared the Pope to the antichrist in public. He has been succeeded in some ways by his son Ian Paisley Jr. Conversation continues: Bill:  Down in the Village there’s a mural which says the UDA was from 1971, and for most of its existence, was a legal organization. that’s something that enraged nationalists and Republicans at the time because they were killing people. And yet they claimed them under the name UFF, Ulster Freedom Fighters, never under the name of UDA, and my joke, which wasn’t very funny but still was that everybody knew it was an American tanker flying a Panamanian flag, so it was a flag of convenience that they were using. The point is that the government accepted that flag of convenience, so for between 1971 and 1992 they (the UDA) were legal, they were only banned in 1992, less than two years before the cease fire, which we didn’t know was coming, but less than two years as it turns out before the cease fire. I think there were two elements to it, one element to it was this whole issue of collusion, which was that the British army, and the police, large sections, that tended to see loyalism the way loyalism saw itself, that is an extension of the security force attempt to wipe out militant Republicanism. So, there was a shared world view, there was a shared sense that we’re all in this together, even if two of us are legal and one isn’t. And the measure of this is this report that was done on the murder of a solicitor, Pat Finucane, an official government report, about 2012 I think it was, that the da Silva Report confirmed that in the 1980’s, 85% of the intelligence being used by the UDA to kill Catholics was coming from the police and the army.In figure 4.5, a Unionist message touts the longevity of a now-deceased British monarch. ​

Figure 4.5  Unionist Graffiti in the Tiger Bay Area of Belfast. July 2005. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Bill continues:  So, that’s one explanation. And the other one, which maybe I should put this one first because it’s less offensive in a way, was a lot of the British army generals, leaders, figured that fighting a protracted guerrilla war, the longest campaign the British army has ever fought was here, they called it one operation, Operation Banner, from 1969 to 1998 or whatever, the longest single campaign against an urban guerrilla group. You know they got a lot of experience, a lot of training out of it, but it also pushed them to their limits of what a regular army could do. So, the last thing they wanted was a second front, with the loyalists. There was that element in it as well. Figure 4.6 depicts a typical Unionist message.​

During my visit during the summer of 2005, a cab driver advised me to avoid the Upper Crumlin, an area just north of upper Shankill Road. There,

Figure 4.6  The Text Associated with This Mural that Rolston Refers to as “Down in the Village” reads: The U.D.A. was formed in September 1971, for most of this time it was a legal organization. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant Loyalist areas and combat Irish Republicanism mainly the IRA. The UDA/UFF declared a ceasefire in 1994. It ended its campaign in 2007. Source: Philip Hopper.

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the burnt-out remains of a bus spoke of recent street violence. According to Neil Jarman, “when the locals burn things the authorities often take their time cleaning up as if to say, ‘it’s your mess, you can live with it for a while’” (Jarman 1998). This extends to the combustible material gathered and put to the torch during the night of July 12, commemorating King Billy’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The volume of scrap wood, tires, and other materials to be burned is staggering and serves as a unionist celebration but also as an apt metaphor for continuing tensions within loyalism itself. Shankill Road going west reaches a high point, where it curves past abandoned houses and then ends at a traffic circle. A tall metal pole with CCTV surveillance cameras pointing in all directions reaches skyward in the middle of the circle. I stop at a grocery store for something to drink and only then recognize that I have passed out of the Upper Shankill through a buffer zone

Figure 4.7  A Monument to the Victims of “Bloody Sunday” in the Bogside Area of Derry/Londonderry. May 2004. Source: Philip Hopper.

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and into Ardoyne, a Catholic neighborhood. As an outsider, transition can be jarring. Neighborhoods have calcified into rigid strongholds that exist in close proximity. There are no “soft” partitions for residents only for inexperienced outsiders such as myself. The grocery store is painted with a mural, commemorating the African American struggle for Civil Rights. It compares that struggle with the Republican cause. Many of the early Catholic protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s were modeled on Civil Rights Movement protests in the United States. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed in 1967. A photo of Martin Luther King lay among flowers at the “Bloody Sunday” memorial in the Bogside area of Derry or Londonderry during my first visit to Northern Ireland in 2004.See figure 4.7.​ Back toward the city center in Lower Shankill, historical renditions of King Billy still compete with images of hooded gunmen and memorial murals. In 2005, as I photographed an Ulster Defense Association mural on the gable end of a building, another boy appeared dressed in a red football jersey, kicking a soccer ball. He dribbles with skill and then slams the ball into the mural. The ball bounces back, and he continues around the corner out of sight. A middle-aged man in slippers walks past in the opposite direction, carrying his daily newspaper in one hand. His shadow falls directly in front of him. He pays no attention to either the mural to his right or the photographer to his left. The effect is a kind of visual schizophrenia that speaks to the nature of the conflict itself. Is Ireland one country or two? The answer may lie more in a shrug than a handshake. The answer may lie in that boy’s careless

Figure 4.8  Gerry Adams, the Former President of the Sinn Fein Party with the Current President Mary Lou McDonald at a July 16, 2018, Rally in West Belfast. Source: Philip Hopper.

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nonchalance as he bounces a ball off an intimidating paramilitary image. Dissident Republicans and loyalist turf warfare over drug money are still threats. However, no matter what the political parties do or do not decide, no matter how far in the future home rule and a Northern Ireland Assembly may be, the reality is that most of the people are moving on. During my 2018 visit, dissident Republicans threw “explosive devices” at the homes of former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein colleague Bobby Storey in West Belfast. At a subsequent rally in support of Adams and Storey, the current Sinn Fein president, Mary Lou McDonald, branded the dissidents as “enemies of the people” (Border Telegraph 2018). Adams and McDonald are depicted in figure 4.8 below. The “bitter residue” remains.​

Chapter 5

Image, Text, and Ideology in Ramallah

Parallel to the previous chapter, we now move across geographical, religious, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and political boundaries to analyze how and why graffiti works, or not, in the city of Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank. We were once again fortunate to spend time speaking with some of the actual local artists deeply involved in the graffiti project. THEORY AND PRACTICE IN RAMALLAH As a visitor to Ramallah, we knew the work of the artists in discussion here long before meeting them. Hamza Abu Ayyash’s graffiti, depicting faceless, muscular, humanoids is scattered throughout central Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank. These images are without pretense, populist and simplistic in some ways, complex in others. They are aimed at a young, super-herovideo-game-oriented audience and spray-painted in broad strokes using, for the most part, primary colors. At the same time, his collaborative use of texts as integral to the work gives it a unique gravitas. The work of brothers Ant and Bash also grazes in the wide world of intertextuality. Their signature works from the early twenty-first-century “teens” range from art school anatomical models playfully posed to internationalist quotes, including one famous image from the Berlin Wall. Unlike Abu Ayyash, they are openly critical of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hence their preference for using pseudonyms and anonymity. From mundane street signs and graffiti to sophisticated advertising and culture jams, we are thoroughly conditioned to see the practice of combining images with texts as seamless or so normal as to be virtually invisible. Some 45

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visual theorists and cultural critics “read” images as “texts” and speak of how what is literally text serves as an “anchorage,” pointing the way toward an overt or implied meaning. Semiotics and semiology, essentially the study of signs and signifiers, are useful when deconstructing advertising and other such Western routines. However, the suggestions of visual theorist W. J. T. Mitchell are especially useful when looking at vernacular political art like that of Hamza Abu Ayeesh. Here, we use some of his ideas as a form of inquiry and framework around interviews with these artists. Mitchell argues in his book Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (1987) that “The presentation of imagistic elements in texts, textual elements in images . . . might be ‘defamiliarized’ by understanding it as a transgression, an act of (sometimes ritual) violence involving the incorporation of the symbolic Other into the generic Self” (Mitchell 1987, 157). How we understand who (or what) is this symbolic other and who (or what) is the generic self is an interesting question in any situation. In contested areas like the West Bank, where identity is highly politicized, it comes loaded with an ongoing history of competing narratives. Mitchell continues to argue in his discussion of image and ideology that there is no real need for a “master theory to unite the arts” (Mitchell 1986, 112). In a popular idiom like graffiti where distinctions between image and text seem to have been erased, where artists make their own rules, this seems to be especially true. The critical process Mitchell suggests to “defamiliarize” a naturalized practice and “dispense” with master theories is useful when looking at political graffiti. This is especially true with graffiti artists like Hamza Abu Ayyash, who is fully conscious about how he collaborates with writers and other artists. Hamza prefers the term graffiti because in his words “you get paid for murals.” He also has a side business as a tattoo artist, in his words again, “because you have to make money.” The borders of political populism and commerciality are as porous in his world as they are in the broader world of images and texts. Hamza wrote in 2014, I was born in Lebanon in 1981 then traveled with the family to Tunisia then to Jordan in 1985. We moved to Palestine four years after the Oslo agreement in 1997 and lived in Hebron until 2000, when the family moved to Ramallah. I left to Nablus for education in 2004 and graduated from the Fine Arts Program at An-Najah National University. I contributed to several collective exhibitions and held a few of my own. From 2011, I was doing graffiti regularly and in 2012, I had the hunger strike graffiti project (Hamza Abu Ayyash email to Hopper, September 30, 2014)

Starting in 2012, Hamza began painting images in response to and in support of Palestinian prisoners and the hunger strikes. “Guts,” in both a literal

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and figurative sense, are important to the inception and execution of these larger-than-life works. The graffiti that composes Hamza’s hunger strike project was recent in August 2012 when I arrived in Ramallah. The colors were still fresh and vibrant. By the time I departed in June 2014, flaking and fading had become obvious. It remains to be seen if they are of a temporal nature or something more permanent. In one of his most striking and original pieces, an eviscerated figure, hungering for nationhood, spills his guts in the shape of Palestine imagined whole. This speaks to the willingness of a subordinated culture’s vernacular voice to shock its audience. It also reflects the inverted geographical iconography present in Israeli and Palestinian mapping of the conflicted land both claims. “Guts” form a literal image of the land and proclaim an equally literal identity as in figure 5.1. Hamza has little use for metaphor in his image-making. He usually leaves this to collaborators who provide the texts. Much of the vernacular political image-making in the West Bank may be viewed as a collaborative whole, emerging for better or for worse from a culture not an individual.​ Other versions of Hamza’s muscleman depict him carrying an imaginary and whole Palestine on his back, crucified to a symbolic house key, breaking

Figure 5.1  This Mural by Abu Ayyash Is Across the Street from a Parking Lot for Bethlehem University not Far from the Busy Serveech Station in the Heart of Bethlehem. The text by a Palestinian named Nayef Bazzar reads: “My guts declares my identity.” According to Hamza, Bazzar spent six years in an Israeli jail from age sixteen to twentytwo. Source: Philip Hopper.

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free from chains, raising a fist clenched to an assault rifle from the grave, and in a project executed with a group of other graffiti artists, flying through the air like Superman. The populist impulse to create intertextual images for an audience should not be underestimated. It is after all what keeps The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park relevant. The “Palestinian alarm clock” bit on Family Guy (YouTube 2009) retains the ability to both offend and serve as ironic commentary about the attitudes of many Westerners and in particular Americans. A critique of Hamza’s work may be that it is a bit too generic and, in that way, meaningless. This “general” approach, to use Hamza’s own word, is also its strength. The faceless suffering hero is crucified, carries the state on his back, or poses in a yoga position cross-legged holding his heart in clasped hands. “I don’t paint icons” Hamza told me, “Because somebody might not like them.” According to Hamza, the PA encourages his work. His work is not erased or defaced as is some work of other graffiti artists who are critical of the PA or especially Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In addition, communities where he paints give their explicit permission for execution of his work. Hamza attributes this to the fact that his work is simply against “the occupation” but does not espouse any political party or decry the PA. Rather than trying to extract quotes and build an argument it seems best to let the artist speak for himself. The following interview has been edited for clarity. It took place in Ramallah at the Zam’n Café on April 24, 2014. A conclusion will attempt to reconcile the critical and theoretical issues raised by Hamza’s work. Hamza Abu Ayyash: Interview Phil:  Tell me more about how words and images work together in your graffiti. Hamza:  I know my limits, so I go to professionals like poets, like writers, sometimes ex-prisoners. The one in Bethlehem, he’s holding his head, stretching his stomach and his guts falling around Palestine. The text next to it says, “My guts declare my identity.” The text was from an ex-prisoner friend of mine, Nayef Bazzar. He was jailed when he was 16 and he was released when he was 24. It’s strong as words. Came from someone who’s never been educated. But he was in prison for eight years. I showed him my sketch and he said many words, many sentences and when he told me that I said stop. This is it: “My guts declare my identity.” Phil:  When did you start this series? Hamza:  The thing that exploded with me was, the first political graffiti I made was during the declaration of the Palestinian state in 2011. For me I consider this event the first time I started to clarify my name as a graffiti artist. Not just some kid with spray-paint. Afterwards, in 2012, when the major hunger strike

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started in the Israeli prisons, I made a personal project on the walls. Just me and my spray cans for my own mind. Phil:  One of your figures here in Ramallah is crucified. Hamza:  During the hunger strike I transformed this character into Jesus because he’s a Palestinian. He was crucified on the key of return and the number sixtyfour for the years of Nakba. And the Arabic text that reads, “We own the dream and the idea, and you shall own the coffin.” The text was written by Arafat AlDeek, a friend of mine who is a poet. I usually ask friends of mine to write texts and I make a visual version of it. I showed him the sketch and it was painted in 2012. Phil:  The one behind the Post Office? Hamza:  The text next to it says, “For you I suck my guts.” For Palestinian people the prisoner is sucking his own guts, digesting his guts. The text was from Faris Sabaane another poet friend. Phil:  People don’t usually deface your work. Hamza:  But I saw someone put a smiley face on the one near the post office. It’s okay. I can imagine why people don’t touch it because you’re not talking about any political party. You’re not judging anyone; you’re just against the occupation. It’s a common problem for all Palestinians. The occupation for every Palestinian. Okay some like the Authority some don’t. Some like Fatah some don’t, Hamas blah blah blah. But everyone is against the occupation. When you work with an idea that everyone understands you know that your work won’t be challenged in a way. Phil:  What about the one on the vegetable stand? Hamza:  It’s my text this time and it reads: my hunger carries my homeland as depicted in figure 5.2. He is carrying the historical map of Palestine with his guts. I like the image of Khadar Adnan but not the icons. Just one does not stand for the many. I painted it during the major hunger strike in 2012 on May 16. The same day my sister gave birth to my niece. My mother called me and said come your sister is giving birth. So I tagged myself and left.​ Phil:  You work in different styles? The horses? Hamza:  In Arab culture the horse is a symbol of freedom and rejecting training. The horse is a symbol of authenticity, pride. The word horse is from the word for pride (‫)الخَيل‬. I was with a friend of mine from the U.S., we were in Lebanon on a project in Shatila Camp and I don’t know I was just drawing small horses everywhere and she said, “You’re the Crazy Horse.” Hey I loved it. A friend of mine who knows a lot about Native American culture told me who Crazy Horse is, who he was, and all the myths built on his name. Phil:  The Gaza piece is also different. (see figures 5.3 and 5.4.) Hamza:  I used a stencil for the face and everything else is spray-painted. Usually, I do not like stencils. It’s a commercial way to do graffiti because you can do it many times. The text was from a friend of mine, a journalist. It reads, “The days we die is our birthdays” something like that. “The day we are born

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Figure 5.2  Hamza Wrote the Text Himself. It reads: “My hunger carries my homeland.” Hamza’s figure is carrying the historical map of Palestine with his guts. This detail is significant in that it contains a stencil of the iconic Palestinian hunger striker Kahdar Adnan, which Hamza notes in his interview. Source: Philip Hopper.

Figure 5.3  According to Ayyash, the Text Reads “The Day We Are Born Is the Day We Die as Martyrs.” A transliteration is simply “Born to die.” The artist painted this work during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. He dislikes the use of stencils because in his words they are “a commercial way to do graffiti.” However, he effectively uses this technique to detail the child angel’s face. Source: Philip Hopper.

is the day we die as martyrs.” It was during Cast Lead when kids were just dying.​​ Phil:  Do you have a regular job? Hamza:  We have a company that’s about education. And also, I’m a tattoo artist [laughs]. I need some cash flow. Walid the owner of this place is a

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Figure 5.4  The Stencil Technique Draws Attention to Similarities to the Images of Dead Children from Gaza, Which Regularly Appear in West Bank Newspapers. Download an example here: https://www​.dropbox​.com​/s​/waua86eyknl8q21​/2012​-11​-20​-23​.50​.28​.jpg​ ?dl​=0. ​Source: Philip Hopper.

regular customer of mine. But the walls are our canvases, they are calling my name. Hamza:  I have other pieces. One for Sabra Shatila that’s new this November. Phil:  Why are they decapitated? (see figure 5.5.) Hamza:  Because that’s what they did. And every pregnant woman they opened her up. It’s about Shatila and Sabra. It says Sabra and Shatila only. That’s it.​ Phil:  Are you worried about people learning your identity? Hamza:  No. The intelligence took me many times. The Palestinian intelligence. Phil:  What did they do? Hamza:  I’m not saying any bad words against them or against anyone. Just against the occupation. They said go on, carry on. I showed him my card and they [the police] asked are you writing slogans? I said no. Graffiti? I said yes. They said okay. If it’s graffiti it’s okay. That’s why I like to make my message general. Phil:  What does the text say on your mural near the Jerusalem bus stop? Hamza:  Your guts are a slap of anger. The whole thing of the hunger strike was called the anti-guts. That’s why I used the guts everywhere. The funny thing is it’s in the center of the city but it’s clean. Usually I try to make something text and image. You can have both of them together.

Hamza Abu Ayyesh is, or now was, the godfather of Ramallah graffiti. He has graduated from the International Academy of Art, Palestine in Ramallah and now lives in Brussels. His successors include Bash and Ant who prefer

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Figure 5.5  The Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982 Was the Killing in Lebanon of between 460 and 3,500 Civilians—Mostly Palestinian Refugees and Lebanese Shiites. Many of the victims were decapitated. Hamza spent time in Shatila in 2012 (interview). Source: Philip Hopper.

pseudonyms and differ with Hamza because, though they have a playful side, they are also openly critical of the PA. Bash and Ant: Locals in Trouble with The Law In late March 2013 during President Obama’s visit to the West Bank and his meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, a stencil of the two men, kissing each other on the lips, appeared in central Ramallah. As a piece of political commentary, the work was not a complete success. Neither Obama nor Abbas is immediately recognizable, and it is doubtful if either was ever aware of the image. The image though is interesting as an intertextual quote reaching back to the Cold War. In 1979, Leonid Brezhnev, then the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, and Erich Honecker, then the General Secretary of East Germany, were photographed in a “fraternal embrace” or “bruderkuss.” The photograph, by Regis Bossu, was subsequently copied on the Berlin Wall in 1990 by graffiti artist Dimitri Vrubel who captioned his painting “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.” The image, with its ironic text, became one of the bestknown works on the Berlin Wall. Vrubel restored his work in March 2009.

