Harry's Blog

Musings of a 24 year old

[vintagebooksdesign]

MURAKAMI POSTER COMPETITION

To celebrate the arrival of Haruki Murakami for Saturday’s London signing at Waterstone’s Piccadilly, we’re giving away ten beautiful posters for Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

To be in with a chance just Reblog this post and we’ll pick 10 lucky winners out of the hat.

The competition closes on Monday 1st September.

[harrylaughland]

The Welsh Nicaraguan Solidarity Movement

On first appearances Wales and Nicaragua seem unlikely bedfellows. Wales – part of the UK’s ‘Celtic Fringe’ – a country of rolling green hills, rugby, rain, farming and mining. Nicaragua a central American nation of heat, colour, beaches, rainforest and tourism. But appearances can be deceiving. As the artist Dan Rees highlights the two countries formed an unlikely brotherhood in the 1980s. This was typified by a solidarity based on socialist values in a battle against the neoliberal, conservative, capitalist establishments of the UK and the US respectively. This exclusive ARTUNER insight will contextualize the solidarity between Wales and Nicaragua in greater detail.

Rees grew up near Merthyr Tydfill, a proud industrial town in South Wales. He was initially drawn to Nicaragua having seen a Welsh Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign poster from 1986 in the Merthyr Tydfill Ironworks Museum. This was a group formed in Wales to support theSandinista Revolution underway at the time. The Sandinista’s were a leftist organisation that in 1979, after years of bitter struggle within Nicaragua, had seized control of the country. In 1981, with the swearing in of Ronald Reagan, America’s policy towards Central America shifted drastically. Rather than continuing Jimmy Carter’s attempts to work with the Sandinista’s Reagan instituted a stronger anti-communist approach to Latin America which included isolating the Sandinistas. It is widely believed that in attempting to do this America was funding the Sandinistas opponents, the Contras, who embarked on a series of offensives within Nicaragua. Reagan’s alleged involvement most famously came to the surface through the ‘Iran-Contra affair’ in 1987, which attempted to raise funds to support the Contras through the sale of arms to then embargoed state of Iran. In turn, it is also widely assumed the Sandinistas were receiving aid from the USSR, meaning that Nicaragua effectively became a staging ground for a proxy war between the two main protagonists of the ongoing Cold War: the US and the USSR.

But why did Wales, and in particular the people of Merthyr Tydfill feel a sense of allegiance to their Nicaraguan counterparts?

To answer this question first requires looking back to 1831 and the events of the Merthyr Rising. After years of unrest, brought about by anti-worker moves such as the lowering of wages and the wider onset of unemployment, coal miners took to the streets of Merthyr Tydfill calling for reform. The reformers quickly turned to rioters as they demanded change through violent and criminal action, storming buildings and skirmishing with the British Army, dispatched to try and quell the uprising. But unable to do so the authorities eventually took refuge in a local hotel as between 7,000 and 10,000 workers marched into Merthyr Tydfill under a red flag, the first time the now ubiquitous symbol of left-leaning movements was used, and took control of the town. Eventually order was restored but the events of the Merthyr Rising would go down in history and be remembered by future workers in Wales.

Indeed it is this history that probably paved the way for the formation of the Welsh Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign. In the 1980s Merthyr Tydfill, and Wales in general, was facing a drastic shift in economic fortunes. With the move away from heavy industry instigated by the Thatcher government, traditional industries that the rioters of the Merthyr uprising were employed in were beginning to suffer. These workers though had always been organised into unions designed to protect the rights of individual members through being stronger as a collective. This is an inherently socialist idea and one that continues to this day. The unions, and thus by extension their members, saw the moves by the British government as worrying and potentially dangerous. By removing people’s sole source of income and not providing an alternative they feared there would be wholesale unrest. In the Sandinistas fight against the Contras the members of the Welsh Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign felt a sense of brotherhood. For presumably, if defeated, American ideals of neoliberal, capitalist free markets would have been enforced upon the people of Nicaragua? This is the origin of the solidarity between Wales and Nicaragua and is what Dan Rees examines in the current day.

Rees’ works on Nicaragua and Merthyr Tydfill look at the affect of the disintegration of socialist led institutions. Even though they may, in name, no longer exist Rees highlights the enduring neighbourliness and community spirit apparent in both Wales and Nicaragua. In Boys Sharing Flip-Flops Rees expertly shows brotherhood between the four young boys. They strike the same pose, they wear similar clothes and most importantly, given the title, the two to the left of the composition share a pair of flip-flops, community spirit epitomised. Footwear is referenced in Rees’ other works concerning Merthyr Tydfill and in particular his video piece Merthyr Risingwhere he winds his way through the town to its outskirts and to an Asda superstore, which was reported to have sold 78,000 pairs of white socks to a town with a population of only 55,000. This is, presumably, Rees questioning whether capitalism has made Merthyr Tydfill a better place?

In his works on these two groups of people, two similar, diminished cultures, Rees asks the viewer to consider how our plight might be similar to others around the world. By highlighting the unlikely link between Wales and Nicaragua he shows that people throughout the world are, in the end, the same. They share the same desires, the same hopes. This might make people consider the overarching sense of human brotherhood throughout the world, a consideration that might make it a better place.

[harrylaughland]

James Clarkson: Rebirth

James Clarkson is interested in the way in which objects from our everyday surroundings can be made to say something different when they are given new lives in new contexts. At an early age, Clarkson became aware of how things that his father, an antiques dealer, brought into their home assumed a new meaning. He has commented: “I think this gave me a really strong concept of objects that had a higher value than the majority of things that I was surrounded by the rest of the time and the notion that something could have more meaning than just its regular function.” To Clarkson then the objects his father selected became something more than they were originally. In different surroundings, i.e. his home, they became antiques, objects of value. This lesson also served as a foundation for a growing appreciation of the readymade – everyday objects given a new life as works of art – a trope he would return to with great effect in his later life as an artist.

The ability for certain items to be reborn in different surroundings in Clarkson’s work can also be seen in parallel to the evolution of the city of Sheffield, UK, where he resides. Sheffield is a town that has, itself undergone a major rebirth. For many decades ‘Steel City’ was a booming industrial hub – the epicentre for the British steel trade. According to figures from the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau in 1969 Sheffield produced 3.6 million tonnes of steel every year. To put this in perspective, a forty four piece stainless steel cutlery set weighs around 5kg. At the peak of production Sheffield’s steel mills produced enough steel for 720million of these sets. Evidently steel, and its associated industries, was a huge factor in the economy of Sheffield, and the UK in general. But with the move away from heavy industries in the 1970s Sheffield’s economy took a downturn as its once famous steel mills slowly began to stand empty. As an aside one of the best examples of popular culture that deals with this transition is the film The Full Monty that traces the way former steel workers were forced to adapt to their new less prosperous circumstances. Today though, Sheffield is as a thriving art scene: it is said to be the largest community of artists in the UK outside London, with institutions such as S1 Artspace, theMillennium Gallery and many others.

