Israeli vandalises Swedish suicide bomber art

[Edan]

Originally posted by Winston

You do remember of course that this week another young woman, the mother of four, killed four Israelis in the same way. What was she, Cinderella?

Speaking of her, there were two very different reactions to her actions.
(putting the short one first, for those with short attention spans )

From Hamas:

''She is not going to be the last because the march of resistance will continue until the Islamic flag is raised, not only over the minarets of Jerusalem, but over the whole universe,'' Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...ld/7722981.htm

From the Suicide Bomber's family:

On Thursday the bomber was given a hero's funeral and honored as a martyr of the Palestinian cause, but her brother criticized the militants from Hamas who had sent his sister to kill and be killed.

"I'm very angry," Ayman al-Riyashi said, as he received condolences near his home, his hands still soiled from burying his sister. The person who sent her to die "took my sister, my soul, and when you take someone's brother or sister, they don't come back," he said.

"This destroys our life, our work and our future," he added. "It never occurred to us that she would do such a thing. If she had mentioned it I would have prevented her, because of the children."

The Israeli army sealed off the Gaza Strip on Thursday, barring thousands of Palestinian laborers from reaching jobs in Israel. The industrial zone where the attack occurred remained closed, idling thousands more.

In Gaza City, Reem al-Riyashi was buried in a small cemetery in Sheik Ajlin, the neighborhood where she was born. The youngest of 10 children, she was married four years ago after graduating from high school, her brother said.

Relatives said she was not particularly devout and lived comfortably with her children and husband, Ziyad Awad, who earned a good living working as a lifeguard during the summer months and as a mail carrier in winter.

The couple and their two children had lived in an apartment house with their extended family but were banished by Awad's father two months ago because of a feud between Reem al-Riyashi and her sisters-in-law, relatives said.

The couple moved away with the children to a rented apartment, and Awad grew further estranged from his father, the relatives added.

Awad continued to visit his brothers, but his wife hadn't been seen for weeks, family members said.

In her videotaped message, delivered with a shy smile, al-Riyashi said she was happy to finally realize her dream of martyrdom.

Her brother-in-law, Youssef Awad, condemned her act. "This is against our customs and traditions, and we don't support it," he said. "It's wrong, whether someone has children or not. If we had known about it beforehand, we would have nipped it in the bud."

Using the Arabic word for holy war, he added: "The greatest jihad is raising your children."

Taysir Shamalah, a cousin who works as a lifeguard with Reem al-Riyashi's husband, dismissed claims by Hamas that the suicide mission was an act of religious sacrifice.

"There's not a bit of religion in it, and the faith doesn't say this," Shamallah said. "A mother with children should bring them up."

Near a large makeshift tent where the family received condolences, a contingent of masked youths in army fatigues marched in formation and chanted Hamas slogans. "Our path is holy war!" they shouted. "Death for the sake of God!" Gunmen from Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which claimed joint responsibility with Hamas for the bombing, stood on the streets nearby.

A group of women paying respects praised the bombing, calling it a supreme act of sacrifice by the young mother. "God will take care of her children," one woman said. On a local radio station, a news announcer said al-Riyashi had carried out a "heroic-quality operation."

But her grieving brother would have none of it.

"We are peaceful people," he said of his family. "We go from home to work, and from work home. We are victims."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...veusedasbomber

[Agathon]

Why not just ban everything that right wing Israelis find offensive?

[Winston]

In my view it's still a glorification of her to have her image as the centerpiece of an exhibit like this.

I'm sure it is being taken notice of among young Palestinian girls with a mindset fully capable of evolving into that of little Snow White's.

[General Ludd]

What the hell do you people think art is, anyways? Do you think someone is going to be told how to think by a piece of art? That's ridiculous - it's quite the opposite, actually. Art is meant to provoke it's viewer into thinking about what they see, and what the piece is protraying, and come up with their own meaning of it (as demonstrated by thsi thread).

