The Rise of Palestinian Graffiti
An Extract from The Politics of Graffiti and Calligraphy of War

Salma Tuqan

The motivation for graffiti in Palestine is not necessarily to flaunt censorship, as it was in New York, but rather an instinctive participation of many voices in a kind of conversation.  This dialogue is key to understanding the development of Palestinian graffiti, so completely different from the daring, solitary minded ambitions of the modern American graffiti artist, with his longing for greatness, and his pursuit of an artistic voice.

Anyone attempting to piece together the history of Palestinian art… has to contend with inevitable gaps which would shed light on the development of Palestinian art practices… The popular reception which Palestinian art received from the general public, from the mid 1970’s to the mid 1980’s alarmed the Israeli authorities.  Exhibitions were closed and paintings were confiscated for containing political material.  Significantly, paintings were classified by military ruling as leaflets and were thus subject to the same censorship regulations as any other printed matter. ‘Military Order No.101, Article 6’ prohibits residents of the West Bank from printing, publishing any publication, advertisement, proclamation, picture, or any other document which contains any article with political significance except after obtaining a licence from the military commander.

Although the first Intifada (uprising) in 1987-92, inspired the growth of graffiti in Gaza, graffiti appeared originally in 1981, when the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) moved its bases into the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza, placing greater emphasis on its political work through voluntary committees.  This increased resistance gave legitimacy to PLO claims of being the sole representative of the Palestinian people. The most famous incident of ‘revolutionary graffiti’ came from Acre Prison, presumed to be by the Palestinian Awad Nabulsi of Nablus, before his execution by the British Mandatory government in 1936.  The black coal scrawls of the poem he addressed to his family and homeland, have evolved into the revolutionary song ‘From Acre Prison’, now handed down from generation to generation.

However, the notion of a communal participation or dialogue via graffiti traces back to its upsurge during the first Intifada, which broke out in Jabalia Refugee camp in Gaza. This signalled the beginning of a collective Palestinian popular uprising in the West Bank and Gaza areas. Originally a spontaneous outburst, the Intifada quickly developed into a well-organized rebellion orchestrated by the PLO from its headquarters in Tunis. As the historian Schulz stresses, the Intifada had a huge impact on the Palestinian sense of self.

This united front of Palestinians, many with no previous experience of political resistance, included children, teenagers and women.  Resistance took many forms, particularly stone throwing.  But there were also massive demonstrations, general strikes, refusals to pay taxes, boycotts of Israeli products, and the establishment of underground schools.  Regular schools were closed by the military as reprisals against the uprising. Lastly, was the aggressive political graffiti.   This graffiti manifested itself, particularly in Gaza, as a result of the ban on all forms of communication (including the media), plus the imposed curfew by Israeli troops.   The new graffiti fashioned itself as a notice board or daily newspaper, with regular writings creating a multi-layered dialogue of messages. Although the intentions are different, some stylistic connections to graffiti as ‘art’ merge with the New York School.  Basquiat created paintings that were also effectively reproductions of notice-boards. The thing that had intrigued Cy Twombly in the 1950’s was graffiti’s process of superimposition, creating the effect that he loved, that of distorting the surfaces of walls with scrawled information, each canceling the other out, to again create an acknowledgment of the smooth surface of a wall. Twombly ‘turned Pollock’s rococo lacework into its crude cousin, graffiti.’

If as Kristeva proposes art is a response to repressed unconscious elements, both at an individual and social level, then the Palestinian graffiti is a response to psychic crises. It is the effect on a people restricted by censorship, denied free speech, creating for themselves a separate outlet from the now monopolized official media. 

During the Intifada, graffiti projected almost every aspect of Palestinian social and political life, becoming one of its most powerful instruments. Denied access to an uncensored print media, people took to the walls to mould their own public space.  Graffiti provided them with a graphically visible way of simultaneously responding and resisting a public space that threatened to exclude them. The graffiti addressed three separate publics; that of the occupying forces, the Palestinian community, and the international media, responding to many different aims and emotions.  It served the Palestinian community as a method for passing on messages, for warning people of collaborators, and for issuing directives for acts of rebellion, such as strikes, boycotts and demonstrations.  It recorded significant events, registered political power and commemorated martyrs.  Most importantly, it worked towards galvanizing the fight for liberation.  For some, graffiti became a rite of passage into the resistance movement, an opportunity for statements of dedication and commitment; it was also the sign by which a youth prepared to gamble his life in the name of Palestine.

This gamble is very different from that of the New York graffiti artists.  In their case, desperation was bred from a sense of social rejection; a desperation which drove them to express youthful audacity by acrobatic feats of daring in the pursuit of their art; there was always the danger of plunging to their deaths or of electrocution on the subways.  But in Palestine the pressures were different.  Theirs was the desperation of a young, educated people, whose normal expectations had been extinguished.  They had no need to recreate the frisson of danger - they lived with it daily, giving many the sense that there was nothing left to live for.  Their gestures of despair in offering their lives for their homeland were permeated by the romance of war.

In Palestine writing graffiti incurred the risk of being shot at by The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The haphazard nature of graffiti was therefore dictated by the risk, by the materials available, and the limited time available in which to leave messages.  Due to the presence of Israeli troops, graffiti was mostly carried out under cover of night, by groups of youths each assigned various jobs, including lookouts.  The character of this graffiti was necessarily hasty, rushed writings, mostly in black, that expressed their sentiments regarding the occupation. The occasional use of colours on the walls mocked the Israeli banning of the colours of the Palestinian flag: green, white, black and red. In some cases, elements of design were made to coincide with graffiti writings, such as the map of Palestine shown in the form of a machine gun. Placed in the most visible areas, these images demanded the community engage in political activity, and had the power to induce a strong sense of duty.  This is especially true with the graffiti that told tales of sacrifice and martyrdom, evoking powerful sentiments of community and loss. Memory of the dead became crucial.  The anthropologist, Julie Peteet, reads the multi-layering of the walls as temporary victories in an ongoing battle, many of them expressing political bravado.