This history is embedded in James Clarkson’s oeuvre; steel forms a part of the artist’s works that were chosen for B O R D E R S. Regarding the use of abundant materials from his surroundings Clarkson has commented, ‘initially I will spend some time thinking about the materials I am going to use and the references that they could make when placed together. Quite often an object’s history or embedded meaning will direct the concept of an exhibition or series of works.” This is apparent in Studio Floor Composition (no. 7), in which Clarkson cartoonises the left over remains of his mobiles and then laser cuts them into mild steel. The studio detritus that he uses here is ‘organic’ for Clarkson. The left over materials are viable fragments for him to include in his artwork, the same way in which left over steel from Sheffield’s heyday is a workable material for Clarkson to use as a foundation for his art. Indeed, he suggests that being based in Sheffield is an impetus for him to use steel because of its availability and affordability. The possible references to rebirth are twofold. First, the way in which he deploys an abandoned material that stands for the now-lost industrial power of Sheffield, and second the way in which he directly adapts this material to remake it as something new and vibrant.

But importantly Clarkson doesn’t simply present the leftovers just as they are. He adapts them into art. As he notes, works from the Studio Floor Series “could only be created by chance and something that I felt really needed to be placed against some of the more refined and considered works that I make”. The results are striking configurations of shapes that are both recognisable but at the same time ambiguous. They bear a passing resemblance to ‘Airfix’ models that are purchased as disassembled parts that need to be reworked to make the whole model. In addition the shapes of the recessions in Studio Floor Composition (no. 7) encourages the viewer to imagine what the works from which Clarkson derives these forms might look like.

Geometry is also vital for Basic Forms where the artist uses children’s building blocks arranged in seemingly random distributions. Clarkson has said these works were influenced by, among others, Victor Passmore, and in particular the latter’s move from traditional painting to abstract sculptures, that he titled ‘Synthetic Constructions.’ For these sculptures, Passmore used geometric shapes, mainly rectangles, arranged in a way that emulated nature, and thus art’s, “underlying processes and structures rather than its surface appearance”. To Clarkson this signified Passmore’s shift “from two dimensional painting towards a three dimensional approach to mark making.” Clarkson’s Basic Forms also employ seemingly simple shapes to create something more complex both symbolically and formally. Indeed, it is precisely because of this simplicity that Clarkson uses them in his work. By presenting them as he does, Clarkson gives his blocks a new life as an integral part of his artistic practice. In addition he recognizes – much like the Bauhaus lecturer Johannes Itten who instructed his students to break down furniture and other design objects into simplistic shapes and colours – that his presentation of these objects may inspire us to explore new avenues of artistic creation. Indeed given Clarkson’s circular method of production, witnessed in the works on display in B O R D E R S and elsewhere, it is more than likely that in his future projects his eye will be cast back and his art will be reborn in different forms and contexts, with new meanings and subtexts.

[harrylaughland]

Jonathan Monk: In Between Borders

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a border as “a line separating two countries.” Maps depict borders as red lines, seemingly arbitrary marks that separate France from Spain, California from Nevada, us from them, communism from capitalism, friend from foe. But, of course, in real life, borders are not simply lines. They are entities themselves. Think, for example, of the border between East and West Berlin, during the division of Germany. The border became an area itself, a ‘no-mans-land.’ It wasn’t a line, but an actual space that represented something significant: the shift from one place to another, from one way of life to another. Borders are not necessarily permanent. Think of Romania’s border with Yugoslavia which overnight became a border with Serbia and Montenegro in 2003 and then just Serbia in 2006, or, Afghanistan’s with India which, in 1947, became its border with Pakistan.  Or consider, a person living in the USSR in 1991, swearing allegiance to Moscow suddenly becoming a Belarusian looking instead toward Minsk.

Borders exist in art, and its history can be conceptualized as a series of shifting and changing boundaries. For example, the artists who exhibited at the first Salon des Refusés (1863) were situated on the border of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ art. They were deemed not worthy of admittance to the traditional Paris Salon, regarded at the time the premiere venue for art in France. The public and critical reception of the work by artists such as Whistler, Manet, Courbet and Pissaro was frosty at best, yet today we hold their names in the highest regard. Indeed, for a major Western national gallery to not have any of these artists in their collections could be seen as a considerable gap. There are many examples of such retrospective appreciation. Equally, there are others who break down the borders that surround their practice contemporaneously. For example, Duchamp’siconic Fountain, broke down a hierarchical boundary of what could be considered an ‘artwork’ by incorporating the readymade into the canon of western art history. By placing emphasis on the surroundings of seemingly banal items Duchamp would go on to inspire many who followed him, including pop and conceptual artists, who ascribed wholeheartedly to the belief that an artwork’s context was a vital element in defining its merit as art.

All of the aforementioned artists were, or would have previously been seen, as working outside the borders of so called ‘accepted’ art. But what about artists who are aware of these shifting areas and opt to situate themselves in the grey area – the no mans land between art and ‘non art’?

Jonathan Monk is one such example. Born in Leicester, and now living and working in Berlin, Monk has investigated, as he puts it in an interview with his friend and fellow artist David Shrigley, the “is it or is it not or can it or can it not be?” Monk appears to be engaging withMarshall McLuhan’s belief, often misattributed to Andy Warhol, that ‘Art is anything you can get away with.’ But rest assured Monk is only playing with this notion – he is well aware that repairing a bench in his back garden is not an artwork, but at the same time wonders whether attempting to guess the name of his collectors’ grandmothers might be. On this particular project he said, ‘I’m not sure [if it was art], but it might have been … the idea of me continuously guessing in an attempt to find out some personal information by pure chance could be seen as art’.

