13 years and a day

Does a cartoon have it in it to respond to an attack by IS / Daesh?

Such was certain responses to widely circulated cartoons on the social media following yesterday's bombs in Bruxelles. Surely more bombs are the answer here???

To which the answer is: Cartoons are very much an appropriate response. I am not saying the response, because contrary to the outlook of the bombing-lustful, there is no one answer to anything. On the contrary, cartoons pose a powerful spectrum of responses in that they call together and mourn, while they reflect and bring in the greater picture daring to take critical stances at a time, when the mood is delicate.

One of the most well-spoken voices the past 24 hours have been Khalid Wad Albaih and it so happens that this too was the week of the 13th anniversary of the war on Iraq, which nurtured the organization of IS.

There is a bodily experience to our language, absorbed and transformed through the ages into lettering.

Khalid Wad Albaih, March 21, 2016.

Before us is such a transformation taking place on 13 years of international history within the word Iraq. The prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib at once embody the lie, which initiated the war and the devastation it lead to with this very image as the symbol of the degradation of us all.

The slouching figure of Lynndie England lacks everything that makes for a well-proportioned pose, which makes her indifference to human life all the more striking. She is long out of prison by now. Her superiors in the political system have still not been held responsible.

The Khartoon shown is courtesy of Khalid Wad Albaih and must not be reproduced without his permission.