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Figure 5.6  The Caption Bash and Ant Chose “It’s Complicated” Written in English (Bash Went to College in the United States) Speaks Not Only to the Local Occupation But Also to the Transnational Aspirations of the Artists. Vrubal’s original caption, “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love” also applies in the West Bank and in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis. April 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

The Palestinian graffiti artists who recreated this image in Ramallah go by their “tags” Bash and Ant. They were arrested by PA police during the execution of their intertextual take on the Vrubel image and detained overnight. During January 2014, Bash related, We couldn’t run away. We were surrounded by all these police cars. They did not understand what we were doing. There was one of Abu Mazen kissing Obama and they were looking at it and they had no idea (see figure 5.6). Hopefully I won’t get stopped again. Now I kind of play it safer. I always have a lookout on the corners of the street and whenever there are cop cars I know before they get to the street, so I just drop everything and hide.​

Bash and Ant have counterparts in Germany, Lithuania, Great Britain, and the United States, where various nationalist and conservative leaders have been depicted in a similar embrace with Donald Trump. What seems to be the most recent iteration in Lithuania, depicting Vladimir Putin and Trump, contains the caption “Make Everything Great Again.” Phil:  Your tag is Bash and your brother’s is Ant, why did he take that? Bash:  I think you better ask him. He can explain it better than I can. He wants to be anonymous and it’s part of his character, you know the worker, the hardworking person. Phil:  Do you sketch your ideas out ahead of time? Bash:  I’d say about ninety percent of the time yeah, I do sketch. Sometimes I have no idea. Phil:  I saw sketches for the eagle.

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Bash:  Of course, I’m gonna go into politics. My art is more personal than political but in Palestine you can’t stay away from politics even on a personal level you find yourself involved in politics in one way or another. Phil:  People in the West are concerned about the PA and corruption. Is that part of it? Bash:  That’s the main part of it. I mean the eagle for the government does so many things. It’s freedom, flying in the sky. It says positive things to the people. But I think it failed horribly to live up to the symbol. So this is where the idea came from, the eagle is killing itself because it’s no longer an eagle, it’s an empty symbol (see figure 5.7).​ Phil:  So without telling me any clients, what kind of graphic design do you guys do? I mean like clothing? Ant:  No, nothing like that. Like right now I’m not gonna say for whom, I’m working on gender equality, and school curriculums. Like there is this association that wants to change the kind curriculums in school to make it more gender equal, so I’m working on the campaign for this, so stuff like that more or less. Phil:  Which is public awareness, public service... Ant:  NGOs mostly. Phil:  Never gonna get overtime. [Laughter] This whole gender thing here is really interesting. I did a project where I collected grandparent photos, like from the students, and none of the grandmothers wore Hajib.

Figure 5.7  Bash and Ant’s Graffito of the Palestinian Authority Symbol, Blowing Its Brains Out, Remained Surprisingly without Redaction for about Two Weeks in Central Ramallah. October 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Figure 5.8  Ant’s Tag Remains Uncovered amid Texts/Images Critical of the PA that Have Been Painted over on a Wall Behind the Popular Zam’n Cafe in Ramallah. October 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

Ant:  Yeah. With Hamas, the country itself is becoming more integrated with Islamism. Phil:  Okay, let me back up. The wall down there below Zam’n [Café]. What’s the deal, why did all that get painted over, a bunch of that stuff got painted over by…? Ant:  Well, the political stuff got painted over, meaning anything that has to do with politics, they paint over. Even the writing, you know (see figure 5.8). ​ Phil:  So, what are you thinking about now? The future again? Bash:  I’ll tell you about the near future. There are a few pieces I have, there’s a wall behind Zam’n that’s full of graffiti. A few of the pieces are mine. The other day we were driving by and the political pieces were covered. I have in mind more work there.

Hamza Abu Ayyash: The Self and the Other During our first interview, Hamza made the point several times that there should be graffiti on the “other” side of the Israeli separation barrier. To my knowledge, that “other” side is gray and blank except for official securityoriented messages. The answer to Hamza’s question probably has to do with social pressure, stigma, and safety. These are also the reasons that few Palestinians leave marks on this wall. Much of the graffiti on the separation barrier

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is by international protest tourists for the same reasons. Palestinians also have social pressure, stigma, and especially safety issues in approaching this wall. Hamza also referred with a great deal of accuracy to the people he collaborated with in the work on his murals, especially those poets, journalists, and former prisoners who supplied texts to pair with his image. He clearly sees the text and the image as necessary and integral. If we take Mitchell’s suggestion to understand the pairing of text and image “as a transgression, an act of (sometimes ritual) violence involving the incorporation of the symbolic other into the generic Self” (Mitchell 1987, 157) what are we to make of Hamza’s work? Of the work of Ant and Bash? Which is the symbolic Other and which is the generic Self? Mitchell is not suggesting that images and text may be viewed this way literally but rather as a kind of dialectical exercise. The question remains though and becomes even more interesting, considering the deeply entwined history of text and art in the Arab world. In his essay titled “Calligraphy and Modern Art in the Arab World,” the Iraqi critic and essayist Jabra I Jabra wrote, “Babylonian and Assyrian sculpture employed cuneiform writing .  .  . in a manner which made the writing itself part of the visual composition” (Jabra 1988, 170). In the mid-twentieth century, Arab artists started “a whole new movement in which calligraphy, interwoven with an abstract background . . . acquired a freedom of form and significance,” which was irrelevant to sacred conventional art (Jabra 1988, 176). Taking Mitchell’s suggestion then, for an Arab artist, it seems that the text is the generic Self both in the sense of personal and collective identity. When we interviewed the internationally recognized artist Kahled Hourani (and formerly the Director of the International Academy of Art, Palestine), he bluntly told me, “I am a calligrapher.” This was in the context of a broader conversation about art, but it is indicative of a more general ingrained attitude about text. Hamza Abu Ayyad uses the words of others in his work, yet he speaks about these words more than he speaks about the images that he paints. Jabra I. Jabra said that for artists in that world, “identity becomes an individual passion, a personal heaven or hell.” In the West Bank, this identity has been purgatorial now for the last sixty-four years, but the personal identification remains. In the spring of 2014, part of Hamza’s Bethlehem mural was whitewashed. The text remains: “My guts declare my identity.” One is left to speculate how it was decided that “My guts declares my identity” as text would be allowed to remain, while the image next to it would be obliterated. It follows again that text may be the symbolic Self, given its importance in Arab cultures. By process of elimination, the generic Other becomes Hamza’s figure. There is an obliteration of the Palestinian Self implicit with the obliteration of the image (see figure 5.9). ​

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Figure 5.9  By June 2014, Someone Had White-Washed Hamza’s Graphic Depiction of an Eviscerated Man in Bethlehem. We can only speculate about the who and why of this act. Source: Philip Hopper.

In a chapter from Iconology about G. E. Lessing titled “Space and Time,” Mitchell writes, The relations of the arts are like those of countries, of clans, of neighbors, of members of the same family. They are thus related by sister and brotherhood, maternity and paternity, marriage, incest, and adultery; thus subject to versions of the laws, taboos, and rituals that regulate social forms of life. (Mitchell 1987, 112)

Perhaps the fact that the text, “My guts declare my identity” can be spoken and become temporal saved those words, that statement. Perhaps, it is simply the Arab identification with calligraphy. Perhaps, someone’s “good taste” was offended, and we know that slippery slope well. It may, in the end, be impossible to ever know what law, taboo, or ritual the image transgressed. With the erasure of the image though, the representation of a body that was intended by the artist to be “general,” the generic Self, for someone else became the symbolic Other, criticisms of Hamza’s work as generic become tautological and meaningless. His work is more than meaningful. It indicates a time in the early twenty-first century when Palestinians are looking for new connections to the wider populist world.

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Figure 5.10  Hamza Abu Ayyash in Ramallah. June 2014. Source: Philip Hopper.

In the end, who objected to Hamza’s literally visceral painting? In this case, in the heart of Palestinian Bethlehem, it was probably not an Israeli. Was it Palestinians who support normalization or simply an objection to the anti-aesthetic nature of the image itself? This work clearly transgressed or refuted some Palestinian status quo but we may never know who erased it. Hamza has moved on to another form of expression, involving projected light and text he refers to as “Calligraffiti.” He has also decamped from Ramallah to Belgium and reflected on this in a recent conversation: Being in the diaspora, we can be ambassadors of the cause, so we will be . . . people will hear us more. In a way there’s gonna be a spotlight on us. It’s from my own experience that the past two years when I was living in Belgium, I made progress in these two years equivalent to the twenty years I made in Palestine. So, in terms of networking, in terms of the evolution of the messages that I spread, and in terms of my own terminology that I use, the way of me thinking, the way of how can I address the quote-unquote Other. So, yeah, I think being part of the diaspora, global diaspora, Palestinian diaspora, I think it’s way better for me and hopefully for the cause (see figure 5.10). ​

Chapter 6

Nakba Day The Ephemera of Martyrdom

In this chapter, we further refine and enhance the analysis of Palestinian graffiti by paying close attention to its use of shaheed (martyr) imagery. This type of image-making engages in a paradoxical cycle of celebration/grief and remembering/forgetting. The theoretical process of consolidation, intimidation, and provocation remains relevant in this application. CONFLICTED NARRATIVES Nakba Commemoration Day for Palestinians is the counterpart of Israel’s Independence Day, which takes place one week earlier. These days respectively mark the forcible expulsions of Palestinians from the nascent state of Israel, and the declaration of statehood by Israel. One tribe’s independence is another tribe’s disaster. One person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. Parallel yet inverted narratives are everywhere in history and the present, from Manifest Destiny to Ukraine, Sudan, Northern Ireland, and elsewhere today. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in Israel and Palestine. In 2014, Israel’s annual Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) began on the evening of May 5 and ended on the evening of May 6, 2014. Yom HaAtzmaut celebrates the declaration by future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that established the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. In Israel, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba or the Catastrophe on the same day as Yom Ha'atzmaut. In the West Bank, Gaza, and the rest of the world, the Nakba is commemorated every year on May 15th. There are frequent demonstrations and clashes often resulting in fatalities. The counter-narratives of statehood versus catastrophe are echoed in almost any interaction between Palestinians and Israelis. 59

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This history propels multilayered contradictory texts of all kinds, from stories of national and personal identity to names upon the land. The dominant actor, Israel, is writing its own history but cannot so easily erase other’s history. Palestinian artifacts and collective memory remain in many places and people like a palimpsest. Palestinians erode Israeli overwriting even as it is continuously superimposed literally and figuratively from above. There is no collective amnesia in the hills of Palestine. Because the heart of this story is about children, Ayed Abu Eqtaish is in a unique position to comment on these competing narratives and some of the recent consequences. He is the Ramallah-based Accountability Program Director of Defense for Children International, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Switzerland: Oh, yes, it's different, yanni, almost in all cases there are two stories, the Palestinian story, and the Israeli story. Because the Israelis are behaving in an illogical way, when we tell the truth we appear that we are telling the illogical thing. So, people tend more to believe that, and our story can't be isolated from the whole context. The Israelis are smarter and cleverer in telling their story. For example, Israel deals with the media in a very smart way, because they regard that as part of the war between them and the Palestinians (interview with Hopper May 29, 2014).

Nakba Day: May 15, 2014 When I arrived home in Ramallah on Nakba Day 2014, the local market was closed, and the owner’s wife sat outside. “They killed two in Beitunia,” she told me as an explanation. Members of the youth wing of Fatah, The West Bank’s largest political party, often roam the streets of Ramallah after the death of Palestinian demonstrators, enforcing a general strike. Ramallah on a Thursday afternoon normally bustles with activity. Palestinians who work in the de facto capital city fill share taxis or serveechs on their way home to various West Bank cities and villages. Others crowd into the large open-air souk (market), where everything from fruits and vegetables to shoes and cell phones are sold. Still, others crowd the coffeehouses and restaurants. Thursday evening in a predominantly Muslim area is like Friday evening elsewhere, the beginning of a weekend. But on May 15, 2014, Ramallah was strangely quiet. Storefronts were shuttered. If the shabab (youth) happened to be nearby, these shops stayed that way. If not, merchants furtively let known customers enter to make purchases, closing heavy metal-hinged shutters or roll-down gates again after transacting whatever business happened to be at hand. So it was on this day that I was able to obtain groceries for dinner. The feral cats I had been feeding greeted me as usual. I called them both Sam, short for samoud (or sumoud), meaning steadfastness, those that remain when others leave. Arabic electronica, music

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with traditional instruments and contemporary samples, floated through the grapefruit and fig trees. It was strangely peaceful. The next morning, posters depicting Nadeem Nowara and Mohammed Daher as shaheed, or martyrs, appeared in Ramallah’s city center. These images are typically composite photographs of the victims with icons and symbols of Palestinian nationalism, Quranic verses, and other elements. In the past, they have been derived from family photographs, or if the martyrdom was intentional, images posed by the shaheed prior to their death. Neither Nadeem nor Mohammed was an intentional martyr in that way. In recent years, social media has become a source. Whatever the provenance, these images are always framed or manipulated in some way. In one of these constructed poster images, Nadeem is smiling, his baseball cap on backward, and a traditional keffiyeh around his neck. At the same time, he lies on the ground in the moments immediately after an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bullet found his heart, the same keffiyeh hiding his face. Demonstrators often mask their faces to protect their identities. This poster also bears text, including the name of Saint George’s School in Ramallah, which Nadeem attended. Other text notes his status at the school. A background image in the upper right hand depicts a burning tire and an individual who appears to be about to throw something. Burning tires are often rolled toward Israeli positions during clashes. Rocks are often thrown. Nadeem was simply walking at the time he was shot, though this part of the poster image’s construction suggests active resistance (see figure 6.1). It is important to note here that in this image he is positioned as shaheed without ascribing overt religiosity. It is also important to note that the image contains elements of both the “heroic” and “tragic” Palestinian discourses.​ Nadeem Nowara and Mohammed Daher were taking part in a demonstration supporting Palestinian hunger strikers at Israel’s Ofer Prison in Beitunia a few kilometers from Ramallah in the West Bank. Nadeem was shot in the chest at approximately 1:45 p.m. local time. Mohammed was shot in the back at approximately 2:58 p.m. Surveillance footage from a nearby business subsequently revealed that neither of these two teenagers was actively engaged in violent or threatening behavior at the time they were shot and killed. Some would say murdered. These events foreshadowed other violence in the West Bank and Gaza during the subsequent summer months. They are not isolated but rather part of the complex narrative and counter-narrative generated by Israelis and Palestinians. What follows is an examination of images and texts produced in Ramallah that comment on the events of May 15, 2014, and developments in the days and weeks that followed. Most of the images and texts discussed here appear to be vernacular. However, in a place where people have struggled to attain statehood for over sixty years, the distinction between the institutional

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Figure 6.1  The Text in Red Reads “Hero Martyr of the Catastrophe.” The text in black that he was a “son of the classroom” in the “literature track” and finally “one year before Tajeeki’ (graduation). Source: Philip Hopper.

and the vernacular becomes blurred. According to the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was meant to be a temporary administrative body. It remains in place today as the primary governing apparatus of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian National Committee (PNC) (Parsons 2012). This is at best an opaque political arrangement. The PLO and the PNC are composed of various political parties. The largest of these, Fatah, essentially controls the PA and the West Bank. Fatah along with other political parties, including Hamas in Gaza often claim ownership of the dead as shaheed, with their own posters and visual artifacts. Such was the case with Nadeem and Mohammed. Elevation to this status as part of Palestine’s visual and political culture has a long history of consolidating local public opinion. However, for some, the practice has become a

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cynical manipulation of that same public opinion or worse, an empty automatic gesture of little historical value. I will not pretend to be an expert in the history, sociology, or psychology of intentional and unintentional martyrdom. In Christianity, the prominence of martyrdom dates to the crucifixion of Jesus for some and the stoning death of Saint Stephen a few years later for others. In Islam, this history goes back to the Battle of Karbala and the martyrdom of the prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussein in 680 AD. For some Muslims, “everywhere is Karbala” (Khalili 2007, 217). Anyone of the faith may become shaheed at any time. Generally speaking, someone who is shaheed in the Muslim faith has died doing battle with enemies of another faith. In Christian narratives, the victims more commonly have been put to death through torture for their beliefs. In Judaism, “the closest way to render the term for martyr is kadosh me'uneh, which literally means “answering saint.” All three Abrahamic religions seem to approach this issue with variants of closely related though not directly translatable words or phrases. Speakers of Arabic and English often use the terms shaheed and martyr interchangeably. To a linguist, this is not entirely accurate. Another linguistic point is that these terms, martyr from Greek and shaheed from Arabic, have root meanings as the term for “witness” (Khalili 2007, 217). Palestinian representations of shaheed are not new and have, in a historical sense, served as highly effective messages. In the words of the artist and educator Oraib Toukan: “the Palestinian revolutionary seemed to know the velocity and behavior of the reproduction of technical images all too well” (Khalili 2007, 217). Toukan, who is Jordanian of Palestinian heritage, questions whether the genre continues to be effective and if there may be other ways to challenge the Israeli occupation. Not only to signify resistance to the occupation itself but also to provide a counter-hegemonic response within Palestinian society, which addresses the PA. Khaled Hourani, an internationally recognized Palestinian artist, creates nuanced work that does both. His process-oriented response to Nadeem and Mohammed’s deaths rejects problematic notions of political-religious martyrdom and critiques both Israeli policies and, in relation to the events of May 15, 2014, the local “shaheedification” process. In a way, both these artists, Toukan and Hourani, are asking the question, what may be the unintended effects of shaheed image-making as it is perpetuated into the second decade of the twenty-first century? Palestinian dominant and subordinate ideologies are complicated by a military occupation. Internal ideological discourses are defined by this occupation in ways that affect, intercede, and often supersede local governance, civil society, art, or almost anything else. Only local residents may help us understand this. Arab scholars and artists who have looked at and analyzed images of the shaheed have already done much work. Artists such as Toukan,

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Hourani, and others provide guideposts here throughout this chapter, where our primary purpose is to facilitate Palestinian voices and air them for a Western audience using my own personal experience only as a framework. To decode the subtle political underpinnings of apparently vernacular imagemaking in an entrenched, often violent, conflict is an ongoing process, which I am not capable of accomplishing alone. Picasso and Martyrdom Khaled Hourani was born in Hebron in 1965. His artistic work has been widely exhibited, including a recent retrospective during the spring of 2014 at the Center for Contemporary Art in Glasgow, Scotland. He is also the cofounder and former director of the International Academy of Art in Ramallah. As both a working artist and a facilitator of the arts, Hourani’s work has been important to the growth and perception of contemporary art in Palestine. His own work includes both traditional elements of calligraphy and highly conceptual productions. One such production, “Picasso in Palestine,” brought an original Picasso painting to the West Bank from a museum in Belgium. After a long, complex, and highly negotiated process, Picasso’s 1943 painting “Buste de Femme” was exhibited in Ramallah at the International Academy of Art from June 24 until July 22, 2011. Hourani and filmmaker Rashid Masharawi created a documentary film, Picasso Visits Palestine, and significant attention was paid to the exhibit by local and international press. The documentation and narrative become as important, if not more so, than the work of the art itself. Bringing an original Picasso to occupied territory was difficult and could have failed at almost any juncture. In doing so, Hourani, and the large group of people he worked with on the project, used the process of creating a traditional fine art exhibition in Ramallah to explicate Israel’s repressive state apparatus for the international media. In an interview with Hourani, he had this to say: The process was the most important issue. The journey of the painting from a museum in Europe to a war zone through all these checkpoints, airports. At the same time when you put a Picasso and Palestine together in a small room in the middle of the most important Palestinian city, in Ramallah, it causes a discussion about politics and art. What kind of museums, what kind of art collection? The shipping companies, the institutions, the governments, they all have their own rules, ways of seeing it. The insurance company refused at first. What matters in the whole thing is the story.In figure 6.2 and again in figure 6.3 that “story” is depicted in graphic novel form.​