Which begs the question, why do you hate the piece so much that you want it destroyed? Are you afriad of what other people will think, and want to censor what they can be exposed to? Or are you afriad of what it makes you, yourself, think?

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid


If you bother to read any of the artists comments, you will find out that it was all about the apparent purity and innocence in the picture of her, yet she took off and murdered all those people in cold blood.

Yep. Considering that art is something everybody interprets differently, no work of art should be condemned based on one interpretation only.

[Winston]

Originally posted by Osweld


Which begs the question, why do you hate the piece so much that you want it destroyed? Are you afriad of what other people will think, and want to censor what they can be exposed to? Or are you afriad of what it makes you, yourself, think?

I'm afraid of the underlying line of thought that made the "artist" portray her this way instead of the mass murdering monster she was.

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by Osweld
Which begs the question, why do you hate the piece so much that you want it destroyed? Are you afriad of what other people will think, and want to censor what they can be exposed to? Or are you afriad of what it makes you, yourself, think?

I agree. When I look at the piece, I hate the endless cycle of violence both sides are stuck into, not the piece that made me think of it. Destroying art trying to make sense of it all is not going to make things better.

[Buck Birdseed]

You don't find it interesting, winston, to think about why an educated woman who (indeed) looks like Snow White decides to commit such a horrible deed? I find it a fascinating excercise in trying to understand the incomprehensible, and the artists are trying to both get you to think that way and to show that they, too, have tried to do the same thing without success. I think it's a work of immense sadness at the way the suicide bombing process works, at the fact that apparently normal people commit such horrible monstrosities.

[Sandman]

Aren't ambassadors supposed to be diplomatic? There are surely options open which don't involve vandalism.

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by Winston


I'm afraid of the underlying line of thought that made the "artist" portray her this way instead of the mass murdering monster she was.

The point is, I think, what caused a woman like this to become a mass murderer? Don't you think we should figure out how these things can happen?

This is one influential piece of art, it seems.

[Combat Ingrid]

Here is the picture of her. I'd agree with the artists that she appears to be innocent.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Jarouik


The point is, I think, what caused a woman like this to become a mass murderer? Don't you think we should figure out how these things can happen?

Nobody bothers to read my posts, do they?

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/06/brooks.htm

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid
Here is the picture of her. I'd agree with the artists that she appears to be innocent.

The world is too short of good looking women to allow them to blow themselves up.

I don't really understand the mentality myself, but then again I haven't lived my whole life without basic civil rights either.

[Buck Birdseed]

The title of the artwork is not "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" as the BBC article implies. It's "Snow White and the Madness of the Truth".

Last vestige of any implications of sympathy removed, I'd say. The truth about suicide bombings is insane, rather than the mad action is in fact true.

[Winston]

Hate caused her to become a mass murderer, blind hate.

Portraying an instigator of hate, death and destruction as a lilly white fairytale character is disgusting, and the Israeli ambassador should be given a medal for calling attention to it.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
The title of the artwork is not "Snow White and the Madness of Truth" as the BBC article implies. It's "Snow White and the Madness of the Truth".

Well, that makes all the difference in the world.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Winston
Hate caused her to become a mass murderer, blind hate.

Portraying an instigator of hate, death and destruction as a lilly white fairytale character is disgusting, and the Israeli ambassador should be given a medal for calling attention to it.

You're a complete dork.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Winston
Hate caused her to become a mass murderer, blind hate.

Portraying an instigator of hate, death and destruction as a lilly white fairytale character is disgusting, and the Israeli ambassador should be given a medal for calling attention to it.

For drawing attention to the "artwork"

For the manner in which he did so

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Edan
Nobody bothers to read my posts, do they?

I read it

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Edan


Well, that makes all the difference in the world.

It does actually since it implies that the work is not about ordinary boring old truth per se (ie. disquotational or correspondence theories), but the particular truth(s) which fanatics (dubiously) claim to have in their possession.

