From Guantanamo to Palau

This video is not new but I’ve only just been introduced to it thanks to my friendship with folks from Witness Against Torture who, among other things, do advocacy and demonstrations on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.  This segment from a British news show, Dateline, addresses the temporary resettlement in Palau of several Uighur men who had been imprisoned at Guantanamo for the last eight years.  There are interviews with the men, shots of their first opportunity to cook, discussion of the pressure from China that keeps these men from reaching their hoped for destination (Australia), etc.  I found the account is particularly poignant when watched in light of the following  words from an attorney, “These men have never committed any terrorist acts…never had any terrorist training…”

Exhibit Focuses on Propaganda Art

Interesting Article on Art and China’s Revolution Exhibit in the WeeklyStandard.

Taken from the exhibit’s website: “Art and China’s Revolution reflects upon one of the most tumultuous and catastrophic periods in recent Chinese history⎯the three decades following the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. During this time, the government led by Mao Zedong sought to modernize China across all aspects of society, a process that included suppressing or destroying much of traditional culture. The government also sought to create a new visual culture to communicate its goals and ideology to the Chinese people.

Artists were encouraged to create art that reflected the revolutionary spirit of the time, in Mao’s words, to create art for the people. The impact of this directive on artists and art making was enormous. Oil painting in a socialist realist style replaced ink painting—which had been one of the most revered art forms in China for over one thousand years—as the preferred painting style. Revolutionary heroes, such as workers, soldiers, and peasants replaced traditional subjects such as landscapes, birds, and flowers.”

Artists who forsook Mao and continued to work in the tradition of ink paintings where persecuted and subjected to physical and mental torture. The exhibit also features their work as well as a collection of the more impersonal, mass-produced Mao memorabilia items such as tea pots, cigarette packs, and buttons.

Another interesting exhibit: Rethinking Cultural Revolution Culture – Picturing Power: Art and Propaganda in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)