Of Monk’s definite works of art there are hints and references to the conceptual artists that he admired as a student. In his series of works This painting should be hung… Monk riffs on the way in which contemporary artists dictate how their work should be hung, and the manner in which curators and collectors pander to such demands. Adam Carr has selected a work on paper by the artist that informs the viewer: ‘This drawing should ideally be displayed to the right of something red and to the left of something green or purple’. What Monk proposes is that the work can only be hung in accordance with his criteria, thus, the drawing will only become an ‘artwork’ once this occurs. As a result this drawing itself occupies the border, the no-mans-land, between art and non-art. Only when displayed according to his guiding principles will it move from one definitive group to another, rather than occupying the liminal space in-between. This is the embodiment of the belief that the context is half the work.

It is also, Monk thinks, his only series that allows him to have any semblance of control over how the work is used after it leaves his studio. What does it mean for a work of art if, as Monk says, it ends up ‘under the bed or on top of the wardrobe etc.’? If a work of art, that the artist envisaged hanging on a wall, was left on top of a wardrobe would this still be an artwork? How does Monk’s intentionality impact the way in which we categorise (his) works of art? The artist urges a reexamination of the way in which we view artworks and art in general; as well as the way in which artists and individual works can straddle borders, that, like their geographical counterparts, will undoubtedly shift in the future.

[harrylaughland]

'Art and Life' at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

‘Art and life’ is currently in its third incarnation after stops in Leeds and Kettle’s Yard. When it closes after the Dulwich offering in late September it will have been on the road for nearly a year, an impressive feat for an exhibition that covers only eleven, albeit prolific, years of British art.

  Ben Nicholson is the headline act. But this exhibition investigates the period before he became arguably British modernism’s MVP. Before Barbara Hepworth Nicholson’s first wife was Winifred Roberts. As husband and wife Winifred and Ben travelled to Lugano in Switzerland – via Paris and exposure to European modernist developments – where they spent three consecutive winters in the early 1920s. Here they produced works of vitality and atmospheric gravity. The tissue paper wrapped around Winifred’s flowers in Cyclamen and Primula becomes another mountain to match with their dramatic backdrop. The austere use of muted colour by Ben in 1921-c.25 (Cortivallo, Lugano) expertly displays a glimpse of a Swiss winter. They developed as artists together, their relationship reciprocal. Winifred’s colour comes out in Ben’s First abstract painting, Chelsea, and Ben’s quasi-cubist tonal blocks are referenced by Winifred in Castagnola (Red Earth) and King’s Road, Chelsea. The relationship clearly of equal importance to each.

  In 1926 Christopher ‘Kit’ Wood became the third member of this cast of British post-war painters. Wood was a colourful figure who came to the Nicholson’s home in Cumberland ‘like a meteor’. He was the freest of the three, lacking the shackles of an artistic heritage such as Ben Nicholson’s, whose father had been highly respected painter, as well as being exposed to European modernist movements early in his practice, before adopting the sometimes staid English traditionalism present in Winifred’s work. All three were different, but happily worked alongside one another, each learning new ways of painting. This is beautifully shown in the exhibition by the hanging of three views of Northrigg Hill, one by each: Winifred’s traditional, Wood’s gestural, Ben’s austere.

  The fourth member of the group came in 1928 when Wood and Ben discovered the work of Alfred Wallis. Wallis became Wood and the Nicholson’s Douanier Rousseau. An untrained individual who as a result made paintings as real as real life. Wallis was championed, especially, by Ben in London, where he exhibited him in a 7 and 5 show, and it gave both Ben and Wood encouragement in their pursuit of imbuing their work with life. Examples of this abound in the exhibition, but highlights are Le phare, Porthmeor Beach and Boat on a Stormy Sea.

But nearly as soon as the quartet was formed was it finished. In 1930 Wood died in mysterious circumstances, the Nicholson’s marriage was dissolving and Wallis was becoming more and more paranoid as the success earned for him by his London friends began to affect how he was treated in St. Ives. Overall, Art and Life succeeds in showing the development and complementary relationships of this group of British painters that were sadly all too fleeting.

[harrylaughland]

Sol Calero: Political Fruit

Sol Calero is a Venezuelan artist who currently lives and works in Berlin. She investigates themes of cultural representation and national identity throughout her work, motifs that have led to her inclusion in B O R D E R S. This insight will briefly investigate the trading history of the region where she grew up, the way in which the dichotomy between North and South America permeates her work, and the influence of the polarizing performer, Carmen Miranda.

The relationship between Latin America and its northerly neighbour has varied dramatically. At best they have been, in the words of President Roosevelt, ‘good neighbours’ — at worst they have been sparring partners. Somewhat strangely, a common thread linking examples of the latter has been fruit. Between 1898 and 1934, the series of American forays into the Caribbean, Central and Northern South America ─ designed to protect the commercial interests of American companies such as United Fruit ─ were collectively known as the ‘Banana Wars’. Their conclusion marked the initiation of Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbour policy’. First mentioned by the President in his 1933 inaugural address, where he coined the phrase ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’, the good neighbour was one who ‘respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors’. Roosevelt, in short, attempted to assure his Latin American contemporaries that as long as there existed mutual respect and commercial reciprocity, Latin America would be left alone by the US.

Carmen Miranda, a Brazilian entertainer (real name Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha), became part of Roosevelt’s policy. Roosevelt believed that Miranda’s fame, both in Latin and Northern America, could be applied to cement positive relations between the two. Miranda was to become the epitome of the good neighbour, acting in productions designed to showcase the pizzazz of Latin America to an American audience, while demonstrating to her compatriots how one of their own could make it amidst the bright lights of Broadway. She came complete with a hat made of fruit, the quintessential depiction of abundance, colour and flavour that benefitted both geographical neighbours, as producers and buyers respectively. Miranda firmly believed in her role in promoting such economic links; she famously sang in one of her numbers, ‘Bananas is my business’. It is interesting, and important, to note that the original inspiration for Miranda’s fruit hat was the Bahia people, who would sell the fruit in order to try and earn a living. Often the Bahia people were destitute and living in poverty, so the adapted message of abundance and colour obfuscated the true situation.

The Latin American reaction to Miranda’s shows was far more hostile than she, and her American colleagues, expected. Many Latin Americans railed against her depiction as the ‘dumb latin bambino’, which for many reached its apex in her interview with the New York World Telegramwhere she discussed her limited use of English: ‘I say money, money, money. I say twenty words in English. I say money, money, money and I say hot dog!’. Those who saw past her ‘dumb’ presentation argued that she had surrendered her Latin American identity and become Americanised. Miranda herself responded to the latter criticisms by recording the Portuguese language song ‘Disseram que Voltei Americanizada’ (or ‘They say I’ve come back Americanized’). Overall, her critics argued that her presentation in the US was simply a crass homogenisation of a culturally diverse continent. There was more to Latin America than generic samba and bountiful, flavoursome fruit.