One significant aspect of graffiti in Palestine is the creation of signatures of political factions.  They acknowledge diverse parties, which, although united against the occupation, also reveal tensions between each other.  The graffiti manifests itself as a form of territorial markers, demarcating areas under various groups’ control.  The signatures were often in the form of well known icons such as the red hammer and sickle of the Palestine Communist Party, or the fist of the Strike Forces, (markings that require no literacy in Arabic), also the group Fateh (its symbol, an acronym), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)  represented as a map of Palestine contradicted by a horizontal arrow directed westward; Hamas (its symbol, an acronym), the United National Liberation (UNL), and Islamic symbols such as the Dome of the Rock. These various political affiliations determine the content of the message.  They illustrate how graffiti does not simply deal with politics, but with issues such as religion and gender.  After 1990 the graffiti increasingly indicated competition between the various parties, almost paralleling the battle for space that had taken place in New York.  This counter-graffiti created a many layered effect forming a discourse of ideas.  It also acted as a recruiting station for new supporters who might share their beliefs. 

Sometimes the graffiti took the form of humorous bravado, interpreted as a means of preparing young boys for the likelihood of imprisonment, as well as cocky retorts denying the occupation’s wearing down of resistance. Graffiti was also directed at the Israeli audience.  It challenged Israel’s claims to surveillance and laid bare its failure to control every area. The Israeli response was quite different.  Although many of the soldiers could not read the graffiti, its pictorial presence registered as a threat in their eyes.  Erasure became a fundamental ambition.  Young Palestinian boys were marched at gunpoint to blacken out the walls with paint.  Any graffiti on private property led to a large fine levied on the owners of that property, increasing Israel’s revenue to such an extent that in 1991 the UNL issued a directive in the form of a bayan (leaflet) that forbade graffiti on private property.

Inspite of its transitory life span, graffiti gave the Palestinian community a chance to think out loud, to create relationships and to become a fundamental part of Palestinian social history.  Pictorial representations were as important as the words inscribed.  In many cases slogans took on a subliminal quality that did not require an actual reading of the words.  At times English was inserted as a method of imparting the Palestinian message to the West, particularly whenever a foreign delegation was known to be visiting the area.

During the Intifada, the job of graffiti became so fundamental that many political factions chose the best calligraphers to implement their messages. Young boys, once recruited, worked with them as apprentices from the ages of 13 until 15, carrying out graffiti slogans, as well as handing out leaflets, until they were asked to join the party at 16. The desire to make one’s mark and simultaneously defend the homogeneity of a territory was heightened, instilling in the Palestinian mind the importance of collective resistance, and contributing an immediate sense of national ethos.

Inspite of Israel’s feverish efforts to eradicate the graffiti, even after the re-establishment of public communications during the second Intifada (in 2000), graffiti did not disappear; in fact, it changed its character to become more prominently stylistic than during the first Intifada.  The new messages ranged from recording political activities and factions, to posting images of President Arafat as the Palestinian icon, to sending congratulatory messages to newlyweds and Hajj pilgrims, as well as giving ongoing updates of the Intifada. The Intifada had inspired a new directness. Images appeared everywhere across Gaza in the form of posters, heroically depicting martyr figures or fedayeen (freedom fighters), also boldly printed copies of symbols that stood for Palestine, in particular the keffiyeh (Arab head cover), the allegorical female figure of Palestine in her embroidered dress, the olive tree, and the cactus (a symbol of the resilience of the Palestinian race and its ability to survive).

Graffiti continued to flourish after the Oslo peace agreements of 1993 and the subsequent Israeli pullout from Gaza, becoming even more three dimensional ornate.  The colours of the Palestinian flag were now proudly sprayed everywhere.  The Palestinian artist, Laila Shawa, records how graffiti transformed from its monochromatic character of the Intifada years into an explosion of vibrant colour, celebrating the optimism for a new era for Gaza and Palestine, an expectation unfulfilled (Fran Lloyd).

More recently, with the withdrawl of Israel’s colonies in 2005, graffiti altered from its earlier manifestations.  Although maintaining remembrance of the celebrated martyrs (Fig.10) it has taken on a greater social role.  Congratulatory messages are still posted, but graffiti also now advertises businesses in this free, accessible space.  New freedoms introduced the idea of competition for the most visible areas.  In other words, the Western love of advertising, the very thing against which American graffiti artists competed, has made its own presence felt in the Middle East. Graffiti is becoming establishment, integral even to Palestinian culture and developing into an acceptable form of Palestinian art, prepared to take on a commercial role.

This new graffiti forms an intense conversation with everyone passing through the city, leaving messages of anger, love and sorrow.  Personalities seem to surface from the city walls. However, the pullout has managed to exacerbate rivalry between political groups in Gaza, each trying to establish control.  Today, these walls face the same fate of zero tolerance as during the first Intifada, although, ironically, it is now the Palestinian Authority (PA) that directs their clean up.   This is claimed to beautify Gaza, signalling a new era under its own control, as well as wiping out bitter memories of the occupation.  Nevertheless, it again points to the influence graffiti commands, still seen as a threat towards the newly established PA, now liable for the same criticism previously directed at the Israeli occupation.  Majdi Abu Shaaban of Gaza Municipality's public relations department declared that ‘graffiti spraying on walls would be considered vandalism’, as in New York.

 

 

 

 

 

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