Some Israeli hegemonic claims include land that such discourse refers to as Judea and Samaria. Palestinian counter-hegemonic claims include the same

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Figure 6.2  Khaled Hourani Holding His Copy of An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine. Hourani figures prominently in the narrative. June 2014. Source: Philip Hopper.

land and call it Palestine. Everything within any discussion about this conflict and occupation stems from the contestation of land and names upon the land. Maps with the same outline read Israel in Hebrew and Palestine in Arabic (Wallach 2011). “Picasso in Palestine” addressed these large issues by focusing on logistics. European television news segments, articles in mainstream media and on various websites are part of this narrative. With an understanding that the process of physically transporting an original Picasso was of prime importance, the artist Michael Baers executed a graphic novel, An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine (2012). Baers’s graphic novel draws out the meaning of Hourani’s Picasso narrative in a way that would be almost impossible for the mainstream press. In being reduced to a couple of paragraphs or a minute-long news report, this means (the logistical process) would inevitably fail to be explicated, and consequently, the project’s most interesting aspect employing the protocol of museum loan policy to unmask the administrative relationship between Israel and the West Bank would remain largely untold.​ Khaled Hourani is widely recognized for other artworks that subtly challenge repressive political ideology. In 2013, he was corecipient of the prestigious Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change. He lays down challenges not only to the occupier but also to the occupied. In regard to the deaths of Mohammed Daher and Nadeem Nowara on May 15, 2014, Hourani questions why Palestinian vernacular image-making continues to rely on the

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Figure 6.3  In 2010, Artist Michael Baers Learned of Khaled Hourani’s Plan to Bring Picasso’s 1943 Painting Buste de femme to Ramallah for an Exhibition at the International Academy of Art, Palestine. His graphic novel Michael Baers, An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine, 2014 documents the process. Source: Michael Baers. Used with permission of the artist.

tropes of victimization, making political and religious martyrs out of secular children. According to Hourani, Nadeem was not shaheed by intention. He was a “kid,” playing hooky from school. When I mentioned this to a colleague, he asked me how I could be sure his martyrdom was unintentional. In truth, I cannot. In the back of every resident, young Palestinian’s mind is the notion, and I would argue the acceptance that they may die from an Israeli bullet. There is of course a right-wing Israeli counter-narrative that Palestinians raise their children to be terrorists. As widely reported in the press, “terrorists” in the Israeli Settler Movement are suspected in the recent arson deaths of two young children in the village of Duma. And so it goes. A poster, which appeared in Ramallah on May 16, 2014 depicts Nadeem surrounded by Koranic verse, smiling at the camera and pointing to heaven with his right forefinger, as he seems to stand in front of the Dome of the Rock. The insignia of Fatah frames the upper corners of this image and floats translucent behind the text. Nadeem’s gesture seems to indicate an affinity with heaven or the divine. The text anchors the images and implies a narrative

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that Nadeem’s death was somehow preordained, holy, and at the same time nationalistic. Fatah has long used religious iconography under the banner of secular nationalism. A hand pointing skyward is ironically also a symbol of Fatah’s political, theocratic rival Hamas. The deeper irony here is that these manufactured images, both of them—figure 6.1 was produced by Nadeem’s school and figure 6.4 was produced by Fatah—are the only way many people, myself included, came to know Nadeem and Mohammed.​ Late in the day on May 16th, classmates of Nadeem held a vigil in Al Manarah Square. Candles on the pavement encircled photographs of the victims. A group of students stood in a semicircle behind this makeshift shrine wearing footwear that would be common in their age group almost anywhere.

Figure 6.4  The Arabic Text Reads: Palestinian National Liberation Movement—Fatah, Based in Ramallah, Commemorates Palestine's Martyr, and Hero Nadeem Siyam Nawara Who Was Martyred on the Day of Remembrance of the Nakba Day May 15, 2014. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Dispense with the obvious political ideology, these young people could have been from any community, including secular neighborhoods in Tel Aviv (see figure 6.5). Palestinians do not universally appreciate these images proclaiming the shaheed, though few are likely to say so in public. This is much in the same way that corruption within the PA is privately acknowledged but not openly discussed. Criticism of the images ranges from how they may perpetuate a culture of victimhood masquerading as martyrdom to the mimetic encouragement of violence. These are tricky arguments though, and it is not our purview as Westerners to make them. Whatever one’s position may be on the issue, it is entirely safe to say that few protracted struggles for statehood have been free of violence or personal and tragic consequences. Sontag and others claim, “all photographs are memento mori” (Sontag 1977, 10). The inscription, “You only live once,” in one of the photographs within the photograph above prefigures Nadeem’s death and affirms this claim. Nadeem seems to have lived and died within the ethos of a previous generation. The Palestinian shaheed were very important at one time. Whether or not they remain so is debatable: It used to be stipulated that joining the revolution entailed being handed a gun, by your local photographer, in your local studio, with a working class Keffiyeh on your shoulders, along with a cue from your photographer to fight back with a gaze that is the mother of all gazes: a gaze that looks straight through the

Figure 6.5  In This Image, You Can See the Source for the Poster Image of Nadeem Smiling in Figure 6.1. The inscription on the left-hand photograph of Nadeem reads, “You only live once.” May 2014. Source: Philip Hopper.

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tomb of every viewfinder, into the malice of the optical universe and all that it deserves (Toukan 2013).

On May 15, 2014, a CNN producer, Karim Cado, was at the demonstration and clashes in Beitunia when Nadeem and Mohammed were killed. He recorded an Israeli soldier firing a rifle, and then, in an unedited pan, the camera goes to a group of Palestinians carrying Nowara, mortally wounded, into an ambulance. Unbeknownst to anyone else at this point, CCTV surveillance video was also being recorded. Fakher Zayed’s home and carpentry business stands within sight of Ofer military prison and the Israeli separation barrier. Eight security cameras, operating 24 hours a day, are installed on each side of his building, which is next to the scene of the shootings. Ayed Abu Eqtaish, from Defense for Children–Palestine, obtained Zayed’s surveillance video of the Daher and Nowara shootings and distributed these disturbing images to the press. On May 22, a report by Ivan Watson, a CNN Senior International Producer, aired. It contained images from both the CNN producer on the ground May 15 and surveillance images of both boys at the times they were shot. The IDF finally started an internal investigation. This means that the proceedings of the investigation will not become public. In his Ramallah office on May 29th, Eqtaish spoke of the “culture of impunity,” which he and others claim exists within the IDF and the Israeli security apparatus. He also accurately predicted that despite the surveillance footage and CNN’s report that the IDF inquiry would “find a scapegoat, a single soldier” upon whom to lay the blame for the May 15 murders. This is what happened. The soldier’s name is officially undisclosed. An editorial from the Israeli daily paper, Haaretz (2014) explains: The soldier, whose job and unit cannot be disclosed due to a military gag order, is connected primarily to communications… Commanders of troops shooting people, even if “only” with rubber bullets, let a “visitor” accompanying them target human beings to increase his “enjoyment” of the mission? The awful moral failure underlying this incident requires the IDF to take a thorough account of itself, not only regarding the moral norms it inculcates in its soldiers, but also regarding military discipline.

An autopsy of Nadeem Nowara on June 11th confirmed that his death was caused by live ammunition. Siam Nowara, Nadeem’s father, found a spent live round in his son’s backpack when it was returned to him with his son’s personal effects. Ballistics later also confirmed this to be the bullet that killed Nadeem. In the words of the emergency room doctor who tried to save Nadeem, the bullet “destroyed” his heart (Mackey 2014). A recent forensic video analysis available on YouTube (2014) further implicates a member of the Israel’s Border Police Force who has been arrested and charged with

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manslaughter (Mackey 2014). Siam is pressing for a murder charge. Based on the CNN video, there appear to be six or possibly seven Israeli military personnel visible in a cluster behind the shooter. Before the camera pans away, it also appears that another soldier or border police officer takes the rifle with the shooter’s compliance. In the interview with Eqtaish, he told me, “Israel justifies all its behavior under the pretext of security, and people hear ‘security’ they think that security is a neutral mission. But I believe that it's not a neutral mission, it’s part and parcel with the identity of the state as the Israeli state.” On June 12th, in a story widely reported by the Western press, three young Israeli Yeshiva students who had been hitchhiking at night in the West Bank near Hebron were kidnapped. (In Israel and in the Western press, Israelis are usually “kidnapped” while Palestinians are usually “captured.”) There is ample evidence in the Israeli press and through official acknowledgments that hitchhiking or “tremping” in the West Bank is part of Settler ideology (Gottlieb 2014). It is a cheap way to get around in an area, where there is little or no regular public transportation. It is also a way in the Settler Movement discourse of “owning” land, which has historically been Palestinian, including four centuries (approximately 1520–1920) as part of the Ottoman Empire. Within mainstream Israeli discourse, the Settler Movement is an outlier. For there is ample evidence of Palestinian occupancy of land between the Litani River to the north in what is currently Lebanon, to the southern border with Egypt and to the Jordan River to the east. Ownership of this land only comes into question with the imposition of French, and especially British, colonialist rule after World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of militant Zionism. The search for the hitchhikers was termed Operation Brother’s Keeper by the Israeli military. Brother’s Keeper turned into a crackdown on a wide range of Palestinian institutions and individuals. This was largely unreported in the West. I visited the Ibdaa Cultural Center in the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp on June 22, 2014. During the previous night, an IDF unit had ransacked the office. When I arrived, staff members were picking up the contents of filing cabinets and desks that had been emptied onto the floor. The safe had been forced open and, according to staff members, the money inside, taken by IDF personnel. On June 24th, I met with Khaled Hourani for coffee at Zam’n Café in Ramallah. He was with a group of friends, and an opinion aired that two known members of Hamas from Hebron, Marwan Kawasmeh age twentynine and Amer Abu Aisha age thirty-two, were responsible for the hitchhiker abductions. It was also stated that the kidnap victims were in all likelihood already dead. Then, on June 30th, the bodies of Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16 and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach were found. They had been

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executed and buried under rocks on farmland near a road outside of Hebron, not far from where they were last seen. The Israeli response, already intense during the search and rescue phase, intensified into a widespread manhunt throughout the West Bank. Hourani later explained that this coffee-shop conversation about the abductions and murders also revolved around the hidden political machinations in the region. According to Hourani, the real power of Hamas remains in shadow despite the recent reconciliation and coalition with Fatah. He also stated that Palestinian technocrats representing Hamas in the current government are puppets. Hamas leaders who are not in hiding are usually either in exile or in an Israeli prison. Prisons everywhere breed radicalization and criminal activity. Sometimes these activities are one and the same, depending upon which bifurcated narrative you tell and which ideology you adhere to. This action was planned in the prison. The Hamas prisoners, this action, they are the ones who were responsible about it. These two missing guys, they were prisoners before. They were released. So Hamas has kind of a dark side, which nobody knows and they are more important than the leaders who we see. They are the ones who play the game. (Khaled Hourani interview with author, June 24, 2014)

Cycle of Violence Khaled Hourani’s daughter attends Saint George’s School in Ramallah, the same school attended by Nadeem. During an interview on June 26, Hourani revealed that the source of Nadeem’s image pointing skyward was a photograph of the boy on Facebook, spinning a basketball on his forefinger. The exact source of the photograph itself is unknown at this time although his cousin Lina Nowarah told me it was taken at the First Ramallah Group Center, home to a Boys and Girls Scout club. The unaltered image is nondescript, recorded against a plain background, and illuminated with the flash function of a cheap point-and-shoot camera. In the constructed photo-illustration where Nadeem is proclaimed shaheed, the image gains false perspective and depth with a number of icons and texts. In this version, the Dome of the Rock, a verse from the Koran, and a date replace the basketball. The date is notably in English and in Arabic, indicating that the image was produced for a wide audience. Replacing the basketball with a symbolic, religious icon and holy text removes Nadeem from the secular. He is displaced into a tragic homogeneity and stasis along with so many others. Like Peter Pan, he is now the boy who can never reach adulthood. It is interesting that his baseball cap with the brim turned up remains possibly because of the limitations of Photoshop and the political exigency to produce this image as quickly as possible. The Fatah coats of arms in the upper corners are cut off in Hourani’s Facebook image.

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This insignia though, representing the largest most powerful political party in the West Bank, frames the image. A political party is addressing a captive audience about a young man’s death, constructing his image to gain favorable public opinion (see figure 6.6).​ Hourani told me that when he put both the original and the manipulated images of Nadeem on his Facebook page, a visitor’s comment suggested that Koranic script was inappropriate on a basketball. His response was to literally put this text on a basketball. His English translation is, “In the name of Allah, think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their lord.” (see figures 6.6 and 6.7). Our conversation continued, with Hourani relating that: This is the day after his death when, as if he’s religious and honest Muslim and all this and they are not proud of him being a kid playing basketball or something. So what I did, I put the image of him with the basketball on Facebook and one of the comments was saying, “maybe they don’t want to write holy words on the basketball.” So I did write holy words on a basketball. This is from the Koran on a basketball. It’s a real basketball. So the family, they are sitting in Ramallah, everybody noticed about the basketball. I did one, so I have to do like seven for the family for the school for the city of Ramallah, for me as a response.

Much of Khaled Hourani’s work speaks about the intersections of art and politics in occupied territory. In the case of his basketball, the work of art is also about refuting a dogmatic, political, and religious approach to violence and death. A point that bears repetition and amplification is that Hourani’s basketball as a conceptual work is an example of resistance to the occupation

Figure 6.6  Composite Photograph by Khaled Hourani. Source: Khaled Hourani. Used with permission of the artist.

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and Israeli hegemony that also provides a counter-hegemonic response within Palestinian society to the Fatah-dominated PA. Perhaps, the manufacture of martyrs is one of the weapons of a subjugated people. However, despite the important history of these images of resistance in Palestine, the practice on a photoshopped assembly line is an issue. Oraib Toukan (2013) notes: For a start, the contemporary poster belongs to a whole new class of images. And that class is that of the masked face, the masked body, in black army wear, with a Kalashnikov, cut out and cloned in Photoshop to represent the feeling of a mass, laid out on posters with nondescript graphics and zero historicity and dotted on an assembly line of Epson printers. The problem is: printers do not have ideological positions. They print what they are technically capable of. It is therefore very easy to get desensitized to the economy of these posters in a class war of prints and poster politics without realizing one is in the midst of that war.

Toukan continues: these works are part of a “genealogy that has lent itself to utter image exhaustion and cruel icon-trap.” The numbing effect of a military occupation, which has lasted for over forty years, is obvious in many ways. The “image exhaustion and icon trap” Oraib Toukan speaks of is one of them(Khaled Hourani interview with author, June 24, 2014). When images of martyrdom become regular updates within a visually constructed urban landscape like Ramallah or West Belfast or any other enclave within a zone of conflict, they cause a kind of anesthesia. There is a sense of seeing but not seeing images of the dead. The Ephemera of Martyrdom Both the school and Fatah seek to consolidate local opinion, respectively, for social and political reasons. However, it is one thing for Saint George's School to mourn one of their own and quite another for a political party to claim him as a political, secular, and yet somehow religious martyr. The former seems to be a legitimate part of a public grieving process. The latter seems to be cynical manipulation and another case, in the words of Oraib Toukan, of “nondescript graphics and zero historicity” (Khaled Hourani interview with author, June 24, 2014). In Ramallah, this causes further desensitization. The actual effect of at least some of these images is the opposite of their maker’s intentions. As Khaled Hourani notes, the real tragedy here is that these teenagers cannot be celebrated as normal and, in his words, “a kid playing basketball” (Khaled Hourani interview with author, June 24, 2014). According to Nadeem’s cousin Lina Nawara, a former student of Hopper’s, “Nadeem liked almost everything: basketball, swimming, camping.” Also

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though, he was “touched by the martyring of Saji Darwish,” a Birzeit University student shot and killed by IDF personnel in early March 2014. Shaheed images as they appeared in Ramallah and elsewhere of Saji, then Nadeem and Mohammed, and as they continue to appear are doubly troublesome because they are ephemeral. Unlike a treasured family snapshot, a true memento mori, shaheed posters appear taped to buildings with clear packing tape and then are left to decay in the weather or to be covered by the next victim who becomes shaheed. There are peeling layers of posters in prime locations around Al Manarah Square, Arafat Square, and on the main streets, which radiate off these two central locations. Fatah operatives, and others who create and distribute these images in public places, know that under current conditions, they have an endless supply of shaheed whose images are affixed to walls in the public sphere and then subsumed, written over yet with traces remaining as palimpsests. The families and friends of course continue to mourn and remember. The image machine moves on. The “nonhistoricity” Toukan describes speaks to these types of images as ephemera. More the pity.​ In July 2014 during Ramadan, a sixteen-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammed Khdeir was kidnapped in East Jerusalem and then doused with an accelerant and burned alive by three Israeli settlers who are now under arrest. Several other Palestinians were killed during subsequent demonstrations and in clashes with Israeli security forces over the summer. Hamas responded with more rockets from Gaza, and in September, Israeli missiles, bombs, and artillery shells reduced significant portions of that enclave to rubble. On September 23rd, Israeli forces in Hebron killed the two suspects

Figure 6.7  Khaled Hourani’s Basketball with Koranic Verse. Source: Khaled Hourani. Used with permission of the artist.

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in the triple abduction and execution of the young Israeli hitchhikers, Marwan Kawasmeh, twenty-nine, and Amer Abu Aisha, thirty-two. Abductions and executions are vicious and criminal. Torture and murder of a child is barbaric. There is no moral high ground here. A Pretense of the Living Palestinian flags wrapped the bodies of Mohamed Daher, Nadeem Nowara, and Mohammed Khdeir as they were buried. Flags of Israel covered the coffins of Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach as they were buried. All of these young men are now martyred to the same horrible fiction. There are no inversions of history for them in death. Only the narratives of the living maintain this pretense. Perhaps, it is time to reexamine and reconsider the parallel yet opposed narratives, the “two stories” Eqtaish refers to, which ultimately go back to Palestinian expulsion and Israel’s foundation. It will be difficult for both parties but, at this point in time, for better or for worse, one cannot exist without the other. An earnest discussion between Israelis and Palestinians about the foundation of Israel and the Nakba is a starting point both parties consistently ignore. Only when the narratives can agree in some way will their deathly embrace relax enough to become something else. As long as narrative grips counter-narrative in a mutually assured chokehold, the violence will continue. A resolution of these opposed narratives is difficult under any conditions. However, dialectical resolution is happening in Northern Ireland and South Africa. The Good Friday Agreement allowed Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, a place at the bargaining table. (Analogies have been made between the IRA and Hamas.) After the abolition of apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission allowed South Africans a safe place to confront each other and to be heard. The term “cycle of violence” has become a cliché through overuse but also because of its simple and horrible truth. Only when the inverted historical narratives are exposed and then in a difficult process abandoned, as they have been or are being elsewhere, can peaceful solutions be reached (O’Rawe 2002). Do any of these images and words suggest a way out of this cycle? Perhaps not, though it is my hope that they do suggest an important question. Not to be redundant but how can Palestinians and Israelis abandon their parallel yet inverted narratives of victimhood? During our last interview, Khaled Hourani spoke with me about a “middle way” in regard to art that addresses the occupation. A way that does not embrace “overt ideology” but seeks to find “resolution in a process.” A process that can be neither “black nor white.” In other words, perhaps it is time to allow shades of gray and negotiate blended narratives.

