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Thursday, August 6, 2020

Art as a tool of Palestinian Resistance

This article is by
Vanshita Banuana
Vanshita Banuana
MENA

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Article Contributor(s)

Vanshita Banuana

Article Title

Art as a tool of Palestinian Resistance

Publisher

Global Views 360

Publication Date

August 6, 2020

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Graffiti of former PFLP militant, Leila Khaled

Graffiti of former PFLP militant, Leila Khaled | Source: Edgardo W. Olivera via Flickr

The Israel-Palestine conflict is one that has been fraught with violence and displacement, more so for the Palestinians. This is a complicated history of war and disagreement over the possible solutions. However in recent years, the actions of Israel’s right-wing coalition government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are making the path to peace even more difficult.

Many artists, especially those of Palestinian origin, across the creative mediums, have turned to art as a medium of expression against the Israeli government’s repressive policies and to show the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Graffiti of  Marouane Barghouti, imprisoned Palestinian activist | Source: thierry ehrmann via Flickr

The heroes of Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation are a popular subject of resistance art by Palestinian artists. It is mainly expressed in the form of murals, graffities, and posters.

Another important theme in Palestinian art surrounds the Nakba, which refers to the exodus of a large number of Palestinians after the formation of the state of Israel.

Palestinian refugees leaving the Galilee in October–November 1948 | Source:  Fred Csasznik via Wikimedia

A popular street artist Banksy has left his unique mark in support of Palestinian resistance, and not just in the form of street art which lines the Israeli West Bank barrier and other areas of the West Bank.

Street Art by Banksy | Source: Dan Meyers via Unsplash

Banksy also opened the Walled Off Hotel in 2014 where all the rooms overlook the barrier or apartheid wall, as it is known in Palestine, and each contains various artworks depicting life under occupation.

The most recent contribution from Banksy in this regard has been a small art piece that was displayed inside the hotel last Christmas, called ‘The Scar of Bethlehem.’ It depicts a nativity scene (the birth of Jesus) set to the backdrop of the concrete barrier, with a bullet hole in it resembling a star and has garnered praise from many western news outlets as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinian suffering.

Posters, and innovative methods of distributing the same, are another form of artistic protest. These range from the posters by various artists published in a leftist French newspaper, meant to be cut out and pasted on walls by the public; to the Turkish graphic design professors using public walkways to exhibit posters in solidarity with Gaza.

A card marking the tenth anniversary of the launching of the Palestinian revolution in 1965 | Source: Nawal Abboud via The Palestinian Poster Archives

Posters have also sprung up in various places across the world, including Israel, calling for active demonstrations against Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank. All of the mentioned posters continue to be collected in the digital archives of the Palestine Poster Project.

Another popular collection dates back to 1970s Australia, circulated by Ali Kazak, a Palestinian ambassador, called “landscape posters” for their focus on Palestinian land. Many posters utilised symbols such as traditional Palestinian dresses, fruits such as olives and oranges, and keys, which refer to the refugees.

Some of the older art from around the 1970s focused on pre-war Palestinian life and culture, while the newer art takes a multi-media form through photographs, science fiction and films. Similarly, many murals can be found surrounding Land Day, which serves as a reminder of a massacre in 1976 in response to a protest.

Artistic symbolism also often uses the concept of Sumud, which means resilience in Arabic, and is used to refer to a “sense of rootedness” to Palestinian land.

Music also found its voice as a form of self-expression and resistance. In 2018, music platform Boiler Room hosted Boiler Room Palestine for the first time. The show featured a diversity of Palestinian artists from Palestinian and Israeli territories. The crew for the show had to enter Palestine through Israel, giving them a small taste of the limitation of movement for Palestinians.

Palestinian art continues to grow as a form of self-expression, as a form of resistance to Israeli policies, and as forms of cultural history in an endeavour to keep Palestinian spirits and identity alive as their lives get shrunk into smaller and smaller pieces of land.

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February 4, 2021 5:07 PM

Expat Exodus In The Middle East

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit people and economies worldwide, sparking a global recession and financially destabilising millions of people. In the Middle East, dipping oil prices have only worsened the threat to the economy. Businesses are shutting down, and many are trying to survive by cutting the salaries or laying off of workers. Large segments of the workers in these countries are expatriates, and many have struggled to make ends meet as unemployment soared.

The development of the Gulf countries has always been intertwined with their large expat populations. These workers are often vital to the economy, not just as part of the workforce but also as consumers by enabling successful malls, restaurants and other forms of recreation and tourism. Countries like Saudi Arabia gain valuable non-oil revenue in the form of increased Value Added Taxes (VAT) and by imposing a monthly fee on migrants who want to sponsor family members.

Many of these workers are from developing Southeast Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, and contribute greatly to their home country’s economy in the form of remittances, i.e sending money back home. Those who are facing unemployment or salary cuts are eager to be repatriated, especially since in many Gulf countries visas, rent, and even phone lines are linked to jobs, and expats have little to no social safety nets to fall back on.

“Panicked” Indians applying to go back home crashed the Dubai aviation ministry’s website for applications in the process. The consulate says it has received around 200,000 applications for repatriation of expats from as many as 12 countries.

For some, closing businesses are forcing them to go home. For others, the cost of education is the major concern. The Emirates group, Uber’s Middle Eastern counterpart Careem, and hotels are some of the few major employers considering laying off large portions of their staff or reducing salaries.

Dubai has been one of the hardest hit, as expats form an estimated 92% of the population. Dubai based movers estimate that they’re getting up to seven calls a day to ship belongings abroad. It is extremely hard to gain permanent resident status in countries such as the UAE, and the costs of living and education are quite high and often provided by employers, which has made leaving the only option left for many laid-off workers across all fields.

The UAE has tried to offset the damage by granting automatic extensions to expiring work permits, waiving of work permit fees and fines, and providing interest-free loans and repayment breaks.

Meanwhile, governments in Kuwait and Oman are trying to mould the exodus into an opportunity to boost local employment. On the other hand, the Saudi Arabian government has been criticised for not taking enough measures to protect the local workforce.

While the Gulf countries have been trying to decrease their dependence on oil wealth and foreign workforce, it is not something that can be accomplished soon, especially given the great dependence of the Gulf economies on both those factors.

There is still too unavoidable a gap between the current skill of local workers and the training needed to compete with foreign professionals, making it hard to simply employ domestic workers in place of foreign ones. The pandemic, however, might not leave much of a choice.

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