An other day which will make history.
Israel has been aggressed by Hamas.
At the Creative Sync, I ask for a minute of silence in support of Palestine. Israel has been aggressed by Hamas for sure, Hezbollah maybe and other unidentified armed groups, to show the Jewish state that there are limits to its contempt for the existence of its subjugated neighbor. I want to say ‘for the REALITY of its subjugated neighbor’. Because this is what their subjugation means to Palestinians: to be, collectively, stripped of their reality. Dehumanized, erased.
For certain, they have the right to resist such colonial violence, that blind hatred. To defend themselves, meaning to attack their torturers. The rape of Palestine must cease. So does the support for Israel of the US and most European countries. It smacks so much of pure racism, at this point! And how much it confirms the clear discrimination against anybody Arab, Black, Brown or any ‘OTHER’, when they attempt to claim their reality.
So unfortunately, despite their unbearable dolor, this muffles down the cries of Israeli victims. They are not alone. And they don’t understand how or why they have been abandoned by their government. Desperate, helpless, stunned, insulted by this violation of their militarized safety bubble, … naked. Just as naked, though, as the multitude of Palestinians on the other side of the apartheid wall?
Folly is taking over.
I dream of some creature – a Black white-angel on her white horse – a Pope! – who would seize on this opportunity to rip open the veil of hypocrisy, the mantel of cowardice and say:
Today, Israelis are carrying their share of shame and tears. Palestinians are made of flesh and blood, just like Israelis.
MAY THEY BECOME BROTHERS IN AGONY AND NOT ENEMIES IN HATRED
I fully believe that the responsibility is on the present Israeli government and any party which supports it, even hesitantly.
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Other topic!
This morning also brought its touch of music. ‘On an Overgrown Path’ by Janacek was the piece reviewed by the Sunday critics of France Musique. Milan Kundera quotes him explaining that the piece is totally expressionistic. By this, Janacek means that not one note in it is for a purpose other than expression. Kundera quotes the composer (my translation): “… not a single note deserves to exist if it is not for expression”. Therefore the total absence of whatever is technical, a transition, a development, a countrapuntal(?) infill, for orchestration. Every note must reach its own maximal expressive charge …
The point, here, is to stress my usual reluctance to refer to ‘expression’ when I talk about my work. Too often expression is confused with ‘self-expression’ and seen as the major or even the unique reason for making art!
Well, with the Tale, I am not reluctant to talk about expression. Were it only because of my choice not to use a single word in it. In response to Morgan’s criticism of the Jungle. With the Jungle, I counted on words to ‘express’ content. It was propaganda after all. But here, indeed, I have told Gwylene and others that, because of the Morgan challenge, every detail, every gesture, every color or whatever sculptural gesture, must carry meaning, be expressive of a content, even an intent. In this installation everything is is expression! Not of self but of visions, values and dreams which reach far beyond self.
And so, here I am, expanding my understanding of what expression means! And by the way, Morgan was so opposed to the Jungle’s general esthetics that she does not in any way recognize having had any part in its making! In denial she is!
But this was already noted in this diary earlier on, if I remember … It still hurts.