"Narc-deco": the art of Victor Escobar

 

"Paisacres"

It's undeniable that violence carries with it a certain amount of cachet, glam... bling. 

The work of Medellin artist Victor Escobar was recently on display in an exhibit called "Traquira" at Valenzuela Klenner Galería, Bogota.

  

In the accompanying artist's statement, Escobar quotes Slavoj Zizek:

The appearance implies that there is something behind it which appears through it; it conceals a truth and by the same gesture gives a foreboding thereof; it simultaneously hides and reveals the essence behind its curtain. But what is hidden behind the phenomenal appearance? Precisely the fact that there is nothing to hide. What is concealed is that the very act of concealing conceals nothing.

 

Indigenous killed, wounded by Colombian military and FARC

 

Photo Credit: rojo en los ojos

Via WW4 Report:

The Colombian Air Force denied Jan. 31 that its planes had bombed the indigenous Embera Katío community of Alto Guayabal in the Urabá region early that morning, leaving four wounded. But the following day, the army's Seventh Division issued a statement taking responsibility for the air-strike, saying they took place in operations against the FARC rebels. Calling the casualties "lamentable," the statement said two of the injured were evacuated to Medellín. The Indigenous Organization of Antioquia (OIA) said one of the casualties was an infant. Indigenous leader William Carupia accused the army of "indiscriminately bombing the communities." (El Tiempo, Bogotá, Feb. 2; El Colombiano, Medellín, RNV, Venezuela, AFP, Feb. 1) Last year the FARC was accused of assassinating Embera residents in the region.

On Feb. 1, one civilian was killed and three injured at the Nasa community of Los Robles, Cauca department, when a gun battle broke out between the military and FARC guerrillas. The four indigenous woodcutters were traveling on a mountain road when soldiers used their truck to hide from FARC gunfire. The guerillas then attacked the truck "indiscriminately with mortar bombs," local indigenous authorities said. The dead man was identified as Ramon Iterera, 41.

Said the Association of Northern Cauca Indigenous Governors (ACIN): "In these conflicts human rights are not respected, no armed person should hide amongst civilians, in order not to put them at risk. In this case both the army and the guerrillas are culpable for the lamentable occurrence." (Colombia Reports, Jan. 28; EFE, Jan. 27)

Paramilitaries 2.0

"The situation in Colombia is quite sinister. There is an appearance of normalcy ... It appears to be a situation where the rule of law has replaced the rule of these armed militias. But if you look under the surface, you find that there are all these strange tentacles and networks and links between shadowy groups. They know exactly how to issue a threat or to execute a threat and keep the population in line that way." -Stephen Ferry, photographer

From yesterday's Human Rights Watch report:

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As order slides, Palestinian women face honor killings

Rights activists say such murders have increased as a result of the worsened security situation, and press for a new law.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Jafra counts 21 such murders in the West Bank so far this year. There have been 25 honor killings in Gaza since the beginning of the year, says Maryam Abu Daqqa, the head of the Union of Women's Committees.

"During these hard times Gaza is going through, it is difficult for women's organizations to do anything more than condemn," she says. "And with a lack of clear judiciary oversight, with the confusion created by Hamas and Fatah, people are taking the law into their own hands and directing their anger against the weak link: women."

Other women here complain that religious leaders should be more vocal about Islam's view on the matter.

"We haven't heard anyone from any group go to the mosque and condemn it. If you ask people on the street, you'll find they support it, and that the families are happy when they've cleansed the family honor," says another women's activist who asked not to be named. "I cannot go to the street and condemn this based on women's rights. They'll say whoever is defending her is just like her."

Full article

Pittsburgh workers face racial intimidation, death threats

Disturbing local news from Rustbelt Radio, based at WRCT 88.3 FM:

Last week rustbelt radio reported on the racist threat made against a Port Authority worker in the form of a black Barbie doll with a racist comment written on it.

Since then two more incidents of racial intimidation have occurred at Pittsburgh businesses. On October 3rd a black female supervisor at Verizon found an inter-office envelope on her desk. Inside it had a black baby doll with a noose around its neck. The doll also had the words “nigger” and the woman's name written on the belly.

...

NAACP Pittsburgh Branch President M. Gayle Moss issued a statement on the three incidents, saying, "Although these three incidents seem isolated in their respective work environments, what they collectively represent is endemic to the culture in this region and this city recently voted the 'Most Livable City in America'—which in my opinion was both fallacious and shortsighted."

KDKA's story is here.

'Throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women ... There is no harm in it.'

From 3quarksdaily, a truly chilling report from a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pictures courtesy of Ishaque Choudhry.

What next after Karachi's carnage?

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Since Jan 21, 2007, baton wielding burqa-clad students of the Jamia Hafsa, the women's Islamic university located next to Lal Masjid, have forcibly occupied a government building, the Children's Library. In one of their many forays outside the seminary, this burqa brigade swooped upon a house, which they claimed was a brothel, and kidnapped 3 women and a baby.

Students of Jamia Hafsa (Women’s University) in Islamabad demonstrate for Shariah law

Victory for the Burqa Brigade

The male students of Islamabad's many madrassas are even more active. They terrorize video shop owners, who they accuse of spreading pornography and vice. Newspapers have carried pictures of grand bonfires made with seized cassettes and CDs. Most video stores in Islamabad have now closed down. Their owners duly repented after a fresh campaign by militants on May 4 bombed a dozen music and video stores, barber shops and a girls school in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Enjoying video burnings in Islamabad

The Lal Masjid head cleric, a former student of my university in Islamabad, added the following chilling message for our women students in the same broadcast:

The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. I think I will have to send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam. Our female students have not issued the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible punishments in the hereafter for such women.

If the truth be told, QAU resembles a city of walking double-holed tents rather than the brothel of a sick mullah's imagination. The last few bare-faced women are finding it more difficult by the day to resist. But then, that is precisely the aim of the Islamists. On May 7, a female teacher in the QAU history department was physically assaulted in her office by a bearded, Taliban-looking man who screamed that he had instructions from Allah. President Musharraf - who is the chancellor of QAU and often chooses to be involved in rather petty university administrative affairs - has made no comment on the recent developments.

What next? As Islamabad heads the way of Pakistan's tribal towns, the next targets will be girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and western clothing stores, followed by shops selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear, mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods.

In a sense, the inevitable is coming to pass. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier it was largely the abode of Pakistan's hyper-elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students with little prayer caps dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they roam in packs through the city's streets and bazaars, gaping at store windows and lustfully ogling bare-faced women.