Chapter 7

The Potency of Childhood Martyrdom

Following the previous chapter, the most difficult chapter to write in this book focuses its analysis on the use of dead children in graffiti. We compare Belfast and Ramallah with the United States and find radically different uses (or erasures) of such imagery. We argue that in these most tragic of circumstances, “good taste” is a privilege of dominant groups. SAD STATES OF DESPAIR Childhood martyrdom is a theme that has been explored in art across cultures throughout history. This theme often depicts young children who were persecuted or killed for their beliefs, such as St. Agnes, who was martyred for her Christian faith, or Ali Asghar, the infant son of Imam Hussain who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. In Hinduism, the story of Prahlad, a young devotee of Lord Vishnu who was saved by divine intervention from his evil father’s attempts to kill him, has also been a popular subject in Indian art. Despite differences in religious beliefs and cultural practices, the theme of childhood martyrdom in art reflects universal human experiences such as innocence, courage, and sacrifice, but also can be used as provocation and consolidation. As briefly noted earlier in chapter 6, the history of martyrdom stretches back to the inceptions of all the major world religions and perhaps all religions. Yet for all its potency, there are many reasons to question how, why, and when the idea of martyrdom is invoked both in a religious context and in the context of popular image-making.

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There is almost no evidence from the period before Constantine, traditionally called the Age of Martyrs, to support the idea that Christians were continuously persecuted. That idea was cultivated by church historians like Eusebius and Sozomen and by the anonymous hagiographers who edited, reworked, and replicated stories about martyrs. Many of those stories, however, were written during periods of peace, long after the events they purported to describe. Even those that are roughly contemporaneous with the events have been significantly embellished. (Moss 2013)

This holds true for child martyrs as well though the fact that young age carries connotations of innocence is one reason childhood martyrdom and related images may become such potent icons and symbols. Another reason is that killing a child serves as proof of brutal if not unlawful intent. In June 2006, I visited Republican muralist Danny Devenny as he worked on a memorial mural in a Catholic in a West Belfast neighborhood called Andersontown. I asked Devenny if he would not mind recording our interview and he consented, but as soon as my audio recorder was switched on, he lowered his voice to a whisper, rendering most of that recording inaudible. This may be a result of time spent in the infamous Maze Prison for taking part in an armed bank robbery. In a Financial Times article, he relates, “I volunteered at 15, in 1970, and three years later robbed a bank for the IRA, with two 16-year-old mates. We were just kids—we even forgot to bring a bag to put the money in. But there must have been a tip-off because the police were waiting for us. A passer-by wrestled me to the ground, and I was shot three times as I tried to escape” (Cole 2009). The mural Devenny was working on that day in 2006 on the gable end of a working-class estate was of Julie Livingstone who was fourteen when she was killed by a plastic bullet that struck her in the head. According to a staff reporter for Belfastmedia​.c​om (2019), “Julie Livingstone was returning from a local shop on the Stewartstown Road when she was fatally injured by a plastic bullet on 12, May 1981. The round, which was fired from a British Army vehicle, struck her on the head and she died the next day.” Julie Livingstone’s image has been recreated in several locations and continues to help solidify community opinion in opposition to British identity in Northern Ireland. (Or as a Republican would say, in the north of Ireland.) (see figure 7.1). As recently as September 2022, there was a coroner’s inquest into the death of Stephen Geddis who was struck in the head and killed by a plastic bullet on August 29, 1975 (O’Neil 2022). In December 2022, the former soldier who fired the round, which apparently ricocheted off the pavement before striking the child, filed legal action against the coroner’s findings. These inquiries are an ongoing legacy of “The Troubles” bitter residue.​

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Figure 7.1  On the Left Devenny Surveys His Work-in-Progress in Andersontown. On the right a page in the artist’s notebook with a photograph of Julie Livingstone apparently in her Catholic school uniform. July 2006. Source: Philip Hopper.

On the side of his family’s home in the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp just outside Bethlehem is a memorial mural depicting a boy named Kfah Obeid. Kfah, a thirteen-year-old at the time of his death, was taking part in a demonstration at the camp entrance in late September 2000, during the second or al-Aqsa Intifada. He was with a group, throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and I later learned from Kfah’s mother, Carema, that he was shot twice and died almost immediately from a chest wound. It is rumored in the camp that Israeli snipers purposely targeted Kfah. As I was photographing a mural in June 2006, a group of boys gathered. One bears a family resemblance to Kfah’s image in the mural (see figure 7.2). At that point, the generational depth and intractable nature of the PalestinianIsraeli conflict became an image-driven narrative. A complex multilayered story with no apparent resolution; only a question asked from both sides of the conflict: “How can you do this to me again and again?” It is a question no one can answer with any logic.​ I went to Dheisheh again in 2008. It was during this visit that I was able to meet and interview Carema and her surviving family (see figure 7.3). The new dwelling is part of an area in the camp on a south-facing hill, overlooking what

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Figure 7.2  On the Left a Memorial Mural for Kfah Obied on the Side of the Former Family Home in Dheisheh Camp. On the right a neighbor or relative inserts themselves into the photographer’s frame without invitation. June 2006. Source: Philip Hopper.

my driver Khalid called “the military graveyard.” Here are the graves of the young Palestinians from Dheisheh who have fallen victim to violent encounters with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Through an interpreter, Carema told me that she moved the family there from the home where Kfah’s mural is painted so that she, in her words, could “look over” her eldest child. She also said that the IDF would be “disappointed” about the outcome of her eldest son’s death because he would go “up to the sky” and live on. In the everyday experience of camp residents, this is certainly true. As it is also true of the everyday experience of the residents of Andersonstown and Julie Livingstone.​ I also revisited Kfah’s mural during a subsequent trip, and again a group of boys gathered and allowed me to photograph them. When later examined, these images of the performances of the children in front of a camera seemed profound. Their posing is in no way limited to simple curiosity but rather a way of identifying with martyrdom. Without uttering a word in English, they were saying “look at me, I am like Kfah. Kfah is me and I am Kfah.” The tragedy is that as children, they have come to accept that there will always be martyrs (see figure 7.4). ​ Al-Afandi, age seventeen, was killed by a bullet wound to the stomach sustained during a clash with IDF in Bethlehem. The mural is based on a family photograph and is framed by an elongated Palestinian flag and a single strand

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Figure 7.3  In the Obied Family Living Room, Kfah’s Younger Brother Poses in Front of a Portrait of His Older Brother. The family resemblance is obvious. July 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

Figure 7.4  I Am Kfah and Kfah Is Me. From a sequence of ten frames. July 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

of barbed wire. The text above the image reads simply, “The martyr Qussay Soliman Al-Afandi.” Beyond the formal two-dimensional framing devices is the human frame. In this case, a young girl saw a photographer and actively

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entered her composition. She stands, looking directly into the camera, echoing the gaze depicted in the painted image as if to say; “I am Qussay and Qussay is me.” (see figure 7.5). ​ In both images, the children’s pose is a gesture. The visible identification with the shaheed, the martyred dead, is palpable. At the same time, the children are not simply victims. They are also heroic and embody a complicated discourse regarding local Palestinian commemoration and attitude which is to be sumoud, or steadfast. Sumoud is “at its core the quiet dignity of ‘hanging on,’ no matter how battered, assailed and embattled one becomes” (Khaled Hourani interview with author, June 24, 2014).

Figure 7.5  I Was Photographing the Mural of Qussay Al-Afandi, a Young Man Who Was Shot and Killed at a Demonstration, When a Young Girl Stepped into My Frame. She waited for me to take a series of photographs and then, before I could ask her name, a woman’s voice called out “Baba?” and she disappeared into a nearby doorway. July 2011. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Outsiders to the Palestinian enclaves rarely see images that represent the shaheed or other symbolic acts of visual resistance to the Israeli occupation. We argue here that these works on refugee camp walls are of much greater importance to local Palestinians as a form of resistance than anything painted on the separation barrier or elsewhere. They grapple with ways to represent Palestinian life without normalizing that experience. They construct visual space and provide a backdrop for transformational human activity. On November 18, 2012, ten members of the Al-Dalu family and two neighbors were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the family home in Gaza City (see figure 7.6). After some confusing initial reports and statements, Israel claimed that the target was Mohammed Jamal al-Dalu, the family patriarch, and a member of the Hamas Police force. Four of the dead were his children and under the age of ten. Within days, an image of these children was on the cover of every Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank and displayed at peaceful rallies in Al-Manarah Square, the city center of Ramallah. By the end of the week, it was incorporated into posters with a message in English. The speed with which this image of four dead children went from news to popular commentary about Israel’s asymmetrical use of military force was astonishing but not unusual.​ These images of child martyrs are not only persistent but also quick to permeate the social and cultural fabric of subordinated people. This is not the case with dominant groups or countries. Where are the images of the eight children aged two to eleven who died on 9/11? The victims of the recent Newtown Massacre were represented in December 2012 by American flags or candles but not by the images of the actual children. One could argue good taste, but we believe it is something else that bears on a fundamental American ideology. Images of murdered children, killed by gun-wielding misfits, run against the grain of a Constitutional argument that includes the “right to bear arms.” The argument was made after the Uvalde massacre that showing photographs of the dead may be beneficial. In a May 31, 2022, NPR interview, Amy Goldberg, a trauma surgeon in Philadelphia, laid out the case for releasing these pictures. “Citizens need to see the destruction of what these military-style weapons do and I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with any disrespect, but I’m desperate. All the trauma surgeons need this to stop” (NPR 2022). Children are often “collateral damage” in whatever conflict they happen to find themselves, whether Palestinians and Israelis or Republicans and Unionists. (Special mention to people who read the Second Amendment selectively, in order to advocate against gun control in the United States, ignoring the opening prepositional phrase “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state . . .”) Of course, some martyrs make intentional, if not ill-informed, decisions to kill themselves and others. Suicide bombers are

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Figure 7.6  An Image that First Appeared in West Bank Newspapers during November 2012 and Israel’s Cast Lead Operation in Gaza Quickly Appeared in Demonstrations in Ramallah on the Left and Transnational Messaging in Arabic and English on the Right. Source: Philip Hopper.

one recurring example and suicide attacks are another. These circumstances are very different from a child being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Julie Livingstone hiding in a hedgerow and being struck in the head by a plastic bullet is very different from boarding a bus with a bomb set to detonate. Like all scales of intentionality though, there is little black and white. Why was Julie Livingstone allowed out of the house when there was military activity in the neighborhood? Did a charismatic demagogue convince an ignorant perhaps illiterate young man or woman to strap on an explosive vest with promises of some luxuriant Valhalla? Whatever the actual circumstances and motivations, which may never be known, the fact remains that subordinated cultures make potent use of

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martyrs especially when they are children. Dominant cultures have the luxury of claiming “good taste” even though this is itself a façade of ideology. Good taste is another way of claiming superiority over the “other.” An argument can be made that subordinated cultures violate this claim with a purpose, which is to claim attention that would otherwise be denied. In the past, mainstream media often denied transmission. Today, as images via social media and citizen (netizen) journalists from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and so on make clear, this gatekeeping is no longer effective. In the United States though, evidence of the Uvalde shooting and the immediate aftermath has been suppressed. A judge has sealed the autopsy reports. Freedom for guns but not for the media. Everywhere hypocrisy abounds. There are very few images of child martyrs in the vernacular visual culture or for that matter in the mainstream press depicting Unionist, Israeli or American child martyrs. There are a few public images of the eight children who died onboard aircraft in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, including a Facebook page and an article in the Metro online news source dated September 12, 2022, twenty-one years after the event (Medlicott 2022). As of December 30, 2022, the Facebook page had 164 comments and the Metro article had 144 shares. Consider that, McDonald’s (yes that McDonald’s) has eighty-one million followers on Facebook. There are issues of privacy with subject matter having to do with children, but the point is that in a subordinate culture images of young victims, be they intentional or unintentional, would certainly have been more widely and publicly disseminated. Through lived spaces in Palestinian refugee camps, Belfast neighborhoods and elsewhere memorial murals to children venerate and fuse the oral narratives and identities of the living and the dead. They transcend tragedy or heroism and are instead a projection of being steadfast: sumoud. It is somehow fitting that the author of Kfah’s memorial image is an anonymous sign painter who donated his time and materials. To be shaheed within the camp transcends tourism and ego. Those who remain in their daily lives, passing by images within the camp perform pilgrimages that are both routine and profound. In January 2013, I was again in Dheisheh and was able to visit the site. Unlike in previous visits, it was nighttime when I approached the mural. A group of children walked past on their way to a small shop. Another boy walks in the opposite direction. A boy in the group turns to look back. Do these children still recognize Kfah? Is Kfah’s death just another story? Does it even matter if they recognize him as a person or as an idea? The point is that this image and many others nearby, just like the image of Julie Livingstone in Belfast, are persistent. They do not easily disappear. They are persistent in subordinate societies under pressure be it military, economic, or especially

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Figure 7.7  Kfah Obied Memorial or Shaheed Mural. Dheisheh Camp, January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

both. They tend to be maintained if not venerated even though some of the children in the nighttime shot were probably not born at the time of Kfah’s death. Kfah Obeid, Bobby Sands, and Julie Livingstone—among too many others—will watch over Dheisheh Camp, Falls Road, and other locations, for a very long time (see figure 7.7).See Figure 7.7 below.​

Chapter 8

Campus in Camps Redefining Long-Term Refugee Status

This chapter focuses on Palestinian graffiti in long-term refugee camps. We show the underlying conditions that, over time and generations of displacement, lead to evolving depictions of life and death. PERMANENT IMPERMANENT Refugee camps are designed as temporary shelters that are quickly assembled in response to emergencies. They typically consist of tents and other basic structures that are not built to last. Despite the humanitarian intentions behind their establishment, refugee camps are ultimately a political issue. Their longterm status is determined not by humanitarian organizations but by political conflicts. Within a camp, people are stripped of many political rights of a city as democratic space, thus it is worth examining what effect that has on those looking for an outlet for expressing themselves through political art. In 2012, Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti began an alternative education program at the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp just outside of Bethlehem called Campus in Camps to address what they call “the urbanity of exile.” According to Petti, “Campus in Camps was founded as a means to address the numerous needed and urgent spatial and social interventions in Palestinian refugee camps. Campus in Camps is a space for communal learning and production of knowledge grounded in lived experience and connected to communities” (Petti 2017). Campus in Camps is an educational initiative within one of the oldest refugee camps in the world. Merely by existing, filling a need in an educational vacuum, it redefines what it means to be a refugee when that status becomes multigenerational. Serving as a monument to the duality of human nature, 87

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Campus in Camps demonstrates that in a world broken by the weight of greed and violence, there are yet some individuals and organizations operating outside the adoring glow of television cameras. Refugee camps that are occupied for generations become improvised urban microcosms. Older generations live on the ground floors with, in Arab-speaking countries, the Shabab or youth on the top. Steel reinforcing bar extensions point skyward from many rooftops in anticipation of another generation. What was once considered a temporary condition now looks permanent, prompting the need to rethink what it means to be a refugee. Dheisheh is not unique in this way. Other Palestinian refugee camps exist throughout the West Bank, Gaza, as well as in neighboring Jordan and Lebanon. The Rohingya in Thailand are likely to remain there. The list is long, including locations that contain Syrians in Turkey and areas in the African Sahel. At the time of this writing, there is yet another major human rights disaster unfolding due to the illegal and gruesome invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The list grows. According to a Global Trends Report issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2021) at the end of 2021, “89.3 million individuals worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.” The report continues that if internally displaced people are included that number grows and total forced displacement now exceeds 100 million people worldwide. That number is staggering when one considers that in 2009 the total number of displaced people in our world was around seven million. One of the oldest refugee populations, going back to 1949, are the five million Palestinian refugees registered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in some sixty camps across the Middle East. According to architect and activist Alessandro Petti, these Palestinians, who have now been displaced for generations, “give only a partial idea of a widespread phenomenon. The radical economical and social transformations currently being experienced throughout the world have produced a proliferation of the ‘camp condition,’ that is, a space suspended from the surrounding legal, social and political order” (Petti 2017). Given the worldwide number of refugees and the likelihood that many will remain that way, a program to empower that status deserves close examination. Petti, as one of the founders of Campus in Camps gives some insight, In the very early stages of the camp’s establishment refugees first gathered in the open land of Dheisheh. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) then managed to provide the families with tents and thus the early stages of the camp. By the middle of the 1950s, UNRWA had built new shelters for the people in the camp. Each family received a 9 square meters shelter and every 15 families shared one bathroom. Now, after more than 60 years, and with a new urban structure

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Figure 8.1  Sandi Hilal Leads a Group of Visitors into One of the Potential Dheisheh Camp “Common” Spaces. January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

of the camp, an area still exists in the middle of the camp as a manifestation of an ‘era’ that the camp endured… …What we are trying to do in Campus-in-Camps is find open spaces that can be reactivated to enhance the social fabric, build relationships and recreate the meaning of common. (Petti 2017) (see figure 8.1). ​

The idea that a radical educational practice “directed toward transcending and transforming an unequal and undemocratic society” (Tannock et al. 2011, 32) is not new. In the United States, the Black Panthers and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee attempted such a practice during the 1960s and 1970s. The best known of these may be the Intercommunal Youth Institute in Oakland California, where academic performance instead of age demarcated student cohorts. The educational model adopted by Hilal and Petti is a radical hybrid that places the expression of lived experience in the camp as a primary text or source of knowledge. Other texts include works by and interviews with Massimo De Angelis, Stavros Stavrides, and Silvia Federici, all of whom emerge from the broadly defined radical left tradition. What this means in practice is that discussion and critical thinking about ideas like the common, as in common space and property, are prime. Traditional textbook learning and the scourge of rote memorization are not. Campus in Camps is also an intergenerational program, consisting of residents from Dheisheh and the Doha township, which is directly across Hebron

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Road from the Camp. Doha is named for the capital of Qatar, where funds for its construction originated. The residents of Doha consist largely of descendants of the original Dheisheh Camp residents as well as those from other camps, including the nearby Aida Camp. One participant notes, “Doha City as a place to live did not change the status of the refugee and make him forget about his belonging to his origin and the right to return. It also did not separate him from his camp where he grew up and spent his childhood days” (Al-Assi 2013). One of the first projects Hilal and Petti initiated with participants is a multivolume Collective Dictionary that explores the unique experience of camp life, redefines common space based on that experience, and then reframes the camp narrative and uses oral histories, including camp graffiti as starting points. This multivolume dictionary was written in collaboration with participants of the program during the first two years of Campus in Camps from 2012 to 2014. Components of this dictionary bear titles such as Common, Participation, Responsibility, and Citizenship, among many others. A preliminary self-published pamphlet titled Sustainability states “Collective Dictionary is the first tool that Campus-in-Camps has recognized with the participants, as a fundamental praxis to investigate a shared field of debate and a fertile soil for growing projects.” In keeping with the collective nature of this project, there is no authorship attributed to this opening statement. Some collective work is depicted below in figure 8.2.​