However, at the end of the Cold War — a particularly fraught period in pan-American relations given the spectre of communist involvement in the region — recognition of Latin America’s huge diversity was arguably not something Americans did particularly well. Indeed, the approach of the Washington Consensus was Americanisation-max; Western values of free market capitalism and democracy were imposed over many different countries and cultures, which has been criticised by many individuals including Joseph Stiglitz and Naomi Klein. Only by conceptualising Latin America as a single entity and ignoring its diversity, the argument goes, could such homogenising methods be undertaken.

It is this background that Sol Calero, as a Venezuelan, utilises in her practice. She has frequently cited Miranda as a source of inspiration, with her depictions of fruit illustrating one such example. Calero investigates the way in which everyday items can stand for something else. AsAdam Carr, the curator of ARTUNER’s ‘B O R D E R S’ has commented, Calero ‘plays with notions of representation, identity and marginalisation, informed by her South American Background and her own migration’. Each of the three works in ‘B O R D E R S’ play on the depiction of fruit as a metaphor for Latin American life. While each share similar themes and subjects, they are all markedly different, from black contours to colour outlines to full-blown colourful, maybe even garish, depictions of fruit. Calero seems to be suggesting that such a subject can have different interpretations and be read in different ways; these issues surrounding representation are themes that thread her oeuvre. As Anna Frost, the curator for ‘Modern Dowry’, Calero’s joint project with Christopher Kline, wrote, ‘Puzzling together their own dowry Calero and Kline inject seemingly inanimate objects with character and tenderness to showcase close aesthetic and cultural relationships between the artifacts emphasizing distant narratives that linger through time’. Calero then brings the history of cultural homogenisation back up to date by forcing us to question the easy assumptions we make with everyday objects, and how these assumptions are constructed for us.

[harrylaughland]

Wabi-sabi flowers

Why have flowers gained such prominence as a subject for still life in the history of art? For artists such as Georgia O’Keefe their symbolism as metaphors for female sexuality make them worthy subjects. Others are interested purely in their natural beauty. Van Gogh once said “if you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere,” hence his depictions of sunflowers. In the floral still life of Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama another factor is brought into the mix. Both recognise natural beauty, but understand that it is, inherently, fleeting. A flower’s beauty after all will always wane. However through an understanding of the Japanese aesthetic ofwabi-sabi a flower’s waning beauty does not render it a subject unfit for still-life. Instead it makes it a stronger one.

Wabi-sabi emphasises transience and imperfection. Wabi translates loosely as ‘simplicity’.Sabi equates to the beauty of age and wear, an object’s patina. Wabi-sabi is formed from the underlying belief that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. An appreciation of its key tenets can transform the way in which we look at the world. A chip in a vase, or a knot in a wooden bowl, makes both more interesting, and thus more beautiful. Wabi-sabi is key to the ancient Chinese beliefs of Taoism and Zen Buddhism but only began to shape Japanese culture when the Zen priest Murata Shuko of Nara (1423-1502) changed the concept of the tea ceremony, discarding the gold, jade and porcelain and replacing it will simple, rough, wooden and clay items. It still features in contemporary Japanese life, not only in tea ceremonies, but also for example in garden design and flower arrangement.

Of Daido Moriyama’s Rose, ARTUNER’s guest curator Filippo Maggia, comments, “The exaggerated close-up of this rose does not appear intended to emphasise its beauty, but instead to showcase its imperfections. Daido Moriyama’s photograph is heavily grainy in texture, with blurring towards the edges of the rose, as well as a strong dark to light contrast that appears almost abrasive rather than conventionally beautiful.” This is wabi-sabi in action. Moving away from the traditional depiction of a beautiful, colourful rose, to a more intense, monochromatic study. In Flower Rondeau Nobuyoshi Araki has returned the flower’s colour, but has concentrated on the flower’s fragility. Contrasting the vitality of the flower’s stem with the withering petals shows that this is a fleeting moment. We know that flowers will, over time, lose what makes them beautiful and eventually die. But, this knowledge does not stop us from enjoying the beauty of a flower, indeed perhaps it is precisely this knowledge that enjoins us to appreciate a flower’s beauty whilst it lasts?

Another Japanese exponent of wabi-sabi is Hiroshi Sugimoto, most strikingly in his seriesColors of Shadows. Much like flowers shadows are equally fleeting. Movement will alter the shadow: movement of the light source and/or movement of the object. There are also other environmental factors that will change the shadow, as Sugimoto has commented, “in the morning light, the shadows play freely over the surfaces, now appearing, now vanishing. While on rainy days, they take on a deeper, more evocative cast.” Because of this constant state of flux the moments Sugimoto captures will never be exactly the same, but, to a wabi-sabi disciple this is something to be celebrated not mourned.

An attempt to try and wrest the fleeting nature of a flower’s beauty into permanency for Araki and Moriyama is to capture the image through the lens of a camera. It is fitting that photography is the medium to eternalise this transience. For photography traffics in the transient. By photographing floral still lifes Araki and Moriyama are preserving a moment of beauty that would have otherwise been lost. But equally the camera captures a moment of death. As Roland Barthes said a photograph is that “that has been.” The moments captured in Araki and Moriyama’s floral still lifes can never be in the same way, thus simultaneously marking the continuation and cessation of a particular moment. Therefore what they depict are in fact transient contradictions. They are fleeting moments frozen in time. But however brief the fleeting may have been it can never happen again, thus the photograph is not perfect. However through an understanding of wabi-sabi we can see that even though Moriyama and Araki’s floral still lifes are an imperfect preservation of their subjects’ fading beauty they can, and should, be regarded as a beautiful attempt.

[harrylaughland]

An example of what you can see at http://rappersarthistory.tumblr.com

[harrylaughland]

Art as therapy?

At first glance, there appear to be few similarities between the cultural guru Alain de Botton, founder of the School of Life (a London-based centre offering courses on how to “live wisely and well”) and artist Petr Pavlensky, whose self-mutilatory act of nailing his scrotum to the cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square recently attracted headlines.Reading any of de Botton’s books gives me an enormous sense of well-being. On the other hand, reading about Pavlensky’s protest – let alone watching the video – makes me wince. However, both de Botton and Pavlensky are attempting to illustrate art’s ability to successfully tackle social issues.

