Art as Resistance

What the author of this perspective piece, Dahr Jamail, characterises as the lack of an outlet for anti-war voices in the corporate media has led some active-duty soldiers and young veterans in the United States (US) to embrace the arts as a tool for resistance, communication, and healing. Posted on the website Truthout, the article explores the wide range of visual and performing arts - theatre, poetry, painting, writing, and other creative expression - that are serving as channels of communication for those seeking to articulate their opposition to the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

To illustrate this strategy, Jamail points to the Warrior Writers Project, which centred around workshops designed to help veterans deal with their experiences in Iraq by writing and then sharing their writings with the group. Anthologies of these compositions have been published as "Warrior Writers: Move, Shoot and Communicate" and "Warrior Writers: Re-making Sense." Warrior Writers has also created exhibits that showcase artwork by members, and photographs taken by them in Iraq. In addition to supporting other workshops, funds generated from the sale of books and artwork help sponsor veterans to travel around the country, reading from and displaying their work.

As detailed here, Warrior Writers has grown into the Combat Paper Project, which is housed by a paper-making studio co-founded by an Iraq veteran and an artist in Burlington, Vermont. The idea of integrating People's Republic of Paper (PRP) with Warrior Writers into Combat Paper evolved from a workshop at Green Door Studio, which combined photography, artwork, and readings from the first Warrior Writers book. On the second day of that workshop, the co-founder of PRP, Drew Cameron, assembled a group of veterans and began making paper out of the uniform he wore during the occupation by shredding, beating, and pulping it to form sheets of paper. Cameron explained to Truthout: "The fiber of the uniform, replete with the blood, sweat, and tears from months of hardship and brutal violence in Iraq, tells its tale through these sheets, which are then turned into books, broadsides, personal journals, or works of art composed by the veterans. The entire process is aimed at enabling veterans to reclaim and transform their uniform as a piece of art. It is a step toward reconciling veterans with their traumatizing participation in the occupation. This symbolic act gives them the hope to carve a path through which to reenter civilian life, not by distancing themselves from their experience and the accompanying guilt, but by taking responsibility for their actions."

Cameron's discontent with media coverage of the Iraq occupation has reportedly motivated much of his artistry: "I remember being hit for seven consecutive days by mortars, but that did not make news....The American mainstream media coverage was always this spectacular type of reporting, full of the visual splendor of tanks and such, and not much content."

Cameron suggests that the art projects have not only been instrumental in helping him come to terms with his own experience in Iraq and in helping him heal but in creating a dialogue with the public about the occupation of Iraq. "You can tell people through a didactic political conversation or panel how brutal the whole thing is, but it is not the same. What we are now doing through our art and our writing gives people the full picture." Cameron says he is hopeful that with continued touring of Combat Paper exhibits in cities across the country and with ongoing outreach, more veterans will join in.

Jamail also explores the experiences of veteran Aaron Hughes, who created more than 50 works of art from the nearly 200 photographs he had taken while in Iraq and who created a street performance called "Drawing for Peace" at a busy intersection in Champaign, Illinois. In the performance, he wore his desert camouflage jacket and set a sign in the street that read: "I am an Iraq War Veteran. I am guilty. I am alone. I am drawing for peace." The video recording of this action shows how Hughes had effectively shut down the street by drawing curious onlookers; a motorcycle policeman appears and demands that Hughes leave the road. Hughes returns and continues working on the dove he is drawing, until the officer again pulls him off the road. Hughes finally takes his sign and walks away. Truthout asked Hughes why he chose art as his means of protest. "By finding outlets for this, we can break through the structures that have been set up to encourage us to dehumanize each other." Hughes believes that art can be used to create a "culture of a politically educated democracy" (in Jamail's words).

As explained here, theatre has been another tool for resistance and social transformation. "The Eyes of Babylon" is a one-man play that Jeff Key developed from his Iraq war journals. Writing down his experiences in a notebook he carried in the pocket of his uniform kept him sane, says Key. For entertainment, he would read his entries aloud to fellow marines. After returning home, Key wrote the play, and has since toured nationally and internationally.

Jamail concludes that, "It is...commendable that they have found within themselves the energy and resolve to deploy those precious assets to accomplish the two-pronged objective of healing themselves and reclaiming the ideals of democracy by making public their resistance.