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Ronnie Barkan the 35 year old Israeli human rights activist, conscientious objector and co-founder of Boycott from Within, a group of Israeli citizens and residents which supports the Palestinian call for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel), has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Demanding equality - how is that illegal?’. Barkan states “If the anti-boycott law is ever put to the test, the first cases may provide an even greater boost to the BDS movement. …speaking as an Israeli-Jewish boycott activist who is working to end Israeli apartheid, the law actually serves our struggle. There is a long list of discriminatory laws against non-Jews in Israel or those affected by Israeli policies. Many of these laws were passed during the early days of the state following the forced ethnic cleansing that was meant to create an artificial Jewish majority on that land. Such racist laws were put in place to maintain, as well as institutionalise, that crime. Then came the military occupation of 1967 which introduced a whole slew of repressive military laws aimed specifically against the Palestinians under occupation. Military tribunals, with a whopping 99.7 per cent conviction rate, still stand to this day. In that sense, the anti-boycott law is nothing out of the ordinary. It is only different in one respect - that the target audience includes the privileged group under Israeli apartheid. …The Israeli anti-boycott legislation, which is meant to stifle any attempt to hold it accountable for its violations of international law, is a serious matter. Consequently, it is worrisome that several European governments have recently attempted to protect Israel from holding it legally accountable by conditioning their vote at the UN on denying recourse for Palestinians in front of the International Criminal Court, where they may have access to the protection of international law.” Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/gpPrG image source Restiamoumani ow.ly/gpPpU Demanding equality – how is that illegal (January 4 2013)

Ronnie Barkan the 35 year old Israeli human rights activist, conscientious objector and co-founder of Boycott from Within, a group of Israeli citizens and residents which supports the Palestinian call for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel), has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Demanding equality – how is that illegal?’. Barkan states “If the anti-boycott law is ever put to the test, the first cases may provide an even greater boost to the BDS movement. …speaking as an Israeli-Jewish boycott activist who is working to end Israeli apartheid, the law actually serves our struggle. There is a long list of discriminatory laws against non-Jews in Israel or those affected by Israeli policies. Many of these laws were passed during the early days of the state following the forced ethnic cleansing that was meant to create an artificial Jewish majority on that land. Such racist laws were put in place to maintain, as well as institutionalise, that crime. Then came the military occupation of 1967 which introduced a whole slew of repressive military laws aimed specifically against the Palestinians under occupation. Military tribunals, with a whopping 99.7 per cent conviction rate, still stand to this day. In that sense, the anti-boycott law is nothing out of the ordinary. It is only different in one respect – that the target audience includes the privileged group under Israeli apartheid. …The Israeli anti-boycott legislation, which is meant to stifle any attempt to hold it accountable for its violations of international law, is a serious matter. Consequently, it is worrisome that several European governments have recently attempted to protect Israel from holding it legally accountable by conditioning their vote at the UN on denying recourse for Palestinians in front of the International Criminal Court, where they may have access to the protection of international law.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/gpPrG image source Restiamoumani ow.ly/gpPpU

Israel keeps us imprisoned in an enclave (December 16 2012) Israel keeps us imprisoned in an enclave (December 16 2012)

Yasmeen El Khoudary the Palestinian cofounded Diwan Ghazza, a cultural and knowledge-exchange platform for youth in Gaza, runs a project to preserve Gaza’s cultural heritage and history.  El Khoudary has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory’. El Khoudary states “In the Middle Ages, Gaza was home to countless treasures, including rich agriculture, pottery making and wool weaving, with exports along the famous Silk Road. In 1660, a French visitor compared Gaza’s baths and markets with those of Paris and noted that Arabic, Turkish and Greek were all spoken in the streets. Where was Israel then? …our faith in humanity will not be restored if countries of the world vow more money for rebuilding Gaza. It will only be restored once the world starts looking at our cause with its brains and not with its donations, in which case, no donations will be required. The fact that the Gaza Strip is still besieged by Israel from land, sea and air, should mean that we are still under occupation and under the responsibility of the Israeli government. If Israel argues otherwise, saying that we are not under Israeli occupation, then it should relinquish its control of our borders and leave us to handle our own business. But as long as Israel keeps us imprisoned in an enclave of ambiguity, the world will keep paying and Israel will keep destroying. …I would like to prepare the international community for another Israeli argument that they will likely be hearing in a couple of years, when today’s children become the leaders of future Palestine. “We have no peace partners in Palestine,” you will hear every Israeli leader say. When you hear that, I want you to think of the 350 Palestinian children who were injured by Israel during the last six days…”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/fWljs image source gcmhp ow.ly/fWlgm

We struggle every day against our obstacles (November 11 2012) We struggle every day against our obstacles (November 11 2012)

Mohammed Matter ‘Abu Yazan’ the Palestinian political activist, writer and a member of Gaza Youth Breaks out movement, writes “My story is marked by violence, persecution, arrests, abuse and resistance.” Matter has published an article on Aljazeera stating “It has been almost two years now since we wrote our manifesto. We called it a manifesto, but in reality, I’m not sure what it was. Was it a manifesto, or was it a cry for help? Perhaps, an accusation, or even perhaps a demand to the world and to ourselves; a demand for change from the outside and from within. It was before the uprisings began around us, and they have been roaring the last two years in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. But we had felt like shouting in the dark, and while this raging had brought light into the darkness of the dictatorships around us, the night around us has not thinned even a bit. No, if anything, it has only become darker. … We struggle every day against our obstacles and for our dreams, and you can see that in all the amazing creativity coming out of Gaza, in our art, poems, writing, videos and songs, you can hear it and meet us in the talks we give all over the world. Yes, we wrote a manifesto, and maybe that was just the bright and loud outcry of the beginning of a journey, whose path is hard and tiring, thorny and also often very quiet and dark. But it is always there. So two years later, we say: We will be free. We will live. We will have peace. And we are always out there, fighting our daily struggle, full of the resistance we inherited from a long struggle for Palestine. We live and write and say and sing silent or loud manifestos every day. Just listen to us.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/eUhfO image source Facebook ow.ly/eUhc9

