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CounterPunch
March 21,
2003
Raiding the Heart of History
Paint Them Red
By VANESSA JONES
On the day that the US/UK/Australian "Coalition
of the Willing" started its unauthorized attack on Iraq,
the Australian Prime Minister John Howard opened a Palestinian
art exhibition, named "Treasures of Palestine" in Canberra,
the capital of Australia. It seemed the mother of all ironies.
High art and cultural appreciation of depleted Palestine, by
our leader while he plays Deputy Sheriff to Bush in Asia, and
actively authorizes the demolition of Iraq this minute. It was
a pre-arranged exhibition appointment, but little in this jigsaw
puzzle of war and terror seems coincidental. Only a month ago,
Australian households were issued with government sponsored terror
kits, to hype up pre-war anxieties. Now, after the government
has commenced its war, it is denying that there are increased
terror concerns. It is reluctant to upgrade security, for fear
of the Australian people pulling out their 30% support for a
war on Iraq without UN backing, even though the US and a government
minister has said that we are more of a target for terror now,
than before. Suddenly, at the start of a war, we are supposedly
safer than a month ago, when we were not at war. We are supposed
to be "relaxed and comfortable", the theme emotions
which the P.M. was first elected into office on, 3 terms ago,
over six years ago.
One trifecta (or hat-trick) in activism
on March 18 was the scaling of Joern Utzon's Sydney Opera House,
by 2 young men--one an English doctor, the other an Australian
painter. Before the police could stop them, the guys had climbed
the tallest white sail of the harbourside Opera House, and with
blood red paint and long paint rollers, they wrote "NO WAR"
(http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/articles/1/55121.html
). The text was featured on all Australian nightly news bulletins,
alongside our PM's announcement that Australian troops were going
to join Uncle Sam in attacking Iraq. Bush had called Howard that
morning, and our yes boy PM promptly delivered his acceptance
speech of war mongering, just an hour before Bush himself addressed
his God blessed nation. Such perfect timing.
The "NO WAR" painters, via
their text, represented the feelings and thoughts of 70% of Australians.
The same blood red paint affects were used powerfully on the
Danish Prime Minister, Anders Rasmussen, who has offerred military
and humanitarian contributions to the coalition of the willing
God Squad. A protester on March 18 tipped blood red paint on
PM Rasmussen's head and over his suit, to brilliant tele-visual
affects. (http://david.blangstrup.dk/).
In this Internet and "smart" bomb age, a humble tin
of paint can go a long way around the world. Given the Aryan-supremacist,
Muslim-phobic theme of Rasmussen's previous, victorious Danish
election, this anti-Iraq maneuver will come as no surprise.
I suppose the third amazing "blood
red" feat in the last 2 days was my Dad's capacity to survive
a triple heart by-pass operation, when he needed to be resuscitated
after the first operation, and then wheeled back frantically
into the operating theatre for a re-do of the initial operation.
After copious amounts of morphine, adrenaline, oxygen, a tube
down his throat and a balloon pump in his heart, he has survived,
and recovers slowly in his drug dazed, surreal state.
Over the next days and weeks, I hope
Baghdad and its people can survive a colonial-imperialist, imposed,
multiple heart bypass/ blow up of their city and their lives--in
a country that symbolizes humanity's "cradle of civilization",
and hopefully not humanity's demise. The Tigris and the Euphrates
are its veins and arteries, its history its heart.
Vanessa Jones
lives in Australia with chooks, ducks and ducklings in the garden,
galahs, rosellas and cockatoos flying around the gum trees, and
an internet on the sitting room table. Her own billboard efforts
in visual painted graffiti can be read about at: (http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1993/93/93p10aiw.htm)
and the ensuing historic court speech by Magistrate Pat O'Shane
can be read at: (http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1993/86/86p10aiw.htm
). Thanks to www.greenleft.org. for archiving this humble yet
historic political effort. Vanessa can be contacted at: post4@bigpond.com.au
Yesterday's
Features
Jo Wilding
From
Waiting to War: a Day and a Night in Baghdad
Stephen Banko
I Was
a Soldier Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did
We Become an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert
Jensen
Myths
and Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come
On Democrats, Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch
from Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
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