Devil's Rope

Valdemar Andersen, front of "Magasinet" for Politiken
- the image is a bit cropped, the photo was taken from a
95 years old newspaper, my sincere apologies for the quality of it.

About 95 years ago Valdemar Andersen created a front page for the Sunday edition of Politiken of a blackbird in the barely there spring. Everything is still just twigs and branches of the same black as the singing bird and yet even the blue sky is light and open. Everything is about to begin again.

The lightness of the predecessor underlines the seriousness of our world today, when the blackbird finds itself crying on a background of screeching solid yellow.

In a world of barbed wire even his thought bubble is encased in barbed wire.

Barbed wire or "Devil's rope" as if was known in the US, when it was invented to seal off land from other settlers. It defined US history by changing the landscape of the open prairie forever. In its stead came a fierce insistence to protect and keep out.

When protectionism makes the cage seem the safest place to be in, freedom has taken on the face of prison.

FadiToOn/Fadi Abou Hassan, The Freedom Has the Face of Freedom?
 January 29, 2017.

The cartoon by Fadi Abou Hassan is courtesy its cartoonist and must not be reproduced without his permission.