The underlying message of de Botton’s latest book Art as Therapy is simple: art can make us better people. The book’s method is just as straightforward: it highlights the woes in society, illustrates how art can address them and proposes a new method for engaging with art to tackle the problems head-on. As a result, the book reads like a manifesto, with de Botton developing the insightful observations of his previous books into more strategic advice and instructions.

Do not be fooled into thinking this is flimsy self-help rubbish, though. In seven sections, the writer presents art’s key psychological functions: expressing “hope” and “sorrow,” and fostering “remembering,” “rebalancing,” “self-understanding,” “growth” and “appreciation.” In each section, De Botton offers concrete advice against everyday unease and unhappiness. Thus, the book as a whole is a pragmatic challenge to the existing relationship of art, individuals and society.

For example, de Botton takes aim at the Tate’s current acquisitions policy suggesting that it should instead “aim always to educate the British soul” and “collect works that meet the psychological needs of the nation.” He suggests that the arts should engage with people throughout society, which in turn will hopefully lead people to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings and not have to rely on artists to memorialise them. From this argument comes the book’s final and boldest proposition, that the “true aspiration of art should be to reduce the need for it.” These are undoubtedly strong and somewhat fantastical ideas. Yet de Botton’s eloquence turns them into convincing, almost common-sense conclusions.

Pavlensky thought he had only one way to air his views on Russian society – to hammer a nail through his scrotum (his art has previously involved sewing his lips shut in support of Pussy Riot, and enmeshing himself in barbed wire outside a government building). He said that his latest act is a metaphor for “apathy, political indifference and fatalism in modern Russian society.” De Botton argues that art needs to address exactly these social problems; Pavlensky does this by grabbing worldwide media attention. Some may consider him as no more than an attention seeker, but others on an international level may see the truth behind Pavlensky’s concerns and feel compelled to act.

Pavlensy’s social criticism is not unparalleled in contemporary art. Ai Weiwei’s artwork “Sunflower Seeds” similarly challenges the passivity of the masses. Displayed on a truly gigantic scale at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, it addressed an equally international audience. With or without violence, many contemporary artists indeed choose art as the means to tackle their idea of societal imbalances, which is precisely what de Botton is suggesting art can do.

Art as Therapy left me feeling optimistic and I couldn’t quite explain why. I think it is because we are enormously fortunateto live in a society where we can raise our concerns, and not have to rely on Damien Hirst nailing his balls to the pavement outside Big Ben for the government to sit up and listen. Pavlensky’s actions were enormously courageous, but it is a sad indictment of his society that he felt this was his only choice. If de Botton’s theory about art being therapy is correct, then hopefully Pavlensky’s actions will help to bring about the change he deems so important.

[harrylaughland]

Richard Hamilton, Tate Modern review

British Pop Art has recently been showing a resurgence in popularity. As international audiences and auction houses have recognised the relatively untapped wealth of importance and value respectively, the predecessors to the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Johns and Rauschenberg have been granted greater exposure in shows such as ‘When Britain went Pop!’ and ‘Pop Art to Britart’. It seems only fitting then that the, so-called “father of pop art”, Richard Hamilton, has been given a major retrospective at the Tate Modern.

  Hamilton was a prolific artist who experimented in various media, constantly revisiting, revising and reworking themes throughout his career. Reading the show’s introductory panel it is clear that these manifold manifestations of Hamilton’s art, from ‘paintings, prints, and polaroids alongside his exhibition designs and installations’, are all, uniquely, present. Installations are especially prominent. You enter through a reconstituted version of Hamilton’s 1951 show at the ICA Growth and Form, and the early highlight is Hamilton’s Fun House from the seminal ‘This is Tomorrow’ exhibition. It is in this space that Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? appears, somewhat shyly, its paltry dimensions somewhat dwarfed by the image of Charlton Heston’s Moses, taken from the film ‘The Ten Commandments’. The power of Hamilton’s installations is reconfirmed by Treatment Room, a deeply political work that depicts the late Margaret Thatcher in all her patronising glory, but also somewhat weakened by the discordant room given over to Hamilton’s copy of Duchamp’s The Large Glass. To me, Hamilton is strongest when he is at his most original, and thus the slavish admiration of Duchamp doesn’t appeal.

  In comparison his works that appropriate items from the mass media are resonantly powerful. His use of Braun toasters, renamed ‘Brown’, are a good antidote for those sick with the seemingly omnipresent Campbell’s soup tins, and his Richard ash trays and bottles, made in the same font as the French liquor Ricard, are witty antecedents to Gavin Turk’s Turkeyfoil that I found so appealing at ‘Pop Art to Britart’.

  To me, as a previous International Relations student, Hamilton’s political works are his strongest. Tony Blair as a gun slinging cowboy in Shock and Awe still remains a withering portrayal of a Prime Minister whose reputation is becoming more and more divisive with time. The slight smirk perfectly capture the character of Blair: self-assured, occasionally blurring into arrogance. Hamilton’s Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland from 1964, a spiky character-assassination of the former Labour leader who was against unilateral nuclear disarmament, demonstrates his engagement with the political throughout his career.

Posthumous retrospectives are notoriously difficult to pull off. They lack the celebratory note of those given to artists at the end of their career and having them too close to the artist’s passing risks not fully understanding the importance and impact of their work. The Tate team have dealt with both these issues with typical mastery, delivering an exhibition fit for the standing of its subject.

[harrylaughland]

Elizabeth I and her people, NPG review

Elizabeth I has been somewhat overshadowed by her namesake in recent years, but the curatorial team at the National Portrait Gallery, led by Tarnya Cooper, have sought to reestablish her as the mighty monarch she once was. Not only this they have also attempted to depict the lives of everyday Elizabethans as they witnessed huge change.

For a shy monarch the range of portraits of Elizabeth in the opening rooms are impressive, including rare examples of those painted from life. This was a time in which her image began to mean many things - from the power and prestige of its owner, to its reassuring qualities in the face of war. Her image was also one of the first to be mass produced, again evidenced in the exhibition with fine examples of coins, miniatures and portraits made from copies.

The largest room at towards the rear of the U Shaped exhibition space is concerned with the Nobility, Gentry and Court. This section opens, poignantly, with a portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh accompanied with a poem begging for Elizabeth’s forgiveness after his marriage to Elizabeth Throckmorton. The rest of the room is given over to detailing the huge advancements made throughout this era. Travel and adventure are shown in the portraits of Elizabeth’s Moorish ambassador and the arctic explorer Frobrisher, and the fruits of exotic endeavours are scattered throughout, the highlight being the first depiction of a Guinea Pig as a household pet.