Figure 8.2  On the Wall of a Campus in Camps Meeting Room Is a Large Visualization, Featuring the Idea of “Unpacking” Knowledge. January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Symposium Snapshots: The Sons and Daughters of Handala Speak Our interest in Dheisheh initially had to do with political graffiti as a form of resistance and expression of solidarity. One Campus in Camps initiative deals with camp graffiti. Camp resident Aysar Al-Saifi told me in conversation, “The walls turned into a book of stories about the families of the camp and their suffering for every visitor, through paintings and writings that are in and of themselves a strength of the camp. Furthermore, the paintings didn’t only express political subjects; they covered social problems as well. By that, the walls became a form of social media to spread information about the political, social, and economic suffering of the refugees as well as a way to fix social problems through painting and writing.” Here Al-Saifi addresses the question about what it means to be a refugee when that status becomes multigenerational. These “stories” include images of the martyrs or the “shaheed,” recreations of well-known political cartoons and internationalist quotes. Unlike digital social media, these images within the camp are often venerated, maintained, or updated and not treated as ephemera to be quickly replaced or discarded. This is consistent with messaging prior to social media during the First Intifada in early September 1987. During this time, “writing graffiti could be part of a performative element in a rite of passage into the Palestinian resistance” (Peteet 1996, 139). This is still the case within Palestinian Refugee Camps. “We hope to sustain the idea that refugeehood doesn’t pass away but rather transfers from one generation to the next. We showed this by drawing the character of Handala in new ways. The old Handala represents our first generation while the young Handala represents the new generation” (Peteet 1996, 139). Hanadala is depicted in many ways as shown in figures 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6. ​ Handala is a well-known character invented by the famed Palestinian political cartoonist Naj Al-Ali. Al-Ali was assassinated in London during July 1987. His killer or killers have never been apprehended. His work continues to be revered by Palestinians for its pointed caustic humor that does not spare Israel or the Palestinian and Arab political elite. A rumor that his death was the result of Israeli external security (Mossad) and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) collusion has persisted for years. In August 2017, detectives in the United Kingdom relaunched an investigation into his murder case, 30 years after his death.​ Commentary on the walls of the camp in the form of murals, graffiti, and signage constructs powerful narratives. These see no boundaries between text and image, often drawing on the tradition of Arabic calligraphy. They express heroism, tragedy, and steadfastness, (sumoud) in ways that have been coopted by the ruling political party Fatah in places like Ramallah. In Ramallah,

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Figure 8.3  Aysar-Al-Saifi Shows Off His Handala Tattoo at a Campus in Camps Event. January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

Figure 8.4  A Recreation of an Al-Ali Political Cartoon in Dheisheh Camp. The man on the right is captioned “I will shave my mustache if Israel gives you a country.” The people on the left are captioned “They promised us, so they will give us a country.” Handala’s caption reads simply “Khazoog,” which is an informal term for a lie or fake promise. January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

posters of the shaheed become layered, as if the dead are disposable. In the camp, images of the shaheed are often venerated and maintained. Al-Saifi

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Figure 8.5  A Mural Painted by Campus in Camps Participants, Depicting Young and Old Handala. Some participants in the creation of this mural also participated in the following discussion. January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

told me “The idea of doing graffiti is about the history of the camp, we try to work in a different way, in an educational way.”​ I had in-person interactions at Campus-in-Camps symposiums in 2013 and 2014. In the spirit of the ecumenical nature of the program, a snapshot of one of those encounters follows. English is a second language for participants who mostly did not want to be identified by name. On January 16, 2013, a group discussion focused on contextual language. One example was a village where eight families share a well, and each family has a day of the week so the week becomes eight days long. Another topic that resurfaced several times was the exceptionality of the camp, as opposed to cities like Ramallah, meaning that refugees in camps are now the political elite. No one came right out and said it, but there is a deep suspicion of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as corrupt and ineffectual. The same can be said of the Palestinian Diaspora as well, where criticism of the PA is strong but not for the ears of non-Palestinians. Constraining discourse in this way is a defense mechanism. What follows is a transcription of a recording made on Sunday March 23, 2014. It exhibits the importance Handala holds in camp society and is a debate about whether or not to update graffiti depicting Handala in the camp. It has been edited for clarity. The camp residents preferred to not be identified.

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Resident:  We are still putting our minds in the past with Handala. There is a jump from that period to the present. Resident:  Nowadays I see myself as Handala but in another way. Like I don’t see myself in “shabby” clothes, but I see myself seeing what’s going on in Palestine. So yesterday they killed two people in Jenin Camp. Yesterday I saw a movie. I’m like Handala, I can’t do anything about these things. Like I’m looking and I see all these things that are happening in front of me and I can’t do any change to it. So we are like Handala we are seeing and looking and watching what is going on. Resident:  Why do we need to change Handala? Because we want to create a new graffiti that can represent the situation? Resident:  We are facing the past and maybe our future with a new item, a new graffiti and we use both items. This one represents our past and this represents our present. Resident:  By changing Handala we change like the subjectivity of Handala. So I believe we leave Handala like it is as it represents a specific period of time and we create a new graffiti that represents our present. Phil:  What is the new image? Resident:  The same patriot who was represented by Handala who was revolutionary and meaningful like that is the same one who is wearing the suit today. Resident:  Handala doesn’t represent people as much as he represents an idea, but like once we talk about Handala as living in bad conditions of life and now they’re living in very fancy houses, they have great cars. That doesn’t mean that Handala has changed or the idea has changed. It means the person themselves has changed but not the idea. Because every time we look at Handala we get the same idea of poverty, of suffering, of our history. If we see Handala, wearing new clothes, with a new, with a different image we’re not going to have the idea of a modern Handala. Why do we need to change it? Handala represents a certain period of time and we should respect it because it means a lot for many people. Maybe it doesn’t mean a lot to me now but that doesn’t prevent me from creating a new Handala and not just sticking to Handala, the old Handala. Resident:  When we look at this we need to think about two points. The first one, the time when most of the camp was in this moment. Ah, you get a collective argument, it’s a symbol not just graffiti. We need to create new symbol or we need to create new graffiti. So, I agree with him, if we will change anything, we should not make it more difficult for people to understand or to access. This is too important. Phil:  What happens when Handala grows up? Resident:  He is now walking [laughter]. Phil:  What does he represent? Resident:  He is not stuck in the past. It’s like Nakba. When we talk about Nakba it does not happen just to make people sad. It happens to make people feel to continue. You know like living.

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Resident:  You think of the graffiti with Handala, you think of the two maps, Palestine before 1967 and after that? Phil:  Maybe there is something with maps. Maybe that could be part of a new image. Resident:  The Palestinian map is a colonial map. Phil:  That’s a problem right? Resident:  It is a problem. Phil:  That’s a problem how do you deal with that problem? Resident:  I want to draw a map, not with the borders.​

Worldwide: The Concrete Tent As part of a Campus-in-Camps event and according to one participant, the collective is about “finding new ways of representing the camps.” According to another participant, the camps are exceptional because of “the common” and the idea that in many ways public and private spaces have been dissolved. One volume of the Collective Dictionary titled Common 1 asks, “How a heightened attention to the commons . . . could shift the discourse of Palestinian refugeehood.” Another camp participant spoke of the “exceptionality of the camp” and that camp residents are in essence the Palestinian political elite. Given the unpopularity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA, statements like this represent the fractured nature of Palestinian politics and are in many ways accurate, flipping the paradigm of Ramallah and East Jerusalem as the centers of inhibited Palestinian political power. Generational long-term displacement was the central theme of Hilal and Petti’s retrospective exhibit during 2018 at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery with the somewhat awkward title Permanent Temporariness. According to cocurator Salwa Mikdadi, the exhibit examined what it means to be a refugee “beyond victimhood and beyond charitable gestures” (Hilal and Petti 2018). The learning that takes place within Campus in Camps has implications with the global perception of what it means to be a refugee. A nomination is in progress to name Dheisheh Camp a United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. To have a Palestinian refugee, camp designated in this manner would be a groundbreaking step toward recognition of a long-term dilemma. A dilemma that is growing and compounded by the rise of nationalism. The nomination for World Heritage Site status is authored by Petti and is available online as part of the e-flux publication. The collective title of these documents is “Refugee Heritage.” In part, this online publication reads: Beyond an intervention into the political context of the Palestinian struggle for the right of return, the aim of nominating Dheisheh to UNESCO was to

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destabilize and open up the dominant western conception of Heritage to a richer and more complex understanding. UNESCO emerged from the horrors of World War II as an organization dedicated to world peace through education. The World Heritage Convention, adopted by UNESCO in 1972, nearly three decades after its founding, has been signed by 192 countries with the aim to protect natural and cultural sites of exceptional importance to humanity. The Convention is built upon a Eurocentric understanding of heritage—over half of currently inscribed sites are located in Europe and North America. However, over time, the nomination process and the convention itself have been transformed into a public forum in which our understanding of heritage, culture, aesthetics and authenticity are actively debated and reshaped. (Petti 2013)

It seems that in addition to collective intergenerational local activism, questioning if not shaking up the international status quo may be another strategy for those living in perpetual exile. A recent project, The Concrete Tent, comments on these lives in exile with a tent literally made out of concrete. As an architect, Alessandro Petti sees buildings such as this as a statement: forgetting refugees is the easiest temporary permanent solution. Remembering Here it is important to reemphasize Edward W. Said’s (2003) cri de coeur last seen in chapter 2: The point I am trying to make is that we have to see the Arab world generally and Palestine in particular in more comparative and critical ways… The Palestinian struggle for justice is especially something with which one must express solidarity, rather than endless criticism and exasperated, frustrating discouragement, or crippling divisiveness. Remember the solidarity here and everywhere in Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.

Said and others who take human rights and the Question of Palestine seriously are troubled by the terminal neglect embedded in concrete tent cities and temporary permanence. Far beyond Lewis Caroll and George Orwell, who provided both warmth and warning in fiction, the reality of refugee camp conditions works to drain humans by pure stultification. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have shown definitively the paradoxes bred by all this: the ironic enabling of Israel by the United States, which only creates more problems for Israel and Palestine and the United States itself (Mearsheimer and Walt 2007). Mearsheimer and Walt are both firmly established realists, which makes their scholarship on this point all the more remarkable for its

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intentional eradication of any moral concerns. Strictly as a matter of security, we can see the importance of human rights, especially for the United States and allied interests in the Middle East. One need not be a sentimentalist to grasp the linkage between relentless violations of human rights and sanguinary reactions to those abuses. “Viewed objectively,” the professors write, “Israel is a liability in both ‘the war on terror’ and in the broader effort to deal with so-called rogue states” (Mearsheimer and Walt 2007). Robert Pape has established that, yes of course, oppressed populations tend to lash out violently and without respect for law (Pape 2005). Without question, all such acts must be roundly condemned, but one would have to have the naivety of an infant to be surprised at the pattern. Arbitrary punishment of entire populations mostly leads to the continuance of precisely the cycle of violence/oppression that reasonable people wish to avoid. Throughout time and space, the seismic aftermaths of the rotating bastinado have left little but despair in their wake. Observe Fiona Hill and Angela Stent discussing how Putin’s rancid vituperations of Nazism against his Ukrainian foes is not only erroneous but poisonous: “The more that Putin tries to erase the Ukrainian national identity with bombs and artillery shells, the stronger it becomes” (Hill and Stent 2022, 114). This is good advice for any authoritarian leader, although the “dictator’s dilemma” provides strong assurance that they will remain unheeded, due to all the typical character traits of megalomaniacs not taking kindly to critical thinking (Crabtree et al. 2020). Once again, we find universalism overriding provincialism when it comes to human rights. Objectivity has little place when and where it comes to graffiti. Ziad Fahmy, in his study of ordinary street sounds and associated political ramifications in Egypt, cautions the reader by noting the lack of trouble magicians have in fooling spectators and the well-known deficiencies in “eyewitness testimony” (Fahmy 2020). Fahmy concludes the warning with an endnote reading, “It is perhaps best to leave such broad pronouncements about the sensory objectivity of eyes versus ears to neuroscientists and cognitive philosophers” (Fahmy 2020, 230). We would agree while underscoring that the essence of graffiti must always be contextualized. Designed to be experienced on location, in the midst of daily activity, repeatedly, and indeed, noisily, graffiti seeks to pop out and distinguish itself from the crowd of chaos. Caged graffiti (our term for that street art, which is seen primarily in the sanitized confines of a museum or website or other delocalized and organized loci) tends to lose some of its impact; just as there is something, je nais se quois, not quite right about our simian cousins we observe in the captivity of zoos. Thinking down this path leads to other uncomfortable questions. If we perceive what happens to caged art or captured animals as something less than ideal, we must then wonder about what happens to actual humans when in a permanent state of temporary confinement. Strikingly unjust, of

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course, but here is where the art of graffiti leaps to the foreground. Like any “weapon of the weak” (Scott 1987) graffiti as found in dispossessed populations can have a palliative power for the community without regard for what the “power elite” (Graeber 2018) think. Injecting pure unadulterated pride is more than a morale booster. Graffiti enables, and is enabled by, catharsis for denizens of a specific location. Universalization from that point is all better, but there is no guarantee that attention will be garnered at that level; whereas, it is knowable that the folks on the street will perforce observe the “performance.” Observation, as a passive human tendency, is the easy part. Graffiti engages in a critical maneuver by surpassing observation on an affective plane bounding beyond the passive in order to achieve the active: engagement. The level of engagement varies. From full-blown governmenttoppling insurgencies like we saw, mostly unsuccessfully, during the Arab Spring to the sort of mild-mannered quiet-quitting is everywhere an increasingly common tactic to deal with the quotidian miseries of “bullshit jobs” (Graeber 2018). Deborah Stone reminds us that “A citizen will complain about postal service only if he believes the post office will take some action in response” (Stone 2002, 24). Using this example makes clear some of the stakes involved with speaking up. The risk from grumbling about the mail to a civil servant who long ago gave up caring involves mostly the wasting of time. Compare that to what one risks by pushing an armed agent of the state back. The latter case is, of course, far rarer because of the risk differential. But the key component to remember is how bad things must be prior to undertaking such a risky enterprise. Palestinians face enormous and ingrained architectures of discipline and punishment. As an elementary syllogism, it is only logical to recognize the level of pain applied by a dominant group necessary to initiate implausible intifada-type resistance movements from subaltern communities. Only by stripping away all the meat from hope, leaving only its raw marrow, will people organize themselves and risk their lives for a cause already lost. In these contexts, graffiti proliferates, which could be read as a warning light for those in positions of authority. Graffiti’s power to inform, satirize, shock, and motivate its intended audience is one of the many measures of political power. Art, however politically important, is no panacea for the world’s human rights predicament, but it can be soothing. When every day is the worst day of your life, and there is almost no hope left, glancing up and seeing that you are not alone with your unauthorized thoughts serves as a respite and enhances what it means to be a human. Most people will not glimpse graffiti and catapult themselves into Robin Hood-styled rebels delivering humanity, freedom, and justice. Rather more prosaically, graffiti can, in certain contexts as discussed throughout this book, increase esprit de corps, increasing the bonds of solidarity and bringing attention to abuses.​

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Figure 8.6  Another Version of Al-Ali’s Handala in Dheisheh Camp. The figure holds a pen in the shape of a sword. The text reads: “Gone are the ones you love . . . Gone. Either you be or not be.” January 2013. Source: Philip Hopper.

One of the conjunctions that makes both Palestine in general, and Dheisheh Camp specifically, so interesting for our purposes is endurance and universality. Palestine has been an unanswered question for multiple generations and is globally discussed (with the vivid exception of the United States, where there is a much more casual attitude to global human rights issues, relative to many other countries, particularly the type of states that belong to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). Anywhere you go, you might find yourself having dinner while listening to the pontifications of someone who definitely maintains opinions on the issue of Palestine (whether or not they possess any expertise on the subject is a different matter). Edward Said implores his readers to grasp certain, albeit vexatious, realities. “What we must again see is the issue involving representation [Said’s emphasis], an issue always lurking near the question of Palestine” (Said 1992, 39). Rigid apparatuses of control endeavor to “speak for Palestine and the Palestinians; this has always meant a blocking operation, by which the Palestinian cannot be heard from (or represent himself) directly on the world stage . . . In an age of mass and sometimes instant communication, sensational guerrilla or terrorist exploits can ‘speak’ directly, can represent directly an otherwise blocked presence” (Said 1992, 39). Emphasizing the importance of representation, being seen on one’s own terms, is pivotal because this is what graffiti attempts to accomplish, intentionally or otherwise, without the spilling of blood. As mentioned earlier,

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graffiti can be read as something like a warning sign. Once diffused from an intraneighborhood context to an interneighborhood geography, authorities definitely take notice. In a panic, there is a tendency to scrub the problem away in a literal fashion. When that fails, the clubs and guns come unsheathed in the menacing hands of state-sanctioned disciplinarians. To take graffiti more seriously as a policy rather than a criminal venture would demand significant political modifications of the sort that those in positions of power seek to avoid. It is much easier, and remunerative, for central authorities to beat back communities perceived as insufficiently patriotic than to take such action (which might even lead to the loss of political careers) that would serve to mitigate the concerns of the communities involved. Graffiti can help get beyond Said’s admonition on “not remaining trapped in the emotional self-indulgence of celebrating one’s own identity” (Said 1994, 229). Offering an off-ramp in a world of high-speed pursuits, graffiti synergizes individual identity (see Hamza) with that of the group (Dheisheh Camp) and then outward to national identity (Palestinian) to global awareness. Those are necessary, but not sufficient, steps to achieve the weighty desired outcome of improving human rights conditions.