Unjust fate of an American terrorist (October 3 2012) Unjust fate of an American terrorist (October 3 2012)

Muhammad Salah the 59 year old Palestinian-born citizen of the United States has been profiled by Charlotte Silver in an article published on Aljazeera titled ‘The unjust fate of an American terrorist’. Silver states “In 1993, Salah was a grocer in the suburbs of Chicago; a husband and father of four children. He was described as soft-spoken and keen on community volunteer work. Today, Salah is the sole person residing in the US who is labelled a “terrorist”. The status, assigned to him in 1995, has rendered his every movement, purchase, transaction and life decision – from the mundane to the substantive – subject to review by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). “He is, essentially, internally banished. He cannot engage with anyone, and no one can engage with him,” said David Cole, an attorney with the Centre for Constitutional Rights… “Internal banishment” is a form of punishment in which the government determines with whom the sentenced is permitted to speak. It gained notoriety by its wide use under South Africa’s apartheid regime. …Salah has never been told why he was placed on the list, never been convicted of anything and he has an eternal sentence of internal banishment under constant surveillance. …Salah filed a lawsuit to lift this surreal siege on his life – a siege so total it has prevented even civil rights organisations from contacting and helping him access his legal rights.  …”All we know, is that in 1995 the Treasury added him to the list. They didn’t give him notice or any reason, and never disclosed anything about why he was added,” said Cole.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/e07vH image source ibloga ow.ly/e07oa

Egypt's nouveaux riches and the Palestinians (August 23 2012) Egypt’s nouveaux riches and the Palestinians (August 23 2012)

Joseph Andoni Massad the 49 year old Palestinian American Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘Egypt’s nouveaux riches and the Palestinians’ in which he details how the beneficiaries of the post-Sadat financial success continue to sell out Egypt and the Palestinians. In the article Massad states “The Sadatist and nouveaux riches’ campaigns would invent stories about Palestinians having lost their country because they themselves were “sell-outs” and had “sold their country to the Jews”. These rumours continue to be widespread in Egyptian society, at all levels, till this very day, sustained as they are by the utter chauvinist hatred engendered by this petty uneducated class, who under Mubarak continued to rob the country clean and impoverish vast sectors of its population, in the process accumulating billions of dollars. The anti-Palestinian campaign was central to the Sadatist project of instituting an anti-Arab chauvinist Egyptian nationalism in place of Egyptian Arab nationalism. The charge that Palestinians sold their country is of course a distracting tactic used by an Egyptian comprador class which, in fact, did sell Egypt to the highest bidders (in addition to Americans and Israelis, Saudis have also been favourite buyers) since the 1970s and is fighting the current transformation of the country in order to be able to sell whatever is left of the country unhindered. … Hard as they try to keep the anti-Palestinian rumour mill going, Egypt’s comprador class of sellouts and their liberal press agents will continue to lose ground, as they are now recognised plainly for what they are and what they have been for the last four decades, enemies of the majority of Egyptians.”

 

Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/d0Inb image source Open Library ow.ly/d0IHK

Khader Adnan the 33 year old Palestinian prisoner in Israel without any formal charges against him arrested for “activities that threaten regional security” ended his 66-day hunger strike after a deal reached for his release from custody on 17 April. Adnan’s hunger strike sparked solidarity protests across the West Bank and Gaza, and sympathy hunger strikes by other Palestinian prisoners. Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief, said that Adnan’s case was of “great concern… Detainees have the right to be informed about the charges underlying any detention and be subject to a fair trial.” An Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev had defended the use of administrative detention orders, saying Adnan was “no boy scout”. According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, “over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention, for periods ranging from several months to several years”. Under international law, the measure can be used “only in the most exceptional cases, as the last means available for preventing danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means”.

 

Inspired by Richard Falk http://ow.ly/9dodw image source Alternative News http://ow.ly/9doFh

My work is about iconic people, places and events of our day.  Recorded visually through daily compilations of manipulated digital images, posted online and disseminated via online media and social networks. The works are diaristic in nature that metaphorically record a spectators experience of the contemporary digital age.  The resulting work intentionally has a painterly aesthetic acknowledging my historical painting practice.

Adapting Pop Arts notion of mass media imagery into a context of the contemporary digital age, the work draws on a myriad points of reference. Utilizing fractured images to provide an allusion to the digital noise pounding away daily into our sub consciousness.  The work diverges from the traditional Pop Art notion of a pronounced repetition of a consumer icon, instead this work focuses on the deluge of contemporary digital content. The compilation of the fragmented imagery is vividly distractive, not unlike cable surfing or a jaunt through Times Square.

The work is premised on the basis that Pop art in its beginnings, freeze-framed what consumers of popular culture experienced into iconic visual abstractions. With the advent of the techno age, visual information circulates in such quantities, so rapidly and exponentially, that to comprehend a fraction of it all becomes a kind of production process in itself.  Hence this work considers fragmented elements of Pop Culture through an artistic and conceptual exploration of specific people and events of the day.

The works are presented as individual pieces printed with Archival-Inks on 308g Cottonrag-paper, along with A3 sized bound monthly editions, and monthly looped video compilations.
www.ianbunn.com

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