As reported in the New York Times (October 17, “Two Artists Anguish Over the Kidnappings of Israelis Spreads Worldwide”), two Israeli artists have designed, as public art, posters with pictures and biographies of the Israelis who have been taken as hostages beneath the headline “KIDNAPPED.” These have been translated into 12 languages and people all over the world are plastering them on walls in what has become a grassroots phenomenon. In New York City, where the flyers are reminiscent of the posters that went up everywhere after 911, they are up on walls and in subways. Jewish student organizations are posting them all around college campuses.
There is both a great need and real opportunity for discussion and debate to go on—on the walls. There is a new Bob Avakian (BA) provocation, “What is the Right and Wrong Understanding of Never Again,” with a QR code that goes to the video on this from BA. We should be printing the new provocation so it can be put up next to the “kidnapped” posters (not over them). They should be printed in quantity—there should stacks of the BA provocations at the bookstores and on tables when we are out on campuses and in neighborhoods for people to take, fund, and post themselves. This is a way for people to have a national impact spreading the revolution humanity needs and the leadership that has a real way out of this nightmare. If you have not yet been to the new page with work by BA on the Middle East on the website, go there! This is just one aspect of why we say there is no one like this in the world today. Print these provocations in red—if you can raise funds or get printers to donate, get them printed on glossy paper the way the kidnapped posters are. Get BA on this burning question in this moment EVERWHERE.