Chapter 9

Witness

Here, we move from a specific to a more general analysis of the phenomenon of witnessing. We interrogate what it means to witness, who gets to be a witness, and how graffiti enables generational memory-making on multiple levels of experience. Societal forgetting may also be part of this historical process. TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE The dead and immediate observers are of course primary witnesses. Observers who come later to the site or the shrine or the memorial image/text are secondary witnesses. This is also a potent form of witnessing. A room full of photographs in the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan of people who died that day is almost unbearable. The Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, contains a Hall of Names where the horror is palpable and at the same time deeply contemplative. Some first-time visitors to both locations spontaneously weep. At the beginning of the introduction to her landmark book Memory Effects: The Holocaust and the Art of Secondary Witnessing, Dora Apel writes, “art illuminates traumatic experience through the sideways glance, allowing the viewer to apprehend what can only be shown indirectly, allusively and in sometimes surprising ways” (Apel 2002, 11). Indirectly because a representation of something is not the thing (we leave a discussion about simulations and simulacrums to people who still shop at the mall). Surprising, yes, and we would add emotionally effective. “Immediately after the war the act of bearing witness took place through the publication of photographs of Holocaust atrocities in the daily and weekly 101

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press, magazines on radio broadcasts and newsreels shown in movie theaters” (Apel 2002, 12). In Apel’s telling, the Holocaust simmered in American public discourse until the 1967 Arab Israeli Six Day War, which had the effect of “renewing fears of American Jews of another Jewish annihilation” (Apel 2002, 14). Almost losing the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and television documentaries in the late 1970s cemented the Jewish Holocaust as a “master moral paradigm” (Apel 2002, 15). These events are all of course linked historically to the Zionist Movement and events leading up to the formation of the state of Israel in 1948. Then, “In 1985, the Holocaust erupted at the center of a national controversy when the prominent Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel .  .  . opposed then-president Ronald Reagan’s impending visit to the World War II military cemetery in Bitburg West Germany as part of ceremonies commemorating V-E Day. Bitburg held the graves of German soldiers, including a number of men who had served in the S.S.” (Apel 2002, 15). The German S.S. or Schutzstaffel was a paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler. Part of this organization ran the concentration camps and is responsible for carrying out much of the Jewish genocide during World War II. This genocide or Shoah was vast, but did it justify these post-World War II facts? Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a population of almost two million were made refugees beyond the borders of the newborn state of Israel. Like all births, it was violent. Politicians treaded lightly around decades-old Zionist aspirations immediately after World War II for good reason as the extent of the Holocaust became clear to the world. A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel by Ronald and Alicia Radosh is instructive on this very broad point (Radosh and Radosh 2010). Apel focuses her book on contemporaneous image-making and fine art. Our focus is contemporary and vernacular art, which may be viewed as art that is sometimes not so fine. Images and the Human Presence Images in the political vernacular that address conflicts, though not always artful, are often important forms of public memory-making. Furthermore, some argue “that public memorialization is generally located in a conceptual field that ranges between commemoration and social activism” (Santino 2011, 97), or more to the point in the contexts that we discuss: between memorialization and protest. At the beginning of this book, we argue that protest or social activism in these forms may be intended to consolidate, intimidate, or provoke. We recognize the mutability of time and that intentions or the perceptions of an actor’s intention may change depending on the audience.

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For us, the aesthetic value of photographs that document visual public political statements in public settings often depends on the inclusion, if possible, of largely anonymous people. This human presence—and not the search for any specific artistic style or form—is of utmost importance. This presence of passersby in a photograph provides more than scale. The murals included here seem to blend with the identity of the subject portrayed, helping the memorialized dead, in a very real sense, retain a semblance of life. Or they contrast, providing a useful counterpoint for analysis and perhaps a point-of-view for a broader appreciation. In any event, “The intersection between the work, the street and the viewer is one that cannot be taken for granted. This junction creates an element of surprise on the artwork’s discovery and, in that moment, also facilitates the work’s transitory completion” (Waclawek 2011, 13). Waclawek refers here to the initial sighting of a work by a new audience member. There are of course also repeat viewers: members of an enclave or community who no longer see with fresh eyes. The work has no less meaning for them because in many cases they have internalized the message.Our evidence is depicted in figures 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3. ​ The message lives inside these residents like an instinct that could surface and become action at a moment's notice. This action then could be violence, be it antagonistic or in the interest of self-preservation. The Republican image below depicts solidarity with Basque separatists in Spain. The Unionists

Figure 9.1  A Resident of the Unionist Hopewell Crescent Area in Belfast with His Sunday Newspaper in Hand on a Sunday Morning in Late June 2005. Source: Philip Hopper.

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Figure 9.2  A Resident of the Republican Falls Road Neighborhood in West Belfast in Her Housedress Has Fetched a Package from a Nearby Store on a Sunday Morning in Late June 2005. Source: Philip Hopper.

image above supports the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a paramilitary group. We argue that these residents have internalized these very different messages and no longer require Waclawek’s “transitory completion.”​ Tertiary Witnessing: The Story of Telling the Story Is this internalized witnessing—when the passerby's gaze goes beyond the image—a legitimate form of witnessing? Apel writes that Roger Simon “gestures toward a third form of remembrance .  .  . through a repetition (a retelling) of the story of another but also the story of the telling of the story” [emphasis in original] (Apel 2002, 6). Photography of some official and many vernacular memorials may then be part of this tertiary telling or retelling, two layers removed from the primary act of witnessing, but still valid if appropriate context is provided. We attempt to do so in the analysis contained here.​ Like so many others, Ghassan Kanafani and his family were forced into exile in 1948. Kanafani wrote novellas and authored numerous articles explicating the Palestinian experience. He was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was assassinated on July 8, 1972, in Beirut by a car bomb. Mossad, the Israeli external intelligence agency, eventually

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Figure 9.3  A Woman in a Traditional Palestinian Thobe Passes by a Memorial Mural to Ghassan Kanafani at an Entrance to Dheisheh Camp. June 2007. Source: Philip Hopper.

claimed responsibility. An artist from Dheisheh named Ayed Arafa painted Kanafani's memorial mural in 2007. The freehand brushwork and loose palette stand in contrast to the modernist repetition of nearby stencils and other work in the camp. According to another artist from the camp, Ahmed Hmeedat, a former student, the text reads: “I will not give up until I implant my paradise on Earth.” A less literal translation may be: “I will not give up until I reach my goal.” The image remains and is maintained and venerated in 2020 and does not require the direct gaze of a local resident for that person to understand the “telling of the telling.” In other words, it enables that person to become a tertiary witness or something beyond a secondary witness. The Kanafani mural is part of a body of graphically sophisticated work that draws on a long history of Palestinian political cartooning and has emerged in

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Figure 9.4  In This Recreation of a Naj Al-Ali Work, Handala Is Not Only a Witness to Others’ Suffering, Including His Own Death But Also Embodies the Hope for a Resurrected, Autonomous Palestinian State. Look closely at the left side of the frame and encounter another witness. July 2007. Source: Philip Hopper.

Dheisheh and other locations. As previously noted, versions of Handala, Naji al-Ali’s iconic barefoot boy, often serve as a witness within some of these larger murals. Handala does not look out of the frame; rather, he looks into it. He sees what we see and is potent exactly because he is a witness to injustice and corruption. In Kfah Obeid’s memorial mural, he witnesses the death of a child. In another image below, he is one of several witnesses to his own death. The inscription at the top of the mural reads: “Palestine is for Palestinian blood.” The text below, written in black and also blood red, contains a slogan that repeats “Palestine is our country” over and over again.As depicted in figure 9.4.​ We are all Witnesses As discussed previously, in subordinated cultures, children identify with the martyrs and the abstraction of justice. A young boy stops rolling a tire down a steep camp street for the benefit of an unknown photographer. The mural text reads: “My weapon comes out and tells me not to stop fighting for our land.” The conductor raises his “weapon” a baton—or is it a paintbrush?— above sheet music where the notes are red and dripping like blood. The ruins of some buildings are in the background. To the right, Handala investigates

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Figure 9.5  The Boy, Badran Abedrabbu, Whose Family Lives in Dheisheh, Was Fourteen at the Time This Photograph Was Taken. Like the symbolic figures in the mural (another recreation of a Naj Al-Ali original) behind him, he too is a witness, and now so are you. July 2009. Source: Philip Hopper.

the image with us. Handala is a witness and so too is the boy whose outward gaze serves as a focalizer for the audience of this photograph. You then, dear reader, are now engaged in the “telling of the telling” and an important element in the way these kinds of images become transnational.The inward and outward gaze as depicted in figure 9.5.​

Chapter 10

Guernica A Symbol of Symbols

Here, we use Guernica/Guernica as a synecdoche for the potentially universal impact of human rights art. We have analyzed specific case studies and want to conclude with one that encapsulates the phenomenon—the power—of grasping the repugnant in order to understand the reality. IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM OR AN ALLEY WALL In previous chapters, we have looked almost exclusively at what some call vernacular political art, others call street art, and some simply call graffiti, the Palestinian artist Hamza Abu Ayyash jokes that the difference between graffiti and murals is that artists get paid for murals. The difference between graffiti and fine art is itself another joke. The so-called refinement of fine art versus the so-called vulgarity of some graffiti is a defense dominant groups may call upon when images question their hegemony. Despite this, Cupid urinates on Venus in more than one high Renaissance-era work of art. Back in the early part of the twentieth century, Picasso probably knew this fact when he painted Guernica, an image that stands as a touchstone at the intersection of fine art, politics, and now street art. It should then come as no surprise that contemporary graffiti artists around the world have reimagined Picasso's masterpiece. We argue here that these twenty-first-century works are an enhancement, tendrils, of the original antifascist message. “Every community in the world that has suffered an appalling atrocity has become synonymous with Guernica the painting and Gernika the town, the brutalized spiritual heartland of the beleaguered Basques” (Van Hensbergen 2004, 5). The Picasso original is in Madrid, Spain, where it was on display for many years in the Prado Museum and now is in the Museo Nacional 109

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Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. It is an icon of the Spanish Civil War, an antiwar symbol, and a benchmark for much of the Western political art that followed. It has been copied as a tapestry, which hangs at the UN in New York, as a bas-relief, a three-dimensional sculpture, and as popular political murals in Belfast and Palestine. During January 2003, the UN tapestry version was hidden from public view. Press conferences in front of it at that time with John Negroponte, then U.S. ambassador to the UN, were focused on UN Security Council support for a war on Iraq. The war began with a bombing campaign harshly though accurately named “Shock and Awe.” The official title of this U.S. military doctrine is “rapid dominance.” Others have referred to the tactic as “terror bombing” or euphemistically as “strategic bombing.” It was strangely, or perhaps obviously, prescient of someone to remove Picasso’s powerful antiwar image from the historical record of the ill-advised run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The bombing campaign and military intervention went ahead with disastrous results. Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction were never discovered and probably nonexistent. On Friday, March 21, 2003, the Economist reported, A massive air war was launched against Iraq on Friday March 21st as the invasion took on a ferocious new intensity. Enormous blasts from cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs tore into parts of Baghdad as American and British forces tried to destroy government and military targets. A number of buildings in the city centre were left ablaze.

Similarly, on Monday, April 26, 1937, For three hours in wave after wave, planes dropped a mixture of 250 kilogram ‘splinter’ bombs and thermite incendiary bombs designed to burn at 2,500 C, transforming the city into an apocalyptic fireball. Those who managed to escape into the fields were strafed from the air with machine-gun fire. By 7:45 p.m. almost all of Gernika no longer existed. (Van Hensbergen 2004, 36)

So-called shock and awe is nothing new. Guernicas Picasso's Guernica has indeed, like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Munch’s The Scream, been relegated to coffee mugs and tee-shirts. The age of mechanical reproduction has morphed into the age of digital replication, where the cloning of images (anything digital really) is possible. Pyramids can appear where they do not really exist, and an airbrush is simply a mouse click away. Despite this, Guernica resists becoming trivialized. Beyond consumerist merchandising both literal and interpretive versions exist on a transnational scale as public

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and often subversive political commentary. “There’s a reason that Picasso’s Guernica of 1937, which located a universe of grief in the bombardment of one Basque village, has been invoked amid the shelling of Fallujah, of Aleppo, and now of Mariupol” (Farago 2022). Jason Farago, a critic for the New York Times continues about Guernica and other images: “They are important because they reaffirm the place of form and imagination in times that would deny their potentialities. They narrate history at scales and depths that push notifications simply cannot deliver, and propaganda does not bother with” (Farago 2022). On Falls Road, a Republican area in Belfast Guernica was recreated by muralists Danny Devenny and Mark Ervine. Ervine is the son of the late Unionist politician David Ervine. Devenny, who we met earlier in the book, is a former member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and was a prisoner during The Troubles. Painted in 2007, this antifacism and antiviolence mural serve as a collaboration between Protestant and Catholic artists, in this way, we see graffiti as a trans-sectarian, or an ideological-bridging, device within a highly charged sectarian context. It is the first of several such joint murals painted by Ervine and Devenny whose works are now called “Painting from the Same Palette.” Their recreation of Picasso’s Guernica on the West B ­ elfast Solidarity Wall is depicted in figure 10.1. The sentiments implicit in this ­collaboration ring true in a wider sense with the refusal by either Loyalists or Republicans, Protestants or Catholics, to be dragged back into armed conflict after the murders in March 2009 of British soldiers and police officers by IRA dissidents. A short time after these murders, the author David Park wrote in a New York Times editorial of “a community that has made political differences subservient to the overwhelming desire for peace” (Park 2009). The changing visual culture in the public sphere of Northern Ireland is also evidence of this desire. Paramilitary icons and images once common are giving way to other forms of visual expression and collaboration. A mural of Frederick Douglass by Danny Devenny on Falls Road attracted a visit by the former’s great-great-granddaughter. It is ironic that conflict tourism has also led to the maintenance of some paramilitary images. Frederick Douglass questioned any nationalistic tendencies in a landscape where hypocrisy rules: “What to the slave is the Fourth of July? This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters to the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?” (Douglass 1852). In light of both the rhetorical violence, as well as that of the state, against the body politic and bodies of African Americans, there is surely a terrible irony in a recent past President of the United States using social networks to harass kneeling athletes but also encouraging police officers to “please don’t be too nice” to suspects. There is clearly a mocking sensation that both Douglass and

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Trump are, in antipodal contexts, quite cognizant of being activated through the affective device of nationalism and racially applied discipline.​ Ron English, the American artist responsible for the term “popaganda” has reinvented Picasso’s Guernica on the Israeli separation barrier in Bethlehem and in gallery shows. As the artist says, “I don’t believe I will ever exhaust the possibilities of the [Guernica] template, with its unending power to visually articulate the raging complexities of waste, destruction, horror and conquest, through its deceptively simplified narrative” (Pereira 2016). What happens with English’s complex appropriations is that the viewer is allowed, or subjected to, the affective privilege of smashing the known and the unknown together. A pop culture variant of this iconic work brings the horror of war and dismemberment to a new audience in an unexpected yet familiar way. Despite disturbing content, this appropriation of imagery creates a kind of visual and possibly psychic and certainly affective pleasure that is transnational. The same may be said for other artists working on a global scale. In Bergamo Italy, an artist who goes by Viz Art created a version where ghosts appear to emerge from the mouths of victims as shown in figure 10.2. In the tradition of other street artists, notably Banksy, Viz Art prefers to remain

Figure 10.1  This Recreation of Picasso's Iconic Work Was Executed by Republican Muralists Danny Devenny and Mark Ervine. Ervine is from a prominent Unionist family. June 2008. Source: Philip Hopper.

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anonymous. On the other side of the world, in Melbourne, Australia, an artist named Anthony Lister recreated Guernica in his own brutalist style as depicted in figure 10.3. Lister has emerged from the world of street art where he sometimes simply “tagged” his name into the world of fine art. The dividing line, if there ever really was one, continues to blur. Lister's online bio states, “He is considered Australia’s premier street artist” and continues to “applaud him for incorporating the innate sense of life’s chaos into his works.”​ What cannot be accurately said is that art functions in a zone of “purity,” as such a category is incompatible with art’s quiddity jammed into the coordinates of global neoliberalism. No magic formula exists to quantitatively dictate algorithmic formulas for evaluating the political weight any random artwork might carry. Of course, “purity” is a problematic word because it is an attempt to apply an objective standard onto a subjective object. There is nothing inherently wrong with profiting economically from art, and in fact, it may be most advantageous for the oppressed community involved with graffiti to actually be on the receiving end of capital accumulation. But that is hardly the standard to go by because that is not the primary intent of most graffiti artists in the areas where we focus our research. We refuse to evaluate any human rights art based on the revenue it generates while maintaining that revenue generation is not in itself evil. Street graffiti is not usually a consumer product nor is being assimilated into the economic exigencies of reality an automatically fascist advance. Diagnosis and prognostication equate to a parlor guessing game when it comes to the consequences of graffiti. As we have seen throughout this book,

Figure 10.2  Wiz Art Reinterpretation of Picasso's Guernica, 2015. Source: Used with permission of the artist.

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very similar graffiti exists in dissimilar geographies and cultures, sometimes appraised as associated with the mitigation of abuses, and sometimes not. The dissimilarities are as analytically useful as the similarities because they all work to highlight and reify contextual political causes and outcomes. Comparing and contrasting different outcomes with reciprocal works permit a reading of how art, whether Guernica or any of the other works discussed herein, does its duty. Periodically, we cannot miss extreme variations in art, where Simpsons tee-shirts are a coherent and predictable outgrowth of marketing a business venture, and something like Emmanuel Leutze’s (1851) Washington’s Crossing is a product of an immigrant artist to capture a spirit of democratic reform; however, unrealized those ideals were/are. Despite the intense asymmetries of the artist’s objectives—revenue and rights, respectively, the fascinating variable that remains stable on both sides of the dichotomy is awareness. Profit distinguished from, though not necessarily opposed to, policy modification is one demarcation line, but neither transpires without optical appreciation. To work, any art (whether on the “pure” side of commerciality or contrariness) requires people to look and care enough to make the purchase or head to the protest. Lacking either of those two ingredients, no dish of drawings makes a meal. High and Low Art? Other works such as the graffito by Dmitri Vrubel on the eastern side Berlin wall, My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, have also become transnational commentary (see chapter 5 for more about this image). This image, reproducing a news photograph taken in 1979 by Régis Bossu, was originally painted in 1990 and more recently repainted. It depicts Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a socialist fraternal kiss. And remember the more recent incarnation in Lithuania, Make Everything Great Again, depicts Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in a similar embrace. Photojournalism has long been a harbinger of both high and low art. Leutze’s (1851) Washington Crossing the Delaware, like Guernica, is a touchstone of both high art and popular culture. Sometimes, as in derivative works of this imaginary tableaux by the artist Larry Rivers, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Colescott, the two collide. Colescott (1925–2009) reimagined many classical figurative paintings from The Raft of the Medusa to Washington Crossing the Delaware. His painting titled George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook is at first a cartoon of racial stereotypes and then a stinging critique of how American history was, and in some states still is, taught in schools. Jody B. Cutler describes it well, In Colescott’s version, the rendering of the bespectacled agricultural scientist Carver, who replaces the standing Washington at the pinnacle of the foreground

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figure group, and his crew of servants, is obviously informed by historically racist popular imagery. At a time when Colescott was exploring represented African American identity as well as artistic self-identity, the Leutze presented itself as an instant sign of American painting; the Carver painting it spawned now has the same distinction. (Cutler 2009)

According to New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, the painting “transforms Emanuel Leutze's depiction of George Washington, heading for victory, into a Black achievement, paying homage to one of America’s great educators” (Smith 2007). Subversive art may or may not be ephemeral. Its meaning often grows or evolves with time and maintains relevance through organic processes and contemporary exigencies. At least since the advent of modernism and especially today, the categories of high and low art seem extraneous, and subversion seems mandatory. The translation of a statement attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Pablo Picasso in 1943 reads, “No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It’s an instrument of war for attack and defense against an enemy.” Art centered on human rights evades Manichean distinctions homologous to “high/low,” “pretty/ugly,” or “real/unreal.” Less concerned with aesthetics as conventionally understood, the aesthetic value of a given work from a political perspective cultivates radical opposition to binary categorization. Jaques Ranciere establishes this position as distinguished from any discourse–positive or negative–according to which everything is “narrative,” with alternations between “grand” narratives and “minor” narratives. The notion of “narrative” locks us into oppositions between the real and artifice where both the positivists and the deconstructionists are lost. Politics and art construct “fictions,” that is to say material [Ranciere’s emphasis] rearrangements of signs and images, relationships between what is seen and what is said, between what is done and what can be done. (Ranciere 2009, 40)

