22.05.2024
Introduction
What is the crime of political protest art?
Marieha Hussain, a teacher, has been charged for her political protest ‘Pro-Palestine’ poster which depicts Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts.
You can read about the controversy about the use of the term ‘coconut’ here to refer to brown people that are perceived by other people as taking up the reins of white supremacist power by mimicking white supremacist oppressors:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/21/uk-police-charge-pro-palestine-protester-behind-divisive-coconut-placard
Suneel’s Analysis of the Poster
The poster has to be set in the context. This is crucial. Obviously the context is the pro-Palestine protest. However, these protests are not only about Palestine and Israel. They are about the racism and degradation that a white supremacist society in Britain inflicts upon us brown people. A country where brown lives don’t matter. So whereas they will help white Ukrainians, they will not try to save brown bodies that are victimised and killed.
The poster is therefore a criticism of white supremacy and its inhumanity. It is not a racist attack on brown people. What is being criticised is the fact that, despite having brown skin, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman have become not only the supporters, but also the faces of a white supremacist, oppressive regime. The poster is not just about the handling of the war. It is also about the inhumane and xenophobic policies of these two against immigrants and immigration where humans are treated as though they were garbage. Anyone that doesn’t see these policies as tantamount to an oppressive regime of hate and rule through hate is kidding themselves.
The other context is that Tony Blair and his government have historically spurred on the racism in this country against brown people and Muslims by – in a fake war, let us remember – killing countless civilians, women and children in the Iraq wars. There is blood on the hands of the state in this country.
And this poster is merely a continuation of protest and demonstration in poster art against this racism and killing. The ‘Bliar placard’ from 2003 which is designed by David Gentleman picked on the racism of Blair and his government in these protests and highlighted the fact that they were white supremacists oppressing the perceived Other too in a fake war and a tissue of lies and hate. The ‘Bliar’ placard has the word ‘Bliar’ written purposely in white with bloodstains upon it. Again, each of the faults of Blair the Bliar are listed in white because they are white faults: arrogance, folly, credulity, hypocrisy, axis of evil to name a few. As the invective of the just against the guilty, these words can be insults. Gentleman uses the word ‘poodle’ to describe Tony Blair as America’s dog, an appraisal of this liar and racist as subhuman and slavish.
The coconut poster plays on the identity of the leader that is perceived as a white supremacist like in the ‘Bliar’ placard. They seem brown. But they support white supremacism. Blair’s identity becomes that of a white supremacist liar rather than a man of truth and honour – someone with a fake racist war and an agenda to launch a modern racial crusade.
So, in itself, accusing someone of being a racist and a white supremacist through the poster format is not a hate crime. On the contrary, it is what the oppressed and victimised have to accuse their oppressors. Saying that someone is a white supremacist when they appear to be brown on the outside is a form of exposure, just like Gentleman’s placard. It is going beyond surface appearances to get at the heart of the matter.
What the coconut poster is saying is that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman are white and hollowed out inside like a coconut – devoid of soul. Heartless. Like an inanimate, dead fruit taken off a tree with no life and no humanity inside it. No ability to form part of a system like the tree. Isolated and cut off from their roots. The botanical metaphor is deep.
People – the racism deniers – say to us that now that a brown man is the Prime Minister, it shows us that this country is not racist. The poster denies this forcefully. It shows us that he is there because he took on the foul garb of white supremacism.
Again, the context in which this poster is situated – killing. Coconuts cause deaths by falling on the heads of others below the tree. The poster is meant to be held about the head of the protester. They are trying to kill us brown people not only physically in wars where our lives are nothing, but also spiritually by trying to kill our culture, destroy our way of life and make it morally abhorrent through their so called ‘knowledge’, ‘education’ and ‘civilisation’: which all comes under the political euphemism ‘integration’. The fatal coconut is an apt symbol of attempted cultural genocide.
The poster is a mixed media collage of photograph and drawing, where the faces have been cut out and then imposed upon coconuts. It harks back to the handicrafts of Victorian women who made such fantastic photocollages in albums to be shared as displays in the drawing room. This woman has pulled a woman’s technique out of private life and made it into a revolutionary protest against the inhumane and racist power in this country.
The consequence of the technique is that it takes away the aura of power and status that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman have in the newspapers and the supposedly ‘impartial’ media that won’t condemn their inhumanity and crimes against brown people. It shows that – in the poetics of exposure – that they are less than human in their arrogance and their clinging to white suprematism. Less even than a living tree. They have ‘fallen’ and the poster literalises this in the fall of the coconut.
The photocollage transforms Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman. This is because they – and this state and government – are trying to transform brown people into white people in the political euphemism of ‘integration’. They want to destroy what we are so we mimic them and have no identity of our own. They do not believe in diversity and inclusion. They actually hate diversity an inclusion. Therefore, the transformation of the two political figures into coconuts is a protest – the ones that will be transformed according to our perspective are you and not us. We will retain our identity.
The poster masses Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman with other coconuts. The point is not just to compare them to the others. The point is to show that what is being protested against is the regime of forced ‘integration’ where our cultural values are denigrated, mocked, criminalised. Where the only time you really see a brown face in the papers on a regular basis is as a criminal or a sexual predator, where you don’t see brown people as actors, actresses, singers or other positive cultural figures. Because they believe that we have no soul and they don’t want to see us. They want to keep us marginalised, sub-human.
The leaves of the tree form a star in the sky from which the coconuts have fallen – from the height of power down to the ground. It is the aim of the poster – to bring them down from the heights. To destroy their arrogance and white supremacism.
The tree itself is bowing over with coconuts – the political sphere, the heights of power, are filled with these white suprematicists. There are too many.
There is a white field behind the tree, negative space. What the white supremacists want to transform the world into. The ocean of