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Since the 1948 Nakba, the key has symbolized Palestinian dignity. This image was painted in the public space in Essen, Germany, in October 2023, and censored four days later as the genocide against the Palestinian people perpetuated.

Israel’s offensive against the Gaza Strip and the entire Palestinian people is not limited to bombs, bullets, or chemical weapons. No narrative about/from the Palestinian people seems viable in an era where silence is imposed. On this website, you will learn about a case of direct censorship and find an invitation to participate in the resistance by downloading, sharing, and spreading this image and its message.

CENSORSHIP

At the end of October 2023, an urban art festival was held in and around the Katernberg district in the German city of Essen. One of the international guests had their wall censored just four days after it was painted. In addition to denouncing the act of censorship in a public space, this digital space/action seeks to insist on the Palestinian people’s historical realities and their endurance in the face of systematic genocide, to which the image refers and for which it was censored.

Comments about the mural from the neighborhood community, other participants, and passersby were mostly positive. There were varied interpretations. For some people, it was simply a «pretty» image; others disliked that a scarf covered the character’s head; others recognized the key, a Palestinian symbol, in their interpretation. Even with the polyvalences that the mural proposed, it was the key that sparked controversy among those who organized the festival. Although most people didn’t find that the image contained any message of hate or instigated any kind of violence, some argued that it would be susceptible to «misinterpretation» regarding the bans issued by some European states and the blame-generating media discourse surrounding the conflict. This made part of the organization fear possible legal and social reprisals that could jeopardize their stability and credibility as cultural agents and promoters.

The pressure placed upon the community’s free expression can be perceived in the media environment, resulting in guilt or bad conscience in specific cases (such as that of Germany). Thus, a Manichean artifice has been established proclaiming that solidarity with the Palestinian people and rejection of the conflict is equivalent to affiliation with terrorism and anti-Semitism.

The position that finally prevailed was the alternative between self-censorship (modifying the «problematic» part of the mural) or its removal. Once the artist left Germany, the mural and the social media record of her participation in the festival were erased. One of the curators quit after this decision in protest against censorship. The mural lasted only four days in the public space before being covered with white paint (they also managed to whitewash the wall), a new one -with an abstract aesthetic- was painted in its place a few days later. The phrase «we are all one» is written in German in one of its corners.

THE PAINTING

The image painted on the wall was intended to represent or reference the concrete history of the Palestinian people through their dignity and their relationship with the territory, without distinguishing between «good and bad» victims.

The use of the key in the composition of the image refers to the key that many Palestinians keep or hang around their necks. It is an expression of hope and their right to return to the lands from which they were expelled and to open the locks of the homes that have been taken away from them since the Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948.

The creative decision was intentional. The intention was to oppose the permanent representation of the Palestinian people as the subject of endless harassment because other representations are necessary. We need representations that differ from the brutality of the portraits that circulate massively, those that not only denounce but also define the bodies, mainly subalterned, and the scenarios allowed to be destroyed.

It was essential to try to create an image that subverted those models of torture, massacre, and dehumanization to demonstrate the resistance strategies that are still alive and that relate to the territory and its history.

Censorship is not only found in what happened with this painting in the public space. It is also shown in the impediment or coercion that is expressed in many ways in multiple scenarios, from the reluctance to discuss and inform oneself -restricting the right to expression and dissent-, to the most oppressive prohibition of any manifestation that questions the complicit and murderous official discourse. This example is important, apart from the particular event, because it shows once again the imposition of silence that wants to hover over the crimes in progress and over the history of the Palestinian people, which they also intend to erase.

The image was valuable for other people because its presence in the street allowed a direct dialogue with people who saw part of their history and their context restored or who could recognize the history of other people reflected there as a gesture of encouragement, as the longing to recover from the ruins an image of dignity. It was not a call to war.

La imagen fue valiosa para otra personas porque al estar en la calle permitía un dialogo directo con gente que vio restituida parte de su historia y su contexto, o al menos pudo reconocer la historia de otras reflejada allí como un gesto de aliento. La añoranza por recuperar de entre las ruinas una imagen de dignidad, no un llamado a la guerra.

DOWNLOAD, SHARE, SPREAD

Since the Nakba in 1948, the key has symbolized Palestinian dignity. This image was painted in the public space in Essen, Germany, in October 2023 and censored four days later while the genocide against the Palestinian people perpetuated.

We invite you to download this image and replicate it freely, put it in your house windows or on any surface facing the public space. Use it in various media and multiple conversations. Are you up for it?

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