All of the advancements were made possible by the increasing trade during the Elizabethan era, and these men and women have their own room in the exhibition. Again what is truly astounding in the works in this space are the international ties and the draw London must have had during this period. There are a series of three family portraits of the Wittewronghele family as well as many others from, at that time, far off lands.

Towards the end of the exhibition the works began to peter out somewhat. The section on Professional, Writers and Artists is a little sparse, although the painting of the poet John Donne is a highlight. In an attempt to represent the entirety of Elizabeth’s people the curators have left a small space for the Working People and the Poor, but it is really inadequate to get a truly rounded picture of their lives. This, thought is not the curators’ fault. As they openly admit there simply are not many representations of the poor during this period, and I think it nice that they end the exhibition with this admission, rather than simply trying to hide it in the beginning or middle of the exhibition.

The focus is undoubtedly on the well-off in Elizabethan society but this is purely because they were the only section of society that were recorded. Overall though, despite the shortfalls of breadth, the exhibition does what it sets out to do: show the lives the first Elizabethans lived to their current incarnations.

[harrylaughland]

Britain's floods and foreign aid

There is a joke that I imagine has been doing the rounds at The Daily Mail. A family in Somerset are quivering in the top floor of their house, and as the water begins to lap at the window they glimpse in the distance a boat skimming over the flooded expanse that was once known as the Somerset Levels. Overjoyed the father turns to his family and says, 'Finally the Red Cross have come to help!'. The family wait anxiously as the boat gets nearer and nearer, until eventually it slows down and pulls up next to the house. As the father opens the window he cries, 'Are you here to help us?' to which the man in the boat replies, 'No we're from the Red Cross and are collecting donations for Syria'.

I hypothesise that this joke was being circulated at The Daily Mail because they are the ones who have launched a petition to have British foreign aid diverted to victims of the flooding. Peter Wilby writing in the New Statesman called this move 'a shameless piece of xenophobic rabble-rousing', but at the time of writing The Daily Mail has roused a rabble of over 143,000 people. Those who support the move will undoubtedly point to the actual wording that doesn't suggest all foreign aid should be diverted, merely some of it. But, this debate has been lingering under the surface since before the floods.

Few will have trouble remembering the furore sparked by the MEP Godfrey Bloom who made a speech criticising the foreign aid Britain gives to corrupt nations such as 'Bongo-bongo-land'. Following this, Bloom's party, UKIP, was forced to issue a reply firming up their position on the issue, and stated on their website that they would 'scrap most foreign aid, due to collossal waste'. The underlying tone of this argument is undoubtedly xenophobic, and this is an attitude that has been, and is being, reflected recently in the UK and Europe regarding immigration. One needs only look at the ongoing debate about immigration that is currently sweeping Switzerland, or the fear-mongering over the alleged flux of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants at the beginning of 2014 in the UK.

With these attitudes becoming more and more common I will attempt to address three commonly held myths about foreign aid.

Myth 1: It costs too much

In terms of total foreign aid some of the most depressing statistics are comparisons to wars, for example it is estimated that the Iraq War cost the equivalent of all the foreign aid given for the last 50 years. That is everything, not just that which comes from Britain. More generally in Britain for every £10 spent, 16p goes to foreign aid. That is 0.016%. Even though we are often fed the line that we are living in times of austerity we are still hugely fortunate to live in a developed and prosperous country. When we compare our austerity to the estimated 1.5billion people who live in absolute poverty throughout the world (where they economic situation means they are dying), our “plight” seems to pale into insignificance.

Myth 2: It does nothing

The fact that so many people remain in absolute poverty perhaps gives rise to this next criticism of foreign aid: that is does nothing. This is simply not true. Kitty Aries, director of advocacy at Save the Children, says that in 2012 there was the biggest demonstrable fall in preventable illnesses, such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, largely brought about from investment in treatments and vaccines. It is also estimated that since 1990 the number of children dying unnecessarily has fallen from 12million to 6.9million. Going further back, a WHO initiative launched in 1959, with the help of foreign aid, eradicated smallpox by 1980. Foreign aid does make a difference.

Myth 3: It lines corrupt leaders’ pockets

UKIP’s website carried a cartoon that proclaimed ‘corruption kills’. This argument focuses on the few individuals in countries who have pilfered aid donations to line their own pockets. I must admit that when watching a documentary about a luxury hotel during the London Olympics something jarred when I saw a host of foreign dignitaries arriving to stay at one of the world’s most expensive hotels while their fellow countrymen were dying of hunger and disease. However, this is not universal. For every corrupt leader building up his fleet of jets, cars and yachts, there will be a compassionate equivalent. I guess, really, I am not trying to dispel the myth that it lines corrupt leaders’ pockets. It does, in some cases. But the actions of certain individuals do not warrant a wholescale removal of valuable support. Surely Britain, if this was the route taken, would look a lot worse than any corrupt leader?

In times of austerity the ways in which we, as a country, spend our money is put under closer scrutiny. That is only natural. But too quickly, it seems to me, do we turn to foreign aid as an area to be cut. We live in a global world and to shy away from providing those with the least a little of our lot seems cowardly, pernicious and wrong. We need to recognise the benefits that have we have by right of birth. We have not earned a large proportion of what we can be thankful for, we have just been lucky to be born in the right place. As benefactors of such fortune we should try our damnedest to spread it as far as we can.

[harrylaughland]

Lessons on Terror from Nairobi

On the 21st September the terrorist network Al-Shabaab released the following tweet, 'The Mujahideen entered #Westgate Mall today at around noon and are still inside the mall, fighting the #Kenyan Kuffar inside their own turf'. The tweet was a startlingly modern declaration of intention. Quickly the world's media caught on and for three days at the end of September the world's attention was fixed firmly upon the ongoing events from within the mall. The siege would go onto claim the lives of 72 (including five of the perpetrators) and made sure that terrorism remained on the minds of all who witnessed it.

Terrorism is a peculiar phenomenon. It has been, since 9/11, and arguably before, the most discussed international issue amongst politicians, professors and the public. Odd therefore that no one appears able to agree on what it is. It is usually deemed the illegitimate, indiscriminate use or threat of violence for a certain purpose. Such a definition is usual but not universal because terrorism is inherently subjective. It is obviously an object of interpretation when one classifies one's killing of the enemy's innocents as "collateral damage" and the killing of your own equivalent's as victims of "terrorism".