Appreciate that we are not French philosophers? Heavy stuff, but clarifying that dense passage is worth the words. For now, the urgency paradoxically lies in lingering with Ranciere’s provocative, albeit enigmatic, enunciation. Essentially, political art actively defies the gerrymandering hand of exclusionary definition. Nebulousness serves a dual purpose: functioning positively—sheltering the subject from superficial critique—but also negatively, by forcing a confrontation between dialectically immutable metaphysical concerns and the scholarly imperative of uncovering semiotic cunning. Realizing the Unreal Simultaneously real and symbolic, tangible and intangible, and indeed— political and cultural—the images throughout this book serve as a monument to the trans-aesthetics of human rights globally. They are not always pretty,

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and some are close to emetic. But they do have a power, as Slavoj Žižek contends, “to shift our perspective from the ‘big events, the bombings, the terror, military incursions’ forcing us to consider ‘what happens in Palestine when nothing is happening?’” (Elias 2013, 213). As is clear in this contemporary geopolitical moment, the profound indifference to key cultural totems can only either lead to, or be correlated with, political apathy, which allows for the sort of solipsistic foreign policymaking apparatus that the West has found itself ensnared in today. We want to temporize and geographize the thinking behind this project while also shielding the examined works from such boundaries and borders. It is enough to show that in all of the cases examined in these pages, within different states, within different regions, within different hemispheres, the story of these images is the story of modern human rights—sometimes gained, sometimes deprived. The search for dignity transcends time as well; as these images speak of times past, they all too easily remind us of the present, howling for anyone with eyes to hear. While it may, or should be, obvious that torture and killing and war and terror are bad, it is equally obvious that such trite observation is just that. Yes, yes, we all know those are bad things, says everyone while all those bad things occur constantly. Art, at its best, is able to bring certain themes, as old as time, home to individuals in a way that speeches, the written word, preachers, and teachers just cannot manage. Inability in this sense is not the same as fault. On the contrary, at least stories from childhood or the classroom or books or do-gooders mean well. Much less comfortably, the blame for humans’ inhumanity is entirely contrived by humans, the same reservoir leaks such notions such as fairness and justice. Lessons Unlearned One of the most salient learned truths from this research is that the images, far from working to particularize, or nationalize, the cultural history of human rights problematics, work instead to universalize it by committing the viewer/ listener/reader to the question of human rights, privileging dignity above nationalism. Through this maneuver, images that subvert the subordinate/ dominant hierarchy transcend simple representation by their aesthetic power. As evidenced in the associated images, a critical image can be erased by a repressive security apparatus, but only temporarily. In this way, the image does double duty: by first providing the subject populace a sense of the possible, and if then expunged by authorities, it re-emerges to signify the oppressor’s ultimate futility and alternate possibilities for subaltern agency. Enabled to act, represent, and even overcome erasure, people activated via graffiti present perennial problems for those insecure about their grasp on power, which is an endemic obsession with any tyrant, compos mentis or otherwise. Dictators are known to suffer from megalomania, a pathological

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preoccupation with maintaining power, which manifests itself in ways like arbitrary executions, random outbursts of violence, and associated disorders let loose by the ontological necessities of being simultaneously a receptor of power while also always sleeping with Damocles’ sword hovering. When dictators fall, they fall hard and in ways of the grotesquerie. One need to only think of Saddam Hussein, or Musolini, or Hitler, or Ghadaffi, and so on. Neither North Korea’s Kim Jong Un nor Russia’s Vladamir Putin are interested in meeting similar fates, but both also must be aware of the historical record for those in similar lines of work. It makes sense, therefore, for merciless leaders to seek to control images. Graffiti, as inherently uncontrollable as it is, always serves as a target for official condemnations because its existence negates the authority’s power by simply existing, which it does even when redacted or otherwise obscured. It survives through storytelling. Maddening to established powers, graffiti’s life cycle cloys the authoritarian mind while strengthening the morale of the masses. In a very different context, we can also look at graffiti in North Korea, “the most isolated country on earth” (Cha 2013, 43). Here, we find a striking example of the concomitance of imagery for both repressive political control, and as human rights iconography. On one hand, badges of Kim dynasty leaders must be worn at all times by subjects and work as “a daily reminder of where one’s allegiances stand”; on the other hand, antiregime graffiti does sometimes appear and is punishable by torture and imprisonment (Cha 2013, 43). Even “an undusted portrait of the leader can get you thrown into a gulag” (Cha 2013, 108). The North Korean dictatorship certainly understands the power of imagery for oppression as well as for resistance. Homage to the Image We have discussed how Picasso’s Guernica works as a vital piece of political art, universalized to speak to the horrors of war writ large. But it is also a particularized memorial to the civilian victims of an intentional slaughter, about as dehumanizing as anything that can be actualized. The Spanish Civil War is well described by George Orwell, who sustained a serious wound early on, but the experience very much stayed with him. One can see throughout Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia the misery endemic in war, for none who were there “will forget the horrible atmosphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers, crammed jails, enormous food-queues and prowling gangs of armed men” (Orwell 1952, 76). This is as succinct and cogent a descriptive sentence on the environment of societal breakdown, which of course is an inescapable reality of war, as has ever been written. Encapsulating a dreadful amalgamation of boredom and terror, Orwell learned that there is nothing noble—on any side—in war.

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He also understood that what he was experiencing was itself not specific to his own experience. Art and war both share certain ubiquitous characteristics, devoid of borders or parochial concerns. Notice how Orwell, with his fierce pen, highlights this strangely shared dichotomy. Art and war make for both a radical juxtaposition of contrasting, indeed opposing, affective attitudes and work together to create an entirely new perspective. Opposed yet intimately connected, like a grumpy old married couple, they need each other, which is both a cause of prolonged misery and its palliative. “I think the pacifists might find it helpful to illustrate their pamphlets with enlarged photographs of lice. Glory of war, indeed! In war all [Orwell’s emphasis] soldiers are lousy . . . The men who fought at Verdun, at Waterloo . . . at Thermopylae–every one of them had lice crawling over his testicles” (Orwell 1952, 66). Well, if that doesn’t paint a picture . . . It is, in the end, the filth that is remembered. Or, more precisely, a sui generis affective mechanism of what might be called “monstrous monotony.” Far from being a teleological narrative of heroism and derring-do, war is like being on your ninth hour in a car on Interstate 80 in Western Nebraska, forever. And then randomly having a head-on collision with an uninsured meth-addled deviant in a red baseball hat. Another key point Orwell makes is that no one who has actually been in war would celebrate it, even remotely. “The people who write that kind of stuff never fight; possibly they believe that to write it is a substitute for fighting . . . Sometimes it is a comfort to me that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him” (Orwell 1952, 37). What veterans know is that the best to be hoped for in war is to live. The only valor is the negation of valorousness: “In this [Spanish Civil] war everyone always did miss everyone else, when it was humanly possible” (Orwell 1952, 37). Not doing your job by “forgetting” to aim before pulling the trigger is as good as it gets. An ontological but tacit necessity in order to increase the chance of living in a contest of death is for the soldiers doing the fighting to not. Only in that particular occupation does it pay (in every sense) to not do your job. The Art of the Joke The best jokes, like the best art, are transnational. Take for example a widespread bit of wisecrackery shared by soldiers on both sides in Vietnam: “A US soldier on patrol notices a potential enemy North Vietnamese soldier. The US trooper yells, ‘Ho Chi Minh is a sonofabitch!’ To which the North Vietnamese trooper shouts ‘LBJ is a sonofabitch!’ Both soldiers come out of the bush, shake hands, and trade cigarettes.” Slavoj Zizek contends that, like our point with art and war, jokes “are idiosyncratic, they stand for the unique creativity of language, but are nonetheless ‘collective,’ anonymous,

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authorless, all of a sudden here out of nowhere” (Zizek 2014, vii). In the joke, both soldiers know very well that they are expected by their political superiors to murder each other, and each of the soldiers knows that his adversary knows that elementary dilemma. But through a joke, this dynamic is quashed and replaced with a fraternal acknowledgment that the whole damn thing is just a joke. Humans strive to protect what it is to be human. We see this in art, and jokes, and even in war. Zizek identifies the biblical rendering of the first joke, or “the mother of all jokes.” Coming to humanity from Genesis, the very first book in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Zizek asserts that “we all know what the joke was: ‘Do not eat from the tree of knowledge!’” (Zizek 2012, 95). In other words, jokes as both shield and sword, have, like graffiti, been around since our species itself. Even today’s vampires, as seen on the mockumentary series, What We Do in the Shadows, know how to share the joke, with a protagonist showcasing her theft of the portion of Guernica showing her presence at the calamity: “Pablo Picasso, more like Pablo Picasshole, am I right?” One has to be a creature of the night to laugh at such a portrayal of human suffering. As George Bernard Shaw has Keegan say, “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world” (Shaw 1907, 38). Guernica, as well as the other works discussed throughout this book, in their many global iterations, tells the kind of truth that is only possible to understand through a work of art.​ Laughter, like so many things, has multiple uses and effects. Jokes that lampoon, satirize, or parody the powerful are the funniest, at least as judged

Figure 10.3  Lister, Picasso, 2016. Source: Used with permission of the artist.

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from a political perspective, and elicit either uproarious giggling or the sort of silent suffocation of the suppressed guffaw seen in authoritarian countries, where poking fun at “the dear leader” is verboten. But there is a dark side to laughter. When employed against the powerless, or to serve as an ameliorative for the powerful, humor is no longer a weapon of the weak but a hammer of the strong. It is a truism that authoritarians have no sense of humor. Hunter Thompson nailed the combined effect of these points, “The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn’t imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn’t quite reach the lever on the voting machine” ([1979] 2011, 185). One can think of several well-known current political leaders who would match this description. The goal of authoritarians is, as we have seen, simple: to stay in power. Expressed by way of “jokes,” the powerful can stun the population by shaking up and confusing right and wrong, and before you know it, you are not sure and you do not care whether or not “two plus two equals five.” Instead of joy, the power dynamics of jokes aimed at subaltern communities either strikes the audience by initiating an affective submergence in shock and repugnance, or in contradistinction, commits eager members of the in-group to feel even more naturally superior to the target of the joke. Enabled to proliferate, group-think and other manifestations of increased tribal narcissism coagulate. Once organized and activated, the mass of individuals becomes a politically useful entity. Enraged by pure fantasy, fueled by paranoia, and a lifetime of not reading books, it is never quite clear just what these sorts will do, but it appears that many are perfectly content with the little things, like sacking the Capital of the United States in an attempt to abolish constitutionally enshrined democratic processes. Brutal orgies of incoherent violence arise via a multitude of factors; art certainly plays a role, the size of which is always determined by contexts and conjunctures. Enhancing crude treachery is the palpable downside of the sort of art we have been concerned with in this book. If everything really is either a big joke or insurmountably gruesome, then what is the point of resistance? We know that humans have been doing graffiti for at least 39,900 years, not as long as we have been joking but a pretty long time, and that it is “Confirmed: the oldest known art in the world is spray-painted graffiti” (Garber 2014). As we have discussed, graffiti can be so common that it can easily become invisible to the average passerby. Not seeing, however, works both ways. Daniel Immerwahr sums the pattern up with aplomb: “inhabitants of the US empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured, and experimented on. What they haven't been is seen” (2019, 19). What we see through history and geography is a tendency to become invisible by omnipresence. At the same time, political graffiti of the sort dealt with in this book—broadly defined as images created by denizens of a specific space

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and time without any imprimatur—is known to have tremendous power. It is a basic fact that what we see affects our perceptions, which in turn creates political reality by forming the basis for “our everyday decisions” (Menand 2021, 165). The power of enduring art rests not on its conformity to societal norms but rather its commentary on the human condition. Guernica is a work capable of deeply serious affective intervention on its viewers, and crucially, on society as a whole. It refuses to be ignored. Superficially, it is really a simple painting, lacking color, consisting of abstract shapes, and generally confusing. But this superficiality is also how the piece sticks to the synapses. Maybe it was William Faulkner who (according to Hunter Thompson) said, “The best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism” ([1979] 2011, 106). Ranciere reminds us that, “The real must be fictionalized in order to be thought” (Ranciere 2009, 40). Look again, and Guernica’s effectiveness stems from privileging the mundane as a horror show. Snapping and slapping our consciousness awake, Guernica is, of course, based on fact, but by its mirroring of violence and the eradication of innocence, it reproduces and personalizes inhumanity from the general sense (that we, qua humans, know slaughtering innocents is wrong) to the individualized (reflexive revulsion), and finally to the communal (the shared recoiling from human negation). The affective power here stems from the universal (humanity) to the specific (human) and forms a feedback loop. The process is nonlinear and chaotic, operating at the conjuncture of dis/ belief and un/reality. Complicating the work allows us to glimpse its power. Analyzing human rights–related art in this way flows from cultural studies, which Lawrence Grossberg maintains is best understood as primarily concerned with “contexts and conjunctures” (Grossberg 2010, 169). We search for those moments when a series of events crashes at the perfect velocity to produce something as prosaically profound as Guernica. Washington’s Crossing, also discussed earlier, can work its inspirational magic when it comes to proliferating liberal democratic norms. Like Guernica, it too could be viewed with cynical and cursory inspection. After all, it is just some people in a boat. If that silly interpretation was accurate, the work would be politically valueless. Empirically, we know it is been exceptionally influential. Washington’s Crossing has “given rise to a very large literature throughout the Western world and has inspired more painting and sculpture by major artists than any other event in American history” (Fischer 2004, 2). To date, ten generations “have taken up the subject, never twice in the same way” (Fischer 2004, 4). Emblematical of the transnationalism of certain art, Leutze was a “German American immigrant of strong liberal democratic principles, who returned to his native land and strongly supported the Revolutions of 1848 . . . he conceived the idea of a painting that would encourage Europe with the example of the American Revolution” (Fischer 2004, 2). QED, as they say.

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Figure 10.4  A Detail from a Poster Advertising the Picasso in Palestine Show. The original Guernica did not travel there. It was instead the artist's 1943 painting Buste de Femme. The entire event was in many ways an elaborate joke. October 2014 (see chapter 5 for more about the Picasso in Palestine event.). Source: Philip Hopper.

While some have pointed to certain anachronistic or erroneous details of the image (the flag, the light, etc.), the point of it aesthetically and politically was, and continues to be, acknowledged: desperation combined with courage to attain human dignity (Fischer 2004, 4). As discussed, in some times, such as presently in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, nonsanctioned production of political images is punishable by torture and imprisonment. Graffiti is also sometimes just paint on a wall sprayed by bored teenagers. By paying attention to graffiti, though, we can gain insight into human rights issues that might otherwise be missed. Art’s many links with culture allow us to know “how to cope with the world. We need an instruction manual. And culture is the manual” (Menand 2019). We make no distinction here between so-called high and so-called low culture.​ Ugly Paintings A special feeling comes over you at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Spain. Guernica. It is big and it is ugly and it is powerful. You do not want to look at it, but it insists on being seen. The only known cure for the feeling is to walk until you are lost somewhere deep in the city of Madrid. A belly full of ham and wine will re-energize you, but you will never think of

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the painting the same way. Gone is the sterility of staring at a screen, replaced by solidarity—inherently communal—of actually witnessing the thing, which is itself a rendering or pseudo-meta-witnessing of the thing: horror. The redaction of humanity by humans leads to the redaction of humans by humanity, which inexorably leads to irreconcilable physical and psychological tension. As we have mentioned elsewhere throughout this book, tertiary witnessing may be as potent as any other form of that act. Endeavoring to engage in hyperrationalism to describe human rights art is a leading cause of pedantic breakdown. Instead, we maneuver to see the art in a way that not only showcases but also embraces the human condition, which is a pure shitshow that abjures sanitation. Once we scrub ourselves of the impulse to observe cleanly, or “objectively” (which is a dubious ontological goal) or in any manner which avoids confronting context, we commence in seeing others in need of being seen. This is the decisive first step of human rights graffiti. One of the main graffiti artists in Northern Ireland stated in an interview with one of the authors that since the Northern Ireland peace process of the late 1990s occurred “a lot of tourists and media and people are realizing murals can be about different things. They can be about culture, about community issues. The whole point about making the murals is to get our message out, get the attention of millions of people through exposure in the media.” Indeed, as many of the images and the artist’s statement make clear, exposure has always been the initial purpose of human rights graffiti. Once general attention has been attained, the next goal is to acquire the attention of policymakers, and the subsequent objective is remedial policy. Capturing the initial general-community attention is the relatively easy part. Garnering the attention of key players is more challenging as they must compete with the numerous other demands on their neurological capacity that the foreign policymaking community contends with every day. Effectuating and sustaining policy change is the most difficult step to achieve because of the additional burden of moving the policy through the rigorous interagency processes that major state actors must endure. One sees in both Sianne Ngai’s Ugly Feelings, and Elisabeth Anker’s Ugly Freedoms the undercurrent of cruelty and how it imbues, intersects, and intensifies certain negative affective attributes such as tone, irritation, and paranoia, as well as racism, colonialism, and ecological destruction (Ngai 2005; Anker 2022). Read along with Judith Shklar’s contention that the foundation of democratic liberalism lies in avoiding cruelty, this is a concerning factor when studying human rights. For Shklar, the “summum malum” that is cruelty should be distinguished from sadism as the former requires state regime support and the latter involves an individual’s personal tendencies (Shklar 1998, 11). Organically produced (in the sense of Antonio Gramsci’s paradigm of the “organic intellectual”) art, and especially graffiti, is always by definition “stateless” (Gramsci 1971). It becomes not only permissible but

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also theoretically crucial to acknowledge that while an individual artist may be a sadist, graffiti cannot be cruel in a political sense if it operates outside of any position of state power. Guernica, like Washington’s Crossing, is an art that works to augment societal norms prohibiting the annihilation of noncombatants while encouraging much deeper thinking about human rights. Again the distinction between fine art and graffiti—in this conjuncture—melts away. As this book is being written, Russia, led by a sadist, is conducting a vicious invasion of Ukraine in a fashion that is indubitably cruel. Putin seems, like so many ruthless solipsists before him, to imagine that he can force Ukrainians to eradicate their individualism and fully submit to his Tsarist whims. We know from at least as far back as Plato’s writings that authoritarians often have a tough time learning, which is both fortunate—because it ensures their doom, and a curse—because it ensures they do. Fascists lust toward violence and away from reason; exactly what Guernica and related works capture for posterity and why those who recognize this relationship have put themselves at personal risk to protect art from being hunted down and destroyed by the type of people who would hunt and destroy art. Spanning centuries and around the globe, official liars and fiends litter history. One commonality of that species, through time and space, is the propensity to demolish that which transcends pure political power: art. Obliteration, or as Timothy Snyder writes, “taking things apart, to peel away the layers of the onion until nothing is left but the tears of others and their own cynical laughter” is the technique and the objective (Snyder 2022, 130).

