An Act of Violence
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| C.A. Lorentzen, Dannebrog Falling From Heaven, 1809 Statens Museum for Kunst. |
That would make it the eldest flag in the world and the only God-given one, which with the precision of the date makes it too good a tale not to be told. Dannebrog has a happy presence in Danish daily rather than being a political one...
Which makes the correlation of the falling flags in the two present art works all the more compelling. The one is a national-romantic painting from 1809 on that wondrous day - and I don't think I have ever seen it on a wall in the national gallery here. As paintings go, well, I need not say more, but it was probably printed in many history books these past centuries.
The other one, the one of actual interest in 2021 and beyond, is by Khalid Albaih. This one is about to become reality. The Danish government will begin sending back our Syrian refugees.
Khalid places it in the visual terminology where it belongs. This is an act of violence:
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| Khalid Albaih, Denmark sending back Syrian refugees to "safe" Damascus, May 20, 2021. |
The central plane is the dark presence amidst the other war planes and their bombs. Only its cargo is falling softly among the debris.
Never in history has sending back refugees in the midst of war been the right thing to do. It shall be a shameful chapter too painful to take in even for the perpetrators themselves and their descendants.
It is the first cartoon on Danish political matters by Khalid and it is no coincidence that it was drawn on the brink of ending his residency as an ICORN-artist in Copenhagen.
Khalid arrived in Copenhagen exhausted and battered from a decade of incessantly staying on top of the goings on across a number of continents, which put his life and his family in danger. His ICORN-colleagues in Norway or Sweden arriving at the same time as he did would soon look rested, rebuilding their lives and mental and physical health.
Khalid, on the other hand, was continually on tenterhooks.
"When are you leaving?" and "Where are you going next?" have been the incessant questions he has been met with from the instant he arrived in Copenhagen. There was no room to pretend even for a minute that he was in a situation of calm. Mentally - and physically too - it is a devastating place to be in. The pause button is on, but the counting is about to be resumed.
Being in a limbo where nothing is known beyond today is not a place to question the conditions you are in. Khalid did not even begin criticizing local politics. He continued his global outlook as before, which provides more than enough material and with beholders everywhere waiting for his next drawn analysis.
He could of course have critiqued Denmark. This is a democracy after all, but by having no tomorrow at hand his situation was not unlike that of being a cartoonist who has aggravated an autocratic ruler and is now waiting for his day in court with a court date that is constantly postponed to keep them from doing new critical cartoons.
The precarity of being in a limbo.
Ultimately the loss is ours. Khalid is off to make new great projects of which two major ones - in each their continent - are well underway.
We may continue to nurture old tales, but Khalid's cartoon above is how we shall be known.
