Picture: As if their forefathers didn't cause enough problems in the region, a bunch of brain addled Pommy scrawlers are planning to produce 425 miles of this sort of garbage in order to really piss of the Palestinians.The Fairfax stable includes a finance newspaper, the Australian Financial Review that has pretensions in areas other than the sphere of finance and it therefore sometimes treads into areas about which it knows nothing. The other day, AFR published an article covering arts and culture by Peter Kennard which originally appeared in The New Statesman under the title "Art attack". It's about a supposedly an increasingly "influential" movement of political artists operating outside the mainstream including those like Banksy who come to the West Bank to scrawl on the walls that form a small part of Israel's security barrier which has saved so many lives from terrorist attacks in the years since it was erected.
Kennard claims in his confused piece of agitprop that all the artists who visited area (including his good self) "are well informed about the Middle East and came to Bethlehem to show their solidarity with the Palestinians".
Well actually ... to use the Australian vernacular, Kennard is a true artist type - he's a bullshit artist!
Firstly, Banksy and his mates were not all welcomed by the natives. Indeed, one of his so-called works of art was covered up by the locals because it caused them offence. Something to do with donkeys!
But Banksy isn't the only artist making an ass of himself. Kennard isn't bad either. Take this statement for example -
"there is a concrete wall, 425 miles long"
He's wrong about that and most visitors to the region will tell you that the barrier is a wall in only a few places i.e. where Palestinian snipers used to have sufficient cover to fire directly at the men, women and children on the other side. The rest of the length of the barrier is made out of wire fences and other material - not concrete. It's obvious that Kennard has not put an ounce of research into the article and has not seen the greater proportion of the length of the barrier. It's equally obvious that he doesn't really care anyway!
Liar, ignoramus, brain addled by the local hashish or all three. Take your pick!
The big question however, is why does Fairfax give oxygen to such obnoxious people?
Kennard claims in his confused piece of agitprop that all the artists who visited area (including his good self) "are well informed about the Middle East and came to Bethlehem to show their solidarity with the Palestinians".
Well actually ... to use the Australian vernacular, Kennard is a true artist type - he's a bullshit artist!
Firstly, Banksy and his mates were not all welcomed by the natives. Indeed, one of his so-called works of art was covered up by the locals because it caused them offence. Something to do with donkeys!
But Banksy isn't the only artist making an ass of himself. Kennard isn't bad either. Take this statement for example -
"there is a concrete wall, 425 miles long"
He's wrong about that and most visitors to the region will tell you that the barrier is a wall in only a few places i.e. where Palestinian snipers used to have sufficient cover to fire directly at the men, women and children on the other side. The rest of the length of the barrier is made out of wire fences and other material - not concrete. It's obvious that Kennard has not put an ounce of research into the article and has not seen the greater proportion of the length of the barrier. It's equally obvious that he doesn't really care anyway!
Liar, ignoramus, brain addled by the local hashish or all three. Take your pick!
The big question however, is why does Fairfax give oxygen to such obnoxious people?
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