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Index

Note: Page locators in italics refer to figures. Abbas, Mahmoud, 24, 48, 52, 95 Abedrabbu, Badran, 107 Abu Ayyash, Hamza, 21, 45, 46–48, 47, 50, 51, 109; eviscerated man graphic depiction, Bethlehem, 57; interview, 48–52; the “other,” 55–58; in Ramallah, 58; the “self,” 55–58 Adair, Johnny, 37 Adams, Gerry, 40, 43, 44 Adnan, Khadar, 14, 15, 49, 50; stencil in Ramallah, 15 Age of Martyrs, 78 Ahmed, Leila, 20 Aisha, Amer Abu, 70, 75 Al-Afandi, Qussay, 80, 82 Al-Aksa Mosque, 22, 23 Al-Aqsa Intifada. See Second Intifada Al-Ali, Naj, 91, 92, 99, 106, 106 Al Manarah Square, 67, 74, 83 American flag, 26, 83 Andersontown, 78, 79 Anker, Elisabeth, 123 Antonius, George, 18, 19 Apel, Dora, 101, 102, 104 Arab, 2; artists, 56; culture, 49, 56; intellectuals, 19; nationalism, 18; population’s situation, 19

Arabic, 21, 23, 49, 63, 67, 71, 84 Arab Israeli Six Day War, 102 Arabization, 18 Arab nationalist movement, 18, 19 Arafa, Ayed, 105 Armed Struggle and the State: The Palestinian National Movement (Sayigh), 19 Asghar, Ali, 77 Assulin, Yair, 15 Australia, 113 Baers, Michael, 65, 66 Bash and Ant, 51, 56; locals in trouble with law, 52–55; Palestinian authority symbol, 54; transnational aspirations of artists, 53 Battle of Karbala, 63, 77 Battle of Locust Grove, 36 Battle of the Boyne, 8, 42 Belfast, 1, 3, 28, 77, 85; City Hall, 35; July 2005, 7–8; 2008, 12. See also West Belfast Belfast, intents and effects: July 2005, Philip Hopper, 31–34, 38; July 2018, Philip Hopper, 35–44 Belfast Telegraph, 13

133

134

Index

Belgium, 58, 64 Ben-Gurion, David, 59 Berlin Wall, 32, 45, 52 Bernard Shaw, George, 119 Bethlehem, 1, 32, 48, 80, 87, 112 Billy (King), 8, 42, 43 Bitburg, 102 bitter residue, June 2018–2019, 13–15, 78 Black Panthers, 89 Bloody Sunday, 8, 42, 43 Bossu, Régis, 52, 114 Brezhnev, Leonid, 52, 114 British army, 40, 41 Brother’s Keeper, 70 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (Graeber), 98 “Buste de Femme,” (Picasso) 64, 66, 122 Cado, Karim, 69 caged graffiti, 97 Calligraffiti, 58 calligraphy, 56, 57, 64 “Calligraphy and Modern Art in the Arab World,” 56 Campus in Camps, 87–89, 90; concrete tent, 95–96; symposiums, 91–95 capitalist connection, 20 Caroll, Lewis, 96 Carver, Robert 114, 115 Catholic area, 8 childhood martyrdom, 77–86 Christie, Liam, 13 Civil Rights Movement, 43 Cohen, Stanley, 20, 21 Colescott, Robert, 114, 115 Concrete Tent, 95–96 Confederate Battle flag, 13, 14 cultural connection, 20–22 Cutler, Jody B., 114 cycle of violence, 12, 71–73, 75, 97 Daher, Mohammed, 61–63, 65, 69, 74, 75 al-Dalu, Mohammed Jamal, 83 da Silva Report, 40

da Vinci, Leonardo, 110 De Angelis, Massimo, 89 Al-Deek, Arafat, 49 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 122 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 40 Derry. See Londonderry Devenny, Danny, 10, 11, 14, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 78, 79, 111, 112 Dheisheh, 79, 80, 85, 88, 89, 91, 105 Dheisheh Camp, 80, 86, 92, 95, 99, 99 Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp (PRC), 3, 70, 79, 87 diaspora, 58 dictator’s dilemma, 97 Divas Tower, 7 Doha, 89, 90 Dome of the Rock, 22, 66, 71 Douglass, Frederick, 31, 38, 39, 111 Drawing Support (Rolston), 31 DUP. See Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Egypt, 70, 97 English, 23, 36, 53, 71, 72, 84, 93, 112 Ephemera of Martyrdom, 73–75 Eqtaish, Ayed Abu, 60, 69, 70, 75 Ervine, Mark, 111, 112 Europe, 18, 19, 64, 96 European Union, 12, 32 Facebook, 71, 72, 85 Fahmy, Ziad, 97 Falls Road, 7, 10, 14, 31, 32, 39, 111 Family Guy (YouTube 2009), 48 Farago, Jason, 111 Fatah, 62, 66, 67, 71 Faulkner, William, 121 Federici, Silvia, 89 Financial Times, 78 Finucane, Pat, 40 First Intifada, 21, 22, 91 First Ramallah Group Center, 71 First World War. See World War I Five Broken Cameras, 2

Index

Flags and Emblems (Display) Act, 28 Fraenkel, Naftali, 70, 75 fragmentation process, 10 Fromkin, David, 18 gable-end mural, 9 Gaddafi, Muammar, 117 Gaza City, 21, 49, 51, 61, 62, 83 Geddis, Stephen, 78 George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (Colescott), 114 Gernika, 109, 110 Global Trends Report, 88 Goldberg, Amy, 83 Good Friday Agreement, 8, 12, 75 “good taste,” 4, 24, 27, 57, 77, 85 Google Earth, 12 graffiti, 25, 46, 97, 98, 100, 109, 120, 122; by Hamza Abu Ayyash, 45, 47; in North Korea, 117; Palestinian graffiti, 21, 24, 53, 59, 87; political graffiti, 1, 3, 48, 91; power, 25–29; republican graffiti, 7; street graffiti, 113. See also individual entries Great Britain, 8, 28 Grossberg, Lawrence, 121 The Guardian (Mulholland), 13 Guernica, 109–14, 113; art of joke, 118–22; homage to image, 117–18; ugly paintings, 122–24; unlearned lessons, 116–17; unreal art, 115–16 Haaretz, 15, 69 Hamas, 55, 62, 67, 70, 71, 74 Handala, 91–95, 99, 106, 106, 107 Harbor Airport, United States, 12 Henry, Clement, 20 Herzl, Theodor, 19 Hilal, Sandi, 87, 89, 89, 90, 95 Hill, Fiona, 97 Hitler, Adolf, 18, 102, 117 Hmeedat, Ahmed, 105 Honecker, Erich, 52, 114

135

Hopper, Philip, 31–44 horse, 49 Hourani, Albert, 19 Hourani, Khalidi, 21, 56, 63, 64, 65, 66, 66, 70–73, 72, 74, 75, 80 human presence, 102–4 Husain, Sharif, 19 Hussein, Imam, 63 Hussein, Saddam, 110, 117 Hyman, Jonathan, 26 Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Mitchell), 46 IDF. See Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Immerwahr, Daniel, 120 Intercommunal Youth Institute, Oakland California, 89 International Academy of Art, 51, 64, 66 IRA. See Irish Republican Army (IRA) Ireland, 8, 43. See also Northern Ireland Irish Republican Army (IRA), 8, 11, 13, 75, 111 Islam, 19, 20, 22, 63 Islamization, 18 Israel, 4, 28, 29, 37, 60, 65, 83; flag, 7, 13, 75, 96; and Palestine, 24, 36, 59; power dynamic, 23 Israeli, 2, 19, 20, 22, 63; Border Police Force, 69; hegemony, 73; prison, 49, 71; soldier, 32, 69, 79; strategy, 19 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 2, 61, 69, 70, 74, 80 Israeli separation barrier, 32, 33, 55, 69, 112 Israeli Settler Movement, 66 Israeli Yeshiva students, 70 Jabra, Jabra I, 56 Jarman, Neil, 42 Jerusalem, 4, 23, 23, 36, 101 Jordan River, 70 kadosh me'uneh (answering saint), 63 Kanafani, Ghassan, 104, 105, 105 Kawasmeh, Marwan, 70, 75

136

Index

Kfah Obeid, 79, 80, 80, 81, 85, 86, 109 Khalidi, Rashid 18, 19 Khdeir, Mohammed, 74, 75 Kim dynasty, 117 Kim Jong Un, 117 King, Martin Luther, 43 Korean War, 35 Lebanon, 46, 70 Leonore Annenberg Prize, 65 Lessing, G. E., 57 Leutze, Emanuel, 114, 115, 121 Lichtenstein, Roy, 114 Lister, Anthony, 113, 119 Litani River, 70 Livingstone, Julie, 78, 79, 80, 83–86 Londonderry, 8, 12, 37, 42, 43 Lord Dufferin, 35 loyalism, 7, 13, 36, 40 Loyalist Commanders, 37, 39 Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), 13 Madrid Conference, 21 Magan David. See Star of David Make Everything Great Again, 53, 114 Mandela, Nelson, 36 Marshall Plan, 18 Masharawi, Rashid, 64 McDonald, Mary Lou, 43, 44 McDonald’s, 85 Mckee, Lyra, 13 McMahon, Henry, 19 Mearsheimer, John, 96 Melbourne, 113 memory, 3, 5, 12, 35 Memory Effects: The Holocaust and the Art of Secondary Witnessing (Apel), 101 Middle East, 18, 20, 28, 97 Mikdadi, Salwa, 95 military graveyard, 80 Mitchell, W. J. T., 46, 56, 57 Mohammed, prophet, 63 Mona Lisa (Da Vinci), 110 Monroe, Elizabeth, 18

Mossad, 104 Mount of Olives, 4 Mulholland, Marc, 7 Munch, Edvard, 110 murals. See Northern Ireland, murals of; Palestine, murals of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 109–10, 122 Muslims, 2, 63, 72 Mussolini, Benito, 117 “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love,” 52, 53, 114 Nakba, 32, 75, 94 Nakba Day, 59–60; cycle of violence, 71–73; Ephemera of Martyrdom, 73– 75; May 15, 2014, 60–64; Picasso and Martyrdom, 64–71; pretense of living, 75 Nawara, Lina, 73 Nazism, 97 Negroponte, John, 110 Netanyahu, Binyamin, 19 Newtown Massacre, 83 New York Times, 111, 115 Ngai, Sianne, 123 NGO. See nongovernmental organization (NGO) 9/11 attack, 26, 83, 85, 101 nongovernmental organization (NGO), 54, 60 North America, 37, 96 Northern Ireland, 1, 2, 4, 8, 37, 78, 111, 123 Northern Ireland, murals of: Belfast, July 2005, 7–8; Belfast 2008, 12; bitter residue, June 2018–2019, 13–15; unionists and loyalists, 8–10 Northern Ireland Assembly, 44 Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (Mulholland), 7 Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, 43 Northern Ireland Tourist Board, 28

Index

Nowara, Nadeem, 61–63, 65–69, 68, 71–75 Nowara, Siam, 69, 70 Nowarah, Lina, 71 NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, 95 Obama, Barack, 24, 52, 53 Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), 2 On Photography (Sontag), 5 Operation Banner, 41 OPT. See Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine (Baers), 65 Orwell, George, 96, 117, 118 the “other,” 2, 3, 29, 55–58 Othering, 29 Ottoman Empire, 19, 70 PA. See Palestinian Authority (PA) “Painting from the Same Palette,” 111 Paisley, Ian, 40 Palestine, 1, 2, 4, 65, 96, 116 Palestine, murals of, 17–20; capitalist connection, 20; cultural connection, 20–22; vortex of despair, 22–24 Palestine Solidarity Mural, 33 Palestinian, 2, 29, 58, 68; flags, 7, 14, 75, 81; graffiti, 21, 24, 59, 87; graffiti artists, 53; statehood, 13; vernacular image-making, 21, 65 Palestinian Authority (PA), 45, 48, 52–54, 62, 63, 93 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 21, 62, 91 Palestinian National Committee (PNC), 62 Palestinian National Liberation Movement, 67 Palestinian refugee camps, 85, 88, 95 Pan, Peter, 71 Panamanian flag, 40 Pape, Robert, 97 peace line, 31, 32

137

Petti, Alessandro, 87–90, 95, 96 Picasso, Pablo, 64–71, 105, 109–12, 113, 115, 119, 119 Picasso in Palestine, 64, 65, 65, 122 Picasso Visits Palestine (film), 64 PLO. See Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) PNC. See Palestinian National Committee (PNC) political graffiti, 1, 3, 48, 91. See also individual entries “power elite” (Graeber), 98 Prado Museum, 109 Prince William of Orange, 8 public art, 3, 25 public political art, 1, 2, 12, 25 Putin, Vladimir, 53, 97, 114, 117, 124 Queen Victoria, 35 Quran, 21 The Raft of the Medusa (Colescott), 114 Ramallah, 14, 24, 60, 61, 64, 71, 73, 77, 91; Bash and Ant, 52–55; Hamza Abu Ayyash. See Abu Ayyash, Hamza; theory and practice in, 45–48; Zam’n Café in, 48, 70 Ranciere, Jaques, 115, 121 rapid dominance, 110 Reagan, Ronald, 102 Red Hand, 27, 28, 28 Red Hand of Ulster, 27 refugee camps, 83, 87, 88, 96. See also Palestinian refugee camps Refugee Heritage, 95 Regarding the Pain of Others (Sontag), 5 re-imaging program, 39 Republican Commanders, 37 Republican Falls Road Neighborhood, 104 resistance, 2, 21, 22, 61, 63, 83, 98

138

Index

Rohingya, 88 Rolston, Bill, 10, 11, 13, 31, 35, 37, 38, 39 Russia, 88, 124 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, 51, 52 A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Radosh and Radosh), 102 Said, Edward W., 17, 96, 99 Al-Saifi, Aysar, 91, 92, 92 Saint George’s School, 61, 71, 73 Sands, Bobby, 10, 11, 11, 14, 86 Sayigh, Yezid, 19 Schutzstaffel, 102 The Scream (Munch), 110 Second Intifada, 22, 23, 79 the “self,” 55–58 Settler Movement, 70 Shaar, Gilad, 70, 75 shabab (youth), 60, 88 shaheed (martyr), 23, 24, 59, 61, 63, 68, 74, 82, 83, 85, 91, 92 Shankill, 31, 32, 37, 39, 42, 43 Sharon, Ariel, 22 Shatila Camp, 49 Shklar, Judith, 123 Shlaim, Avi, 19, 20 Shock and Awe, 110 Siege of Derry, 39 Simon, Roger, 104 Sinn Fein, 35, 36, 40, 44, 75 Smith, Roberta, 115 Snyder, Timothy, 124 Solidarity Wall, 11, 14, 32, 39 Sontag, Susan, 5, 68 souk (market), 60 South Africa, 35, 36, 75 Spanish Civil War, 110, 117 splintering of unionism, 10 Springborg, Robert, 20 St. Agnes, 77 Star of David, 4, 14, 28 States of Denial (Cohen), 21 Statue of Liberty, 24, 26

status quo, 2, 9, 25, 32, 58, 96 Stavrides, Stavros, 89 stencil, 14, 49; dead children images from Gaza, 51; “Free Khadar Adnan,” 15 Stent, Angela, 97 Stone, Deborah, 97, 98 Storey, Bobby, 44 story of the telling of the story, 104 strategic bombing, 110 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 89 sui generis, 13, 118 summum malum, 123 sumoud (steadfastness), 60, 82, 85 Sykes-Picot Agreement, 19 Syria, 19 Syrians, 88 al-Tahtawi, Rifa’a, 19 TASC. See Think Tank for Social Action (TASC) Temple Mount, Jerusalem, 22, 22, 23 terror bombing, 110 tertiary witnessing, 104–7, 123 Think Tank for Social Action (TASC), 13 Thompson, Hunter, 120 Toukan, Oraib, 63, 73, 74 The Troubles, 2, 4, 7, 37, 78, 111 Trump, Donald, 53, 112, 114 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 75 Twain, Mark, 4 UDA. See Ulster Defense Association (UDA) UFF. See Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) Ugly Feelings (Ngai), 123 Ugly Freedoms (Anker), 123 ugly paintings, 122–24 Ukraine, 35, 124 Ulster Defense Association (UDA), 7, 37, 40, 43

Index

Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), 37, 104 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), 7, 9, 39 UNESCO. See United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) unionist graffiti, 40 Unionist Hopewell Crescent Area, 103 unionist/loyalist mural, 34 unionists and loyalists, 8–10 United Kingdom, 2, 7, 91 United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 95, 96 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 88 United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 88 United States, 12, 24, 26, 85, 89, 97 University of Ulster, 35 unreal art, 115–16 UNRWA. See United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) UN Security Council, 110 UN tapestry version, 110 Uvalde massacre, 83 UVF. See Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Viz Art, 112, 113 Vrubel, Dmitri, 52, 53, 114 Walt, Stephen, 96 Washington Crossing the Delaware (Leutze), 114, 121, 124

139

Wavell, Archibald, 18 “weapon of the weak” (Scott), 98 West Bank, 47, 56, 60, 61, 64, 65, 70, 83 West Belfast, 14, 78 West Jerusalem, 24 What We Do in the Shadows (TV series), 119 Wiesel, Elie, 102 William, Prince, 8 witnessing, 101–2; human presence, 102–4; images, 102–4; tertiary witnessing, 104–7 Women and Gender in Islam (Ahmed), 20 World Heritage Convention, 96 World Heritage Site, 95 World Trade Center, 26 World War I, 18, 19, 39 World War II, 18, 96, 102 Yad Vashem, 101 Yifrach, Eyal, 70, 75 Yom HaAtzmaut, 59 Yom Kippur War, 102 Yorim V’Bochim (shooting and crying), 21 Zam’n Café, Ramallah, 48, 55, 55, 70 Zayed, Fakher, 69 Zionist Movement, 102 Žižek, Slavoj, 116, 118, 119

About the Authors

Philip Hopper is currently part of the Department of communication media faculty at the University of Northern Iowa. He was a Fulbright Scholar in the West Bank at Al-Quds University during the 2012–2013 academic year, then continued that teaching and research as a visiting professor during 2013–2014 at AlQuds Bard. He previously worked in New York City and Amman, Jordan. His success as a teacher in those locations is well-documented and consistent over time. His award-winning documentaries include The Road Home, about injured soldiers who compete in the New York City Marathon, and The Park in Ramallah, about the safety of children in occupied territories. His long-term, ongoing photojournalism project, Images of Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Public Sphere, includes images and interviews from Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Palestinian West Bank, and Israel. This work has emerged in book chapters, peer-evaluated journals, and gallery shows. An interactive mapping project that examines public transportation and the difficulty of travel in the West Bank is a work in progress. He holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Evan Renfro is an associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst, Dr. Renfro received his BA and MA from the University of Texas at Austin, and his PhD from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Before coming to Northern Iowa, he was a Fleet Professor at the United States Naval War College in Pearl Harbor, HI, where he taught a seminar on Strategy and War. With a research agenda focused on the nexus of international security and culture, he has published in such outlets as the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Marine Corps Gazette, Joint Force Quarterly, Cultural Studies, and Theory & Event. The analysis expressed in this book is his alone and most certainly does not represent the views of any government entity. 141