Presumably the implication is that the artists don't believe in the kind of fanatical religious certainty people appeal to to justify killing others.

[Agathon]

A question: how many people who think the Israeli ambassador was right think the Japanese protesting the recent exhibit of the Enola Gay were wrong?

[Buck Birdseed]

What hate? Based on what? Could you empathise with such hate? Do you actually understand her mindset? Winston, do you ever actually try to think or are you just sprouting crap based on your plentiful prejudices? Wouldn't it be nice for you to try to doubt yourself for once, to reason with your inner self, to fell a bit of angst about the state of the world and of humanity?

I realise you're part of an ideology that systematically choses to ignore the fact that you share the same species with the lowest of the low, whose entire basis is the division between them and us. It's so simple, so naive. Don't you ever feel the need to reachout and emphatise with, quite frankly, scum? Or are you afriad your staunch view on crime and punishment would soften up?

We're all part of the same humanity, and we share much more than we have appart. If we don't try to understand each other, even each other's vilest deeds, what do we have? What's the point of human existence, continually perpetuating conflict and disharmony? Are these not valid questions to ask and to raise?

I'm generally quite a happy person but it makes me melancholic, thinking about both the people who kill others in suicide bombings and those who refuse to try to understand them and others. Maybe it's just the late night, but could you please step out of your ivory tower for one time in your life?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Winston
Portraying an instigator of hate, death and destruction as a lilly white fairytale character

... sailing in a pool of blood, is great piece of art.

[Winston]

Snapcase, sorry if it makes you sad, but in my view people who have the capacity to perform suicide bombings have already excluded themselves from humanity.

And I'd be surprised if you truly believe otherwise, even when doubting yourself and reasoning with your inner self ever so much.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Winston
Snapcase, sorry if it makes you sad, but in my view people who have the capacity to perform suicide bombings have already excluded themselves from humanity.

Really? No mere animal could ever perform such an act. Political violence and planned self immolation are deeply human acts - only we do them and are capable of doing them.

These people aren't clinically insane, they just believe that it is worth sacrificing themselves for the cause.

[Buck Birdseed]

"Exclude themselves from humanity?" And you just leave it at that?

I admire you for being so simple and so stupid, Winston. Your answers are perfect in that they manage to be both entirely devoid of meaning and self-reassuringly facile.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Agathon
These people aren't clinically insane, they just believe that it is worth sacrificing themselves for the cause.

Hmmm not even that. Sometimes answers are much more simpler. They do it for survival as they see it. Some even say that the vast majority of people in their shoes would propably do the same.
She was a mother of two and a lawyer. It's worth wondering what can drive such an educated and responsible person to such an act. Speak with an average Palestinian and you see he feels he's locked in a battle of survival against an armed to the teeth and scrupulous "beast". And despite the self delusion that they might go through it's hard to convince them of another reality of the one who ahve actually lived in. At least that's another side of the story.

[Ramo]

Just heard about a rabbi that stood in front of a Palestinian house that was to be bulldozed by the Israeli gov't. He's being prosecuted atm. Awesome guy.

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.a...ntcategoryid=5

[Dr Strangelove]

Hey, I've got a great idea for a piece of artwork for this collection. Let's calculate the number of Nazis guns, ammunition, planes, tanks and bombs produced during WW2 using Swedish steel and other materials, then extrapolate the number of allied soldiers and civilians killed by them. Then we could design a giant collage depicting the victims of Sweden's "efforts" in WW2. Anyone here think that such a peice of work would go over very well at this conference?

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Hey, I've got a great idea for a piece of artwork for this collection. Let's calculate the number of Nazis guns, ammunition, planes, tanks and bombs produced during WW2 using Swedish steel and other materials, then extrapolate the number of allied soldiers and civilians killed by them. Then we could design a giant collage depicting the victims of Sweden's "efforts" in WW2. Anyone here think that such a peice of work would go over very well at this conference?

Huh?