MARCH 2003

In a Cave men are seated facing a rock wall,each is chained by the neck, unable to turn his head. Behind them a fire burns throwing grotesque shadows on the wall. A free man comes before them telling of another light , the light of the sun. What is seen on this wall is only shadow, he says, flickering shadows thrown by their presence in this cave - but the world outside gives substance to these phantoms.These men have the choice to believe him but no proof that this is true unless they become free. Plato believed that such snared and fettered men would understand the choice and struggle violently to release themselves. The violence of their struggle would then become part of a process, that we call thought, as they seek to achieve the substance of their belief in freedom.Thought may provoke violence perpetually, invoked by the image of the mind as a cave, from which it may be impossible to escape to realise the dream of reality.

Can mankind escape this myth that the mind is a dark cave of phantom shapes in which they are shackled? Is this belief, that the mind imprisons man in a fantasy world, the only image we feel to be true to describe the barbarism of our history?Many have thought this very struggle to compare the fleeting images of our thoughts and dreams with a belief in unity or a constant light of revelation as an Art. Millions
have been beguiled similarly by an image of God.

In general it is assumed that Political life was created from Religious life which had developed withinTribal life.A series of historical "progressions" that give the illusion of progress. But in reality millions have now learned through the violent experience of accepting leaders, and their national or religious or tribal interests, that civilisation is dominated by a fallacy. And the propaganda of sexual difference and organic facts, maintains the illusion that "real" facts demand a violent access to individual freedom.

The great "moral" and "right-wing" swing, that set in during the late 1970's, is now propelling a caucas of desperate politicians, whose greatest fear is that nuclear war will occur as an Armageddon of political, religious and tribal fulfilment.The belief that freedom from terror of any kind can be achieved by any or all of these three great social motivators has now been gutted by the revelation that money is the only measure of stability that dominates and constantly re-creates these values for one generation after another. Mammon, , that false god, whose devotees are focussed only on the aquisition of wealth, rules all.

Did Art come to a halt as the "abstract" appeared to be a core source of the artistic concept? For just as money focusses the mind as the fiery shadows on a wall, so does the belief that an abstraction in the concept of the visual and the acoustic senses plays out its forces in mere shadows on a wall.Such concepts run through the mind only as novelty, to be as easily forgotten ...What is certain is that a record of history during the half-century since the explosions of the atomic weapon of war, that art had given us for many centuries, has been eradicated, purposefully eradicated.

The thousands of pounds that were promoted as value of abstract works of art, that are so much junk or pathetic imitations of one another, under different names soaring in the vacuum of fame, were almost certainly politically advocated by those whose interests in a domination of social understanding could only be maintained by secrecy, and disguise. Abstract art provides that disguise completely.

jocelyn braddell, editor

What is Art?

..by Norman Miller

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> One of an Artist's duties is to goad Society into Change by highlighting the perceived faults.  Another duty is to strive for perfection within the limits of the medium.  Therefore the Artist strives for perfect Art within a perfect Society.
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> The paradox remains that a perfect Society would stifle Art.
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> Artistic Paradise will arrive when Humanity and the Arts are reduced to splitting hairs.  The entire Establishment will pass the pleasure to the best-hand side.
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> And then :-
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> There are the visionaries.
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> They may change the world but they know not what they do.
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> Some paint;  some write;  some sing;  some dance;  some drum;  some fabricate fantasies;  some compose music;  some invent;  some heal by taking on the responsibility of hurt.  None destroy.  All are touched.
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> None are in their time, but, when their time comes The World  will move. These are they that learnt their craft, only to give free voice to that which is beyond them.  Because the sound depends on the instrument,of which they hold some sway.  But each phrase distils the purity of a whole thought that exceeds the whole of Humanity.
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> No less than this is Art.

> HEBRON: The Ladder Lady
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> By Art Gish © ,February 4, 2003
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> I went on school patrol with three other Christian Peacemaker Team members in Hebron this morning, something we do each morning to protect Palestinian children from Israeli settlers who often harass them as they go to school, and to help get the children past Israeli soldiers who often prevent them from getting to school.
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> This morning, as we started on our way, settler children threw stones at us.  One of the soldiers who watched the attack cursed us and told us to leave.  A settler cursed us and another settler greeted us with his middle finger.  This is normal life here in Hebron.
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> Then I met the "ladder lady."  I had heard so much about her.  Each morning she puts down a crude homemade ladder from a rooftop of the old city to let between 20 and 30 children from her neighborhood get out of the old city so they can go to school.  The Israeli military has put up gates to prevent them from leaving the old city. 
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> The children climb over the roofs to get to the ladder lady's home.  The ladder lady is waiting with her ladder when the children come home from school.  Because of curfew and being locked in the old city, the roofs also are now where children play.
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> Kristin and I helped set up the ladder, and watched the beautiful little girls scramble down the ladder.  They are quite good at it.  This morning there were only girls, because we gave a message to the ladder lady that the Israeli military did not allow the boys' school to open once again today.
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> I was overwhelmed with emotion as I walked with the girls to their school. I felt I was on holy ground and given a sacred privilege of accompanying them to school.  I felt unworthy to even walk beside these girls, their smiling faces so full of hope and expectation.
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> I also felt a deep disgust that anyone could be so perverse as to threaten young girls on their way to school or try to prevent them from going to school, and that my government supports these obscenities. 
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> The children, however, have not yet lost hope.  They are determined to go to school, no matter what.  They walk past the settlers and soldiers. They even walk through the tear gas that is so common here recently. 
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> Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world.  To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, please visit our website at http://www.cpt.org.