The Music Smugglers Print

As part of Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza over the years, many random life items that we are privileged to take for granted have been banned: pasta, paper, art supplies, wheelchairs, car parts, ginger, musical instruments, books, thread, matches, lightbulbs, cutlery, blankets, fishing rods, car parts, candles, washing machines, footballs, shoes, mattresses, building materials, fishing rods, shaving cream, hearing aid batteries, chocolate... 

Just reading this (incomplete) list alone tells us all we need to know about the death-grip and inhumanity of a coloniser controlling an occupied people. It tells us the truth about what really matters to the genocidal powers of the world who do not stop or sanction this humiliating abuse, but continue instead to pour in money to support the occupation, as they reap their cursed profits.

When I read that Gazans have had to smuggle in musical instruments, an image awoke in me. Music is the blood of life, a human joy as old as footprints, how dare they deny people this! It is a cruel and deliberate erosion of culture and heritage, part of a clearly-stated long term Israeli plan to remove life from Palestinians in every way possible. 

In my painting the music smugglers are bringing life - in the form of musical instruments - back to Palestine. Through a tunnel that passes under an apartheid wall, they ferry three instruments that are used in traditional Arabic music in Palestine and beyond - the oud, the darbouka, and the arghul. They are passing the instruments up into an olive tree where a mother and child receive them. The music is nourishing the roots of the olive tree and making it flourish, the music is nourishing the mother and child, who are perhaps Palestine herself, the music is nourishing the ancient indigenous olive tree whose roots grow under the wall and begin to crack its foundations.

I have been thinking a lot over these past horrific months about what truth is, about speech and silence, about information, about beliefs, about empathy, about the individual versus the collective, and ultimately about life and what it's for. You see, I think if you too believe in the beauty of the song that life is singing through you right now, you must become a music smuggler! I will always stand against oppression on the side of life, and as an artist whose very pigments are those of human emotions and stories, who would I be if I did not gladly smuggle music through the olive-root tunnels in any way I knew how to try to bring back the song of life to the people trapped behind the wall? 

In case my metaphor is too oblique, I mean that we must stand up and fight with Palestinians in their struggle to have autonomy, liberty, justice, peace, the human rights that are enshrined in international law. *That* will bring the music of life back to the olive tree roots.

This is our life happening right now. There is a genocide unparalleled in human history taking place in front of our eyes. This is the story of the 2020s that will be written in history books and biographies decades and centuries from now. And I truly think that we do all make a difference if we speak about this. The wheel of revolution cannot turn at all without every individual action that goes to make up its giant momentum. And whether you know it or not there is someone in your life who quietly respects you, who respects the way you think, the way you work, the way you navigate your life; and they will notice if you cry for Palestine’s freedom and an end to this heinous massacre, they will notice.