The failure to define it universally even exists within institutions belonging to the same side. In the United States the PATRIOT Act defines terrorism differently to the State Department which defines it differently from the Department of Defense. Perhaps then it is best to simply surrender to the belief: "I know it when I see it". If this is the only real option it is important to try and illustrate continuities and divergences when terrorism rears its head and identify lessons to be learnt about this continually evolving, adapting entity.

So what can be learnt from the attacks in Nairobi?

1. Shifting geographical focus

Throughout it’s history there have appeared so-called hotspots where terrorist activity has converged. The end of the previous and the beginning of the current centuries saw a shift to the Middle East. The PLO gained infamy from the Munich massacre in 1972 with Hamas and Hezbollah gaining prominence in the 1990s and 2000s. As is well known the attacks in 2001 originated in Saudi Arabia, and the War on Terror launched in response was conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Recent events however might suggest that there is a developing geographical shift away from the Middle East and towards Africa. In documents seized from his compound in Abottabad Bin Laden clearly recognised this shift, as he sought to conjure up ways in which his organisation could best utilise and develop the unfolding shifts and consequent unrest of the Arab Spring that began in North Africa. Before Nairobi the previous terrorist attack of note took place in the sands of Algeria, two examples might not make a rule but it is perhaps more than mere coicidence.

2. Shifting organisational focus

Since becoming the first International Terrorist Supergroup Al-Qaeda now appears to be on the decline. The obvious assumption is that after the removal of their figurehead this was always going to happen, in fact it is more complex. Al-Qaeda and other such organisations are supposedly organised horizontally not vertically, or to use a biological metaphor like a starfish that can regenerate a lost limb not a spider that will die if decapitated. In other words groups such as al Qaeda were meant to survive, and maybe even thrive, if one cell was destroyed. They managed to survive throughout the years when bin Laden was forced to take on an invisible, imaginary role due to the price on his head, and presumably they would continue to do just the same.

However as the Abottobad documents again showed in reality Al-Qaeda was run more like a spider-like, horizontally organised business. It was clear that Bin Laden was more than the ceremonial lynchpin. He was aware that other groups were diluting the message he wished to advance and was avidly against a merger with the perpetrators of the Nairobi attacks Al-Shabaab.

A study conducted on the history of terrorism suggested that a terrorist group has a maximum lifespan of ~10 years. This is arguably what is happening to Bin Laden's brainchild. Whilst they will probably always conjure up fear and terror through the memory of their actions it appears that al Qaeda's time in the spotlight might be over.

3. Propaganda of the deed dead?

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 those who were able to objectively remove themselves from emotional responses – understandably in America these were few – were able to rationalise, without condoning the events. It was clear that this was a statement not just simply violence for violence's sake. Terrorists, it is said, want a lot of people watching but not a lot of people dead, and 9/11 can be understood along this thought process. Bin Laden and his cronies did not predict the collapse of the World Trade Center, they did predict the media's response to the events, that would give them the platform to air their views.

This sort of attack, heavily loaded with symbolism, is known as Propaganda of the Deed. The terrorist looks to highjack agendas by staging shockingly spectacular, morbidly fascinating, almost artistic events.

However since 9/11 there seems to be a move away from this idea as attacks have, terrible though this might sounds, become less imaginative. The Nairobi attacks followed this trend. The statement of getting rid of the ‘Kenyan Kuffar’ seems hackneyed now; the location seems irrelevant, there are malls throughout the world's capitals even Islamic nations; and the careful selection of those to be killed - the attackers asked all inside to recite an Islamic prayer - doesn't strike well with terrorism historically indiscriminate nature. For the time being it seems terrorism is becoming violence with no message, which makes it even more cowardly than those who have something to say.

4. Terrorism still fascinates

The most worrying lesson that can be taken from the events in Nairobi is the continued fascination the media and the public have with terrorism. It is worrying because until this fascination is removed then terrorism will still remain a viable option for those desperate or depraved enough to use it. The only way to defeat terrorism is to stop being terrified by it. It is that simple. But it is hard to stop being terrified when the media report on the minute, every minute the same shocking scenes and graphic descriptions. Derrida understood this when he asked what 9/11 would have been without television. Maggie Thatcher understood this, and acted upon it, when she refused to allow the IRA to highjack the media by censoring them. In an increasingly liberalised world any mention of press censorship is problematic, but until terrorism is starved of the exposure it so desperately seeks then it is not going to disappear.

[harrylaughland]

Nelson Mandela and Terrorism

2013 saw the death of two political giants, one female, one male, one white, one black, one British, one South African, and one who thought the other was a terrorist. Not one famed for mincing her words the late Baroness Thatcher labelled Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress a “typical terrorist organisation” and suggested “anyone who thinks it is going to run the Government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land.” In what must seem like the crazed rantings of a madman, given the regard in which the former South African President will be remembered, Teddy Taylor MP said, “Nelson Mandela should be shot.” So, with the passing of Mandela who many see as possibly one of the greatest men ever to have lived, how can we reconcile the opinion many held of him in the Thatcher era? This question actually comes down to another equally contentious. Can terrorism ever be justified?

  To anyone with an ear to current affairs and an eye for history it painfully, sadly, obvious that violence exists in the world. But for fear that too much would see the decimation of the human race, its legitimate use is supposed to be reserved for sovereign states. So, one must ask how is it that states gain such legitimacy? A state can be held responsbile for its actions better than other actors in the international system, and given this ability a state is more inclined to try and fulfill the moral criteria known as the Just War Theory. This is a group of norms developed throughout history that states have historically had to meet in order for their use of force to be classed as a just war and not just a war. The theory itself includes guidance for the build-up to violence, the act of violence and the rebuilding in its wake. If followed it attempts to measure the unnecessary use of force. But can a terrorist act or group ever fulfill the Just War Theory?

  One of the most important parts of the JWT is the presence of a just cause. For this to be met there has to be a proper reason for resorting to violence. It is important to note that the UN definition of just cause recognizes the rights of people as well as states,and thus if an individual, or more likely a group of individuals, feel that they are the victim of a grave wrong. The apartheid regime in South Africa that Mandela and the ANC were opposed to, surely fits the bill? After all, with statistics like 3.5 million non-white South Africans removed during 1960-1983 it is hard to argue otherwise.

