No Wars for Alex

Here you find an ad realized by Obama’s supporters against John McCain’s enthusiastic statements about the Iraqi war. Click here to visit the website.

Ahimsa between Osama and George W.

I found this article on the website www.gandhiserve.org
I think is very interesting, so I am posting it here.

Jakarta Post – Jakarta, Indonesia

by Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

According to artist AS Kurnia, the world needs a space between Osama Bin Laden, the icon of global terrorism, and George W. Bush, the leading advocate of the “war on terror”.

This “space”, he says, is called “non-violence”; it is where violent aggression is subdued not by vindictive retaliation, but by passive resistance.

Kurnia, who was born in Semarang, Central Java, and now resides in Ubud, Bali, chooses the enlightened Sidharta Gautama as the symbol of such a tranquil, peaceful “space”. In his piece titled Space, Kurnia places the statue of the head of the Buddha between black-and-white portraits of the bearded Osama and the wry Bush.

“Bush and Osama have become symbols of violence. We need a man like the Buddha to provide a space between the two,” he told The Jakarta Post at the opening of a visual art exhibition entitled “Ahimsa” at Bentara Budaya Jakarta on Thursday.

Nine painters, all Balinese except Kurnia, are participating in the exhibition that ends May 4.

Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word for “non-injury” or “non-violence”, which is the foundation of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. It was made popular by Indian politician, thinker and saint “Mahatma” Mohandas Gandhi, who used it as a tactic to frustrate and end the British colonial regime.

The teaching of ahimsa can actually be found in every religion, including Islam and Christianity, which are professed by the majority of the world’s population, including Bush and Osama.

But instead of creating peace, many followers of these two faiths have at times proved to be the most savage people in history, shedding blood in the name of virtue.

“Violence is often thought to be ‘bloody and physical’. But if we trace the roots of violence, we’ll find that the ‘bloody and physical’ actually stems from ideas, ideologies, thoughts and faiths,” Balinese activist Putu Wirata Dwikora said on the introduction page of the exhibition’s catalogue.

Kurnia’s depiction of violence in Space is perhaps too obvious and distant. Destructiveness, coercion, force, duress and many other forms of violence are very near and prevalent in our own fragile lives; although they might be far less obvious than blowing up buildings and airplanes.

Many of us have been exposed to violence from a very young age, perhaps without ever realizing it.

Ketut Sugantika Lekung, a graduate of Denpasar’s Indonesian Art Institute, said most people were taught to save their money in celengan (animal-shaped money boxes) when they were children, only to break them by the time the money box was full.

“You see, that is also violence. Breaking your piggy banks is an expression of violence,” said the 32-year-old, whose piece Make a Wish beautifully captures the irony of sweet turtle-shaped, pig-shaped and chicken-shaped money boxes that appear to be lined up as if waiting to be brutally smashed by a hammer or dropped to the floor.

Rather than blame ideas as the roots of all violence, A.A. GD Darmayuda, through his works Ups……..! and Sto….p!, puts the blame in the hands of the executors. The thick, black background of his oil painting dramatizes the zoomed-in image of an angry, offensive fist stopped by a soft female palm.

“The male character is usually associated with violence, while the female character is associated with non-violence, which neutralizes her male counterpart,” he said.

The other painters attempt to aesthetically explore the violent side of the world with their paintings; some are allusively poetic, while others are bluntly satirical.

Wayan Kun Adnyana through his work, Side of Nature, describes our hostility to nature, or our parasitical attitude towards it, to be more precise. Kekalahan, the work of Nyoman Poleng Rediasa, displays the prevailing sexual violence against women by relating it to conflict epics found in most religious traditions.

The exhibition is not a display of violence; but the artists manage to epitomize the brutality of the modern world we see, hear and read everyday in newspapers, on the Internet, radio and TV.

Kurnia, the most established — and the only — artist who uses non-canvas media in the exhibition, sees that many people have actually been victims of hunger.

His work, A Monument for Hunger, reminds us that Urip Tri Gunawan, the prosecutor arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe, and a migrant worker abused abroad are no different: They are both victims of hunger. This is symbolized in Kurnia’s installation of nasi bungkus (a package of steamed rice wrapped in thin, brown paper; usually distributed as charity to the poor).

The roots of violence may go back to our childhoods, long-preserved traditions, religions and perhaps, quoting atheist scientist Richard Dawkins, our “selfish genes”.

English philosopher Bertrand Russel once said: “The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.” But maybe what the world needs today is what Kurnia has suggested — a space for non-violence.