In Gaza City, graffiti artists take up democracy's cause

[King Mongo]

Posted on Mon, Dec. 27, 2004
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10508980.htm


In Gaza City, graffiti artists take up democracy's cause

By Dion Nissenbaum

Knight Ridder Newspapers



GAZA CITY, Gaza - Gaza City's graffiti artists have always served as a bellwether for the mood of its residents by coating the city's walls with their anguish, anger and defiance. Now many are promoting a new cause: democracy.


Since Yasser Arafat's death, strident appeals for Palestinians to use bullets to fight the Israeli occupation are being painted over with calls to embrace the ballot box. Crude sketches of angry-eyed militants and exploding Israeli tanks are competing for space with campaign rhetoric touting democracy.


"Help the resistance be victorious," reads one elaborate scrawl painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag. "Register to vote."


"Let's topple those who have distorted the reputation of the Palestinian people in the elections," Islamic hard-liners in the group Hamas wrote on the side of a United Nations compound, an apparent jab at corruption in the governing Palestinian Authority.


With the official two-week presidential campaign under way, a spate of murals featuring front-runner Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, have begun popping up.


After four years of wearying confrontation with Israel, there's a palpable sense that change may be on the horizon now that Palestinians are preparing to elect a leader to succeed Arafat.


"Graffiti is an expression of the reality on the Palestinian street," said 23-year-old Bahaa al Qedra, who's one of the Gaza Strip's most prolific "taggers." "It is an expression of what's happening here."


In a region with few computers and where cell phone signals allow Israelis to pinpoint militants, graffiti serves as a rudimentary listserv for residents across the predominantly Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip.


Families use it to trumpet weddings and their pilgrimages to Mecca. Restaurants use it to peddle their menus. But mostly it's a platform for militants.


Gaza City's walls are still dominated by angry calls for resistance and tributes to Palestinians who were killed in clashes with Israelis. But the budding democratic message is starting to get a foothold. All the major political factions have sent out taggers with new street slogans.


Even Hamas and the militant group Islamic Jihad, which are boycotting the presidential race, urged their supporters to register so they could vote in last week's local elections.




Graffiti first became a successful tool for the Palestinians during their first uprising in the late 1980s. Street fighters used the walls to declare strikes, announce protests and organize meetings.


That's when al Qedra got his start. As a skinny kid, he sneaked from his house at night to join friends in spray-painting rebellious slogans around Khan Yunis in the southern part of Gaza.


Back then, he said, Palestinians eagerly sought out the simple messages. But now tagging has become a profession, requiring the artists to paint elaborate images to catch a reader's attention.


Each political faction has its own stable of taggers and often supplies them with the tools of their trade, along with the appropriate slogans to be painted each night.


There's even etiquette: Taggers can paint over other graffiti after three days. If one group whitewashes a wall in preparation for a new slogan, another group can't swoop in and seize the space.


Even so, disputes sometimes break out. There have been minor spats over who can use which walls, and al Qedra said he sometimes caught flak from other taggers when he did work for free, making it harder for others to make a living.


But mostly the competing taggers coexist peacefully.


Hamas supporters tend to favor the group's colors, green and white. Many taggers stick to the colors of the Palestinian flag: red, black, green and white.




Nowhere is the graffiti more prominent than Gaza City. No place is immune. The walls of a U.N. compound are covered with slogans. So are those of City Hall. And the governor's office.


Government officials have tried over the years - to no avail - to rein in taggers by launching "beautification" programs and setting up blank billboards for graffiti artists.


"It's the most popular way for the different parties to talk politics, more than newspapers, more than radio, more than television," said Niad al Mughany, Gaza City's assistant to the mayor for urban planning and building control. "Not everyone reads a newspaper, but everyone walks in the street, so it's hard to stop."


Officials have all but given up trying.


Sitting in the governor's office with freshly painted Hamas graffiti outside, Amani El Kirim threw up her hands.


"If you clean the wall today, you will wake up tomorrow and see more," the governor's political and media liaison said. "It's part of life."

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