Pop culture and war. The Palestinian struggle.
Pop culture has permeated our imagination for a long time. On the screens of our smartphones, images of faraway conflicts overlap with song videos, weird group dances, fashion items, and angered politicians whose body language resembles action movies. Pop and violence combined have proven to be quite successful. The quantum leap was reached once Pop language started the storytelling of wars. We almost expect a fitting music soundtrack to make those strong images stick to our minds.
On the other hand, war uses pop vocabulary to make itself understood and, most importantly, visible. Lately, it happened with the videos that Hamas terrorists took of the hostages they kidnapped during the attack they launched on October 7th, 2023. The background desert and the motorbike escape evoked cowboys and on-the-road trips. The kidnappers intended to deliver a high-octane message to the world: the Palestinian cause was back, and no one would dare to ignore it again. Ever. To make that message resonate all over the planet, perhaps unconsciously, Hamas chose the visual language of Quentin Tarantino’s films. That way, the World would have watched. And listened.
I traveled to Israel some years ago and saw Banksy’s murals in Bethlehem, on the Israeli-West Bank barrier. Magnificent murals that were screaming the decades-old pain of Palestinians.
Banksy. Israeli-West Bank barrier. 2012.
The paintings reminded me of Belfast in the 1990s, not just because of Banksy’s Britishness. Scenes of bomb explosions, arrests, weapons, and the sorrow that follows loss were made even more striking by vibrant colors. A visual language as old as Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans evolved to express Palestinians’ hate towards injustice. Writings in English, French, Arabic, and Hebrew were part of the artwork. Dramatic phrases such as “We can’t live, we are waiting for death” or “A country is not what it does, but also what it tolerates” appeared like billboards on the highway. Pop culture talks directly. No filters are required. Conceivably, we must see these stories represented as comics to realize they are real. A mural showed a giant insect knocking down concrete slabs one by one as if they were obstacles to overcome to pass the next level of a video game. In another painting, teens throwing hand grenades reminded me of cartoon heroes, and a poster-like image of Leila Khaled, responsible for two airplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970, makes us think of a style icon in Kefia and Kalashnikov.
Banksy. Israeli-West Bank barrier. 2012.
Leila Khaled. Mural near the Israeli-West Bank barrier. 2012
Images become even more powerful when ancient emblems are combined with modern iconography. A little further on the wall was a photo of Abu Mazen with what seemed an agreement in his hands. Next to him was a white dove in flight, carrying an olive branch in the beak. The dove wore a bulletproof vest. Or maybe a bomb. It brought back to my mind the suicide bombers who blew themselves up on buses in the 1980s. On the chest, the sign of a sniper scope. A Welcome to Bethlehem sign and an advertisement about fine jewelry and olive wood carving stood beside it. The symbolism of the big picture was dense. Hollywood movie language mixed up with the Old Testament and the Holy Ghost. The olive branch referred to Noah’s understanding that land was near. In Rome, Early Christians used the symbol of a bird with unfolded wings in catacombs to represent the soul’s journey to heaven. I wonder if Banksy knew this when he painted it. He probably did. It also made me think of the paradise promised to jihad martyrs.
Banksy. Israeli-West Bank barrier. 2012.
Hamas’ videos and the barrier murals aim to communicate, with different outcomes, that Palestinians exist despite everything. The videos glorify war—a sort of Pulp fiction propaganda. The paintings are an expression of the self—the voice of a people. Pop language serves to make the message sound like a scream, not to overhear. A music track blasting from speakers like the ones that must have been at the rave party in the Negev desert. Loud. Devastating. Impossible to forget. As well as the screams of the victims.
They also talk about, although maybe not featured, the yearning for a home. The home that Palestinians don’t have, incarnated by the key that families have hanging on the wall, from the houses they lost in 1948 but never left. A grief that reminds me of the un-plastered walls that are found in Jewish homes around the world, symbolizing the Temple’s destruction in Jerusalem. Practices that were oddly similar for two populations in eternal conflict.
