distant suffering XXC difference and repetition i.d. of a shared cup of tea
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Populist politicians and critics often dismissively refer to the left's preference for 'drinking tea with terrorists' in their calls for the use of military violence against perceived threats to the ‘Western way of life.’ This discourse to promote resolute, violent action against supposed terrorists plays an important role in the current conflict in Yemen, where weapons manufactured and supplied by the West are used in a crude war effort. This war has taken the lives of thousands of civilian victims, almost all of whom remain anonymous in media and official reports. i.d. of a shared cup of tea is a small monument for 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud from Sa’na, Yemen. Raja was killed on 23 March 2018 by a CB 52 B/B cluster bomb manufactured in Jackson, Tennessee, at the Milan Army Ammunition Plant.
distant suffering XXC difference and repetition i.d. of a shared cup of tea work
March 2021 work tea glass | Loctite Super Glue Glas sand from West Kapelle [ Zeeland ] | [ waiting for Jackson, West Tennessee ] engraved brass plate / font style New Roman | 10 x 7 cm. plexiglass hood | 25 x 25 x 25 [ x o,3 ] cm. console | 110 x 25 x 25 cm. MDF 9 mm., primer white / topcoat Gamma white 710 – matt text brass engraved text sign [ 95 x 50 mm ] in memory of Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud [14] † 23 March 2018 | Sa'dah – Yemen Raja was hit by a CBU-52 B/B cluster bomb, manufactured in 1977 in the Milan Army Ammunition Plant, Jackson, West Tennessee, U.S.A.
distant suffering XXC difference and repetition i.d. of a shared cup of tea personal context | content
Finding who exactly are the victims of the war in Yemen is a hell of a journey. Most often you will find groups: unnamed "families", "wedding guests" and / or "funeral attendants", "(young) children", "bus passengers", "half the village", etc., etc. I have literally read hundreds of UN documents. I found no names there. These reports also provide a picture of a huge, well-oiled, bureaucratic organization that is involved in registering war crimes. Without any consequence. The first name of a child victim I came across was in a newspaper - the Guardian1: 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya alOud from Sa'na. She died by a fragmentation bomb dropped by an American-backed Saudi Arabian drone. The devastating effects that dud bomblets from cluster munitions have inflicted on civilians is well documented. In 2019 they have killed or injured an estimated 56,000 to 86,000 civilians since World War II. The United States alone have spent some $ 3.4 billion on demining operations since 1993, including in countries where it released hundreds of millions of bomblets in past wars that continue to kill and maim civilians.2
The war in Yemen has almost become an out dated museum piece, as can be found in the Leiden Museum of Antiquities where I wandered as a child in the late 1950s. The brass plates there spelled strange, often ineffable engraved places and names. Names . . .
From the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Aden, all cultures there have a few things in common. One of these is the mandatory drinking of a glass of tea on every occasion as a sign of contact. Similarly in Yemen. I was allowed to sit down at any opportunity to drink tea. A ritual that is always taunted by the far-right when people try to do something about intercultural communication: drinking tea is sugar coating Islam terrorism. I took my memories on those many cups of tea that I was invited to drink in Yemen as the starting point to set up a small monument for 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud from Sa'na. 1.
In the corporate media the war in Yemen is completely absent. And as such interred as an artifact in history - an epitaph waiting for the last breath. The war in Yemen has become a
Bethan McKernan | October 3, 2019 | A father's grief and the Made in USA bomb dropped in Yemen https://www.theguardian.com/ 2. John Ismay | December 4, 2019 America’s Dark History of Killing Its Own Troops With Cluster Munitions Magazine New York Times Photo: ©Omer Fast | 2011 Sill from: Five Thousand Feet is the Best
Since 2013, by means of the ongoing artseries DISTANT SUFFERING, the Dutch artist Hans Overvliet (Leiden, 1952) investigates the role of the media in their representation of (military) violence. This, in the context of themes as perception, memory and identity formation. Overvliet uses a various range of media, symbols and codes, bringing together dichotomies like beauty and violence, refinement and brutality, the sublime and the utter vulgar. Aspects of power, politics, exclusion, censorship and the connection between artist, artwork and viewer infiltrate his multifaceted conceptual oeuvre. The languageimage relationship and references to (art) history are always present. As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewit-ness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980s. Of course these experiences resonate in the art work of DISTANT SUFFERING. The action driven perspective that is included in the approach of Hannah Arendt’s non-paternalistic empathy is the performative part of the series DISTANT SUFFERING. Elements of DISTANT SUFFERING were exhibitted in the Netherlands, Belgium, Pakistan, Italy, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden and England. Hans Overvliet was born in Leiden in 1952; he lives and works in Middelburg in the province of Zeeland in the South-West of the Netherlands. Next to his art-work he is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of the 27-year old space for contemporary art: ruimteCAESUUR.
distant suffering XXC difference and repetition i.d. of a shared cup of tea
Innocence. Isn’t that a much more interesting idea than beauty and comfort? John Maxwell Coutzee
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