  JWT also states that an aggressor must act proportionally, they also must have a reasonable chance of success and the choice of violence must be the last resort. Proportionality is one of the major stumbling blocks a terrorist group faces in trying to meet the JWT. Indeed many would argue that what characterises a terrorist group is precisely their predilection for attacking innocent people in unproportionate abandon. But, in the example of Nelson Mandela, the ANC acted no more in proportion than the apartheid regime, and whilst it is probably true, in schoolyard terms, that two wrongs don’t make a right, when groups of individuals are having their rights arbitrarily trampled all over then claims they acting unproportionally go out the window. There is surely no better example of a last resort than a man willing to risk his life, or freedom, to try and make the lives of others better and more just. I think it is actually possible for a terrorist group to meet the last resort criterion better than a state. After all when a state goes to war it is not, anymore, its leaders that pick up their arms and march to the frontlines. It is instead the loyal soldiers, to whom they have no real link, that are sent to do their bidding. As such the principle of last resort for states has become somewhat eroded. Many would even war is too soon a resort in the current international system. Lastly, given that the ANC did succeed and Nelson Mandela led his country from its dark depths it can surely be said, albeit in hindsight, that they had a reasonable chance of success.

I have not examined the full range of the Just War Theory due to the constraints of space. But in what I have looked at it is clear that terrorists can meet the criteria set out in the JWT. But surely this is troubling? After all wouldn’t any terrorist group claim that they were able to meet the criteria just as well as the ANC were under the leadership of Mandela? Probably. But this knowledge can be utilised to better understand the underlying issues of why people turn to terrorism. Take the most famous terrorist attack in history: 9/11. It was undoubted in the eyes of politicians and media that their attackers were unjust, which led to a blinkered understanding of the world in which America was now living, and it was precisely this mindset that led them to be attacked in the first place. I think it is also important that politicians admit when hindsight makes their opinion change. Thatcher could have apologised to Mandela when it became clear the force was good he was and was going to become, and such an apology I think would have been welcomed and not decried as a u-turn. Instead Mrs. Thatcher will be remembered as the person who refused to forgive and reconcile her differences with Mandela, the man who perhaps best epitomised these values in his remarkable life.

[harrylaughland]

Thoughts on 'Marine A'

The audio clip makes for pretty disturbing listening. After the soldiers had taken the decision not to administer first aid to the injured Taliban insurgent what followed amounted to nothing short of an execution. Marine A, who fired the fatal shot, instructed the insurgent to “shuffle off this mortal coil” in startlingly Shakespearean tones, and then tried to make sure his insurance policy was in place, telling the other witnesses “obviously this doesn’t go anywhere fellas. I just broke the Geneva convention.” Although, unsurprisingly in the age of ‘go-pros’, ‘selfies’ and ‘instagram’, one of his fellow soldiers was filming the events on his helmet mounted camera. The clip of this event had been traded between other soldiers, as is now the norm, and eventually surfaced on a laptop of another marine who was being investigated for another matter.

  The subsequent trial and judgement of guilt upon Marine A is the first time a serviceman has been tried as a result of actions in Afghanistan. It has also sparked a debate about how lenient, or severe, his penalty should be. Those who fall in the first camp argue that Marine A was a too old to be doing his job and that when you get older “you have a different sense of morality.” In more general terms it is argued that those who have not experienced active service cannot make a judgement on how they would react upon seeing a member of the opposing army who may have directly killed your friends. On the flip side the prosecution in the case argued, successfully, that Marine A’s actions were a gross dereliction of duty, and a crass disregard for the rules of war that are in place to protect precisely the sort of victim in this case.

  However concentrating on individuals in cases like this can lead to the wider issue being missed. In 2003-2004 there was a programme of systematic prisoner abuse that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of Defense, tried to spin the line that this was the work of “a few bad apples.” The trials that followed reinforced this opinion as the inexperienced, untrained military specialists that were effectively running the prison felt the full force of American judicial proceedings. Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Jordan was the only officer level soldier was tried in relation to the abuses of Abu Ghraib and three years after the events he was let off with a reprimand. An overarching ethos of fighting “terror”, ultimately a state of mind, meant that the traditional laws of war could be bypassed. There is no better example of such bypassing than Guantanamo Bay, where the US government recognised they would be able to treat detainees however badly, and with impunity, due to the prison’s location in Cuba, off American soil.

  Abu Ghraib showed the US public and government that there was a desperate need for a rethinking of American policy on fighting insurgent forces in the Middle East. Thus, the now somewhat disgraced four-star General David Petraeus was put in charge of a complete reworking of American strategy and authored the field manual 3-24, now generally regarded as a huge improvement from its antecedent. The manual refocused the aim of US forces in Iraq to winning the hearts and minds. This resulted in US forces conducting foot patrols through the streets of Iraq wearing limited protection, and not, as it could have been percevied, cowering behind the high barbed wire fence of the Green Zone, enjoying the comforts of home, only venturing into the chaos that beckoned behind the windscreen of a highly protected Humvee and body armour. Overall FM 3-24 led to better results throughout Iraq and is now considered the gospel for fighting insurgency-based warfare. Proof that even from the most depraved events good results can come to light.

  In the case of Marine A it might be just an isolated incident that will be treated as such. However for what appears to be such a huge lapse of decency on the battlefield, and a lapse of which the protagonist was aware, it will be necessary to investigate the possibility that this is symptomatic of an underlying culture that somehow condoned Marine A’s actions on that day. If that is the case then the British armed forces need to get to the root of the issue. This might mean recognising that British forces are disillusioned with a project that they see as fruitless, with huge costs outweighing the benefits. From comrades being killed by rogue Taliban policemen to severely injured soldiers being repatriated without the requisite support for dealing with their drastically changed lives. Either way it will be necessary to admit institutional failings and open a dialogue to improve them.

There is also the troubling possibility that this incident has only come to light because of a coincidental discovery of a video. This is deeply worrying, because in a world where there has to be an image of something for it to be true abhorrent acts of wilful violence that take place in warzones are easily kept private and never made common knowledge. What this does is actually embellish the myth that British, or American, or Western forces are inherently justified and more civilised than the armies against which they fight. A direct problem of this belief is that it grows to arrogance and thus makes behaviour Marine A was found guilty of more likely. Obviously the British Army does not want to overhype a sensitive or isolated issue, but in the interests of ensuring that this behaviour does not spread, Marine A should not receive anymore leniency than you and I, so that the British army can protect its proud reputation which it has fought so hard to build and maintain.