APRIL-MAY2008

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Painting: Iraqi Artist, Rahman Al-Jabri.

Flesh, carnal, bodies...Human bodies. Male bodies, female bodies...occupied bodies, occupied flesh, a carnal knowledge of the Occupation.

The Body, the Conduit, the Vehicle...

Bomb, arrest, detain, imprison, chain – constrict the space. Then, direct your personal attack on the “other”, that "living beast” -- beat, lash, strike, whip, wound, burn, break, smash, sodomize, rape, piss on, defecate on, shoot, kill --- the Body.

El-Cuerpo. The Centre point. Flesh of flesh. Dig into the matter of the Flesh...

Entries, openings, cavities, orifices, holes -- mouth, anus, vagina, ears, eyes, nostrils...where sensations move in and out, circulate, float, exchange, grasp, perceive, register, memorize, transmit, receive, give...

Invade and Occupy the senses.

Plant your presence in each entry, turn it into a check point for examination, for a search, for an optical scan, for a biometric evaluation, for a digital print...code It, number It, and erase its identity...

Cage the body and the senses –- sand bags over the head, ribbons over the eyes, tapes on the mouth, muffle the sounds with ear plugs, gag them with water, urine, or let them dry up with thirst and starve them...

Crush the vehicle, destroy it. Destroy the flesh of the flesh...but first...

Grab the skin, lacerate it, leave your marks before moving on, before disposing of It. Those appetizing tiny pores, millions of them...

Think, think, quickly, ingeniously, creatively, seize them for they are another opening for You. A million openings. Invade and occupy them, all of them.

The Epidermis, derma to derma, skin to skin. And the skin looks virgin like...a virgin land, an unlabored lush earth, a wild jungle, a savage nature...

Unveil It, strip It naked, expose It to your gaze. Use It, go ahead use It. It’s yours, you believe so.

Bend, twist, lay, squat, open, close, turn, sit, crawl, cross...front, back, sideways, up, down...

Tie, blow, strike, hang, bang, pound, punch, burn, wound, whip...

Now that you have invaded the millions of openings, the million pores...get to the bigger openings -- where secrets are buried, where the untold story remains hidden, where knowledge is concealed, where experience is obscured...Get to it.

The big holes. Accommodate yourselves inside, take up that space, force yourself into, penetrate It, possess It, own It, master It...with your force. For you are so powerful, or so you believe.
But don’t forget to insult and humiliate It, while you ravage away...

Now you can spit, relax and smoke your cigarette, chill out, lay back, and you are even entitled to smile with satisfaction. But don’t get complacent for you have more work to do with the Body, the Body under Occupation.

The Body is in the corner, cocooned, wrapped upon itself, a vegetable...

She is still breathing, his pulse is still beating, the Body is still resisting...Resisting You.

Get to it, get to it now.

The Derma, the Orifices...not enough. You need to get inside, much deeper...
There are still nerves you have not touched, intestines you have not reached, organs you have not palpated...

But how ? You think to yourself. Get those creative juices to flow. Come on, you can do better, much better...

Yes, you’re there. Pluck out the Viscera-- pull the nails out, hack the penis off, mutilate the labia, cut the ears, cut the tongue, gouge the eyes, drill the ribs, the back, the abdomen, the legs... Get to it now.

Paralyze It, but keep It a little alive for your orgy is not over.

Ah! the screams, the agony, the cries...bothersome? Maybe not. After all you earned them...

Now you are getting tired, you need a break, you need to rest. Finish It off. Keep banging It until It expires or simply shoot It.

Good job. You have done a great job.

Now, the trophies...

Kick ball with the head, rip the thorax apart and snatch the heart out, offer the limbs as a present to your family, keep the brains in a jar as a souvenir...

But if all of that is too gory and gruesome for you, and your stomach can’t digest more, and you’ve had your fill, you can always piss and shit on It instead.


Outside, is another round waiting...their eyes hollow, their bodies into skeletons, their cheekbones protruding with hunger and misery...Their clothes too loose, their complexions too ashen, their bodies too diseased, their stomachs too empty, their limbs to frail...they are another round of bodies under Occupation, waiting...


P.S: I wish to thank all the Iraqi victims, both those who died and those who survived, for having inspired me with their REAL stories, stories from their carnal experiences of the Body under Occupation.
I wish to thank my own Body too, for having courageously survived...survived the Occupation, so I can bear witness.

Painting: Iraqi Artist, Rahman Al-Jabri.
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Amazing, only one reproduction of MathiasGrunewald, the medaeval German painter on the Internet, who illustrated the horrors of torture at that time.