Er det en forbrydelse at graffere?

IS IT A CRIME TO GRAFFER?

ENGLISH TRANSLATION IN ITALICS

WillisfromTunis: Ja! De bruger bomber!
Yes! They are using bombs!

Franske graffer og graffeur ligger vidunderligt i ganen. Det er ord, der vil noget med deres liv. Vi kender flertalsformen bedst, hvoraf vi ville tænke på nedenstående ruin af en bygning, som netop en ruin:

The French words graffer and graffeur lodge themselves wonderfully in the deepest part of the throat. These are words, which wish to do something with their lives. We are mostly familiar with the plural term, of which we would define the ruin of a building below of being precisely nothing but a ruin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWznBZYgVs

Men i Tunesien er en sådan bygning kun et bombekrater, hvis man er afhoppet diktator. For en ny tid er murene beviset på triumf for revolutionen i 2011. Overmalede mure er her som overalt i verden symbol på utilpassethed og dermed frihed til at skabe.

But in Tunisia a building such as this is only a bomb crater, if you are a defected dictator. To a new era, the walls are proof of the revolution triumphing in 2011. Here as anywhere else in the world painted walls signify maladjustment and thus the freedom to create.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWznBZYgVs

Gaden er gammeldags i forhold til de sociale medier, men stadig lige effektiv til at bevise samling, og de to lag flød sammen i dagene omkring 14. januar 2011, hvor Ben Ali måtte forlade landet.

Willis eksempelvis er som kat et asocialt dyr, der ikke kan opdrages, og er af fysisk format viral. Han var en facebook-kat. Nadia Khiari prøvede af, hvor meget hun kunne lægge ud allerede om aftenen den 13. januar, om eller hvornår hans konto ville blive lukket. Selv holdt hun de første måneder lav profil af sikkerhedsgrunde, men besluttede så at stå direkte frem for netop at gøre det sværere at gøre hende tavs, og tegnede Willis i fuld offentlighed, nu i fysisk håndgribeligt og dertil monumentalt format.

The street is an old-fashioned medium in comparison to the social media, but it is as efficient as ever in proving unity, and the two layers of physical and viral presence coupled in the days around January 14, 2011, when Ben Ali fled the country.

Willis, for instance, is qua his being a cat an anti-social being, who cannot be disciplined, his viral format notwithstanding, Nadia Khiari was testing how far she could go in the evening of January 13, whether or when Willis' Facebook account would be shut down. Personally she kept a low profile for safety reasons the first couple of months, but then decided to disclose her own name to make it harder to silence her, drawing Willis in public, now in a physically tangible format and a monumental one to boot.

http://www.yakayaka.org/spip.php?article224

Så meget desto mere valgte hun at stå frem, fordi hver en centimeter af friheden er forblevet under pres. I Syrien er spraydåserne stadig bomber, mens iranske Kianoush fraråder de unge at gå på gaden og bruge nettet i stedet, selvom han selv har tegnet nogle af de uhyggeligste tegninger over risikoen ved nettets overvågning. Og i Tunesien er musikere og graffitikunstnere prøvesten hos politi og retsinstanser for muligheden af at afkræve dem tavshed. Lad os derfor tage et billede mere af Willis med et større stykke mur: 

She decided to come forward all the more so since every inch of freedom has remained under pressure. In Syria, spray cans are regarded as bombs now as then, while the Iranian cartoonist Kianoush discourage young people to take to the streets and use the social media instead, although he has drawn some of the scariest drawings on the risks of network monitoring. And in Tunisia, musicians and graffiti artists are touchstone of the police and judicial authorities on the possibility of keeping voices silent. Let us therefore have another image of Willis, this time seen with a larger section of the wall:

http://www.yakayaka.org/spip.php?article224

Oussama Bouagila og Berriche Chahine, alias Zwewla, blev anholdt i november og har siden fået deres sag udsat i januar, marts og nu senest med næste retsdato sat til den 10. april. Bureaukrati, men med håbet om, at gadens pres, viralt som fysisk, gør en virkning?

Oussama Bouagila and Berriche Chahine, aka Zwewla, were arrested in November and have since had their trial postponed in January, March and recently yet again with the next court date set for April 10. Due to the usual bureaucracry, surely, but still with the hope that it could possibly indicate that the pressure of the street, virally and physically, is making an impact?

The signature of Zwewla. Photo: Zwewla.

I al fald affødte deres tiltale hurtigt tilkaldte demonstrationer, hvoraf denne video er fra dagen før seneste udsættelse, den 27. marts. Zwewla blev arresteret for at tagge en mur i Gabes. Tiltalen lyder på overtrædelse af Tunesiens undtagelsestilstand og klassikeren over dem alle: Forstyrrelse af den offentlige ro og orden. I dette tilfælde mere præcist for at sprede såkaldt "falske oplysninger" over de fattigste tunesere, der i Zwewlas tags blev kaldt levende døde.

In any case their charge gave rise to quickly summoned demonstrations, of which this video is from the day before the last adjournment, March 27. Zwewla was arrested for tagging a wall in Gabes. They were charged with violating the state of emergency in Tunisia and the most classic of them all: Disturbing the public peace and quiet. In this case, more precisely having spread so-called "false information" on the poorest Tunisians, who in the tags by Zwewla were denominated the living dead.

I bladtegningen findes en utrolig mængde demonstrationer - bamser, der ikke kan og ikke vil gå i takt, eksempelvis. Demonstrationer er en af de enkleste grundformer i tegningen ved allerede at have en indbygget plads til en skrevet (banner) tekst i forening med en tegnet mængde, og er samtidig en billedgørelse af demokratiets mangfoldighed.

Mangfoldighed. Demonstrationer regnes typisk for en måde at fortælle om ensretning. Som studerende lærte vi om massekunst i det tidlige 20. århundrede, men i bladtegningen er motivet snarere en måde at vise stemmers uenighed. Hvad kun antidemokrater tager fejl af, fordi det svarer til deres eget verdensbillede. Såsom salafister, der medbringer egne bøller med sorte ringe om øjnene og slagkøller:

In cartooning we find an incredible amount of drawings on demonstrations - teddybears that cannot and will not walk in line, just for one. Demonstrations are one of the simplest basics when doing a drawing in that they come with a built-in space for a written (banner) text along with an amalgamate of characters, and is as such in itself a mapping of democratic diversity.

Diversity. We usually handle demonstrations as the prototype on uniformity. That is how we as students were told about mass art from the early 20th century. Instead, in cartooning, demonstrations are a way to exhibit manifold of voices. Only antidemocrats would understand it otherwise, in that it corresponds to their own perception of the world. Such as Salafists, who bring their own thugs with clubs and black-ringed eyes:

WillisfromTunis: Hvem har angrebet UGTT? (Tunesiens største faglige organisation)
Banneret udsiger: Liga til Beskyttelsen af (ikke at gentage) Revolutionen.
/ Who has attacked UGTT (the strongest trade union in Tunisia)
The banner states: The League for the Protection of (not repeating) the Revolution.

ETA: Det blev en symbolsk sejr til Zwewla, der i dag, den 10 april, er blevet frikendt. Anklagen om spredning af falske nyheder og brud på den offentlige orden holdt ikke i retten.

ETA: It was a symbolic victory, when Zwewla was acquitted today, April 10. The charges of spreading false news and disturbing the public order were dismissed in court.