When the population of the city of Guernica in 2023 gathers to make a collective performance in solidarity with Palestine, it hits the West like a fist in the solar plexus.
In 1937, Guernica was bombed by the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War and the artist Picasso painted a 7-meter-long painting that became a world-famous testimony to the brutality of the war. The painting conveys a sense of man’s duty to protest against warlords’ ruthless and senseless killing of children, women, men, old people, and animals.
Art does not speak to our gullible ears but directly to our hearts. When we see the grandchildren of the survivors of the genocide in Guernica form the flag of Palestine through a mosaic of raincoats in green, red, white, and black, no words are needed.
All of Israel’s excuses fall flat to the ground. Our hearts know that Israel is committing the worst war crime of them all, genocide. And that it is our responsibility to protest until there is a ceasefire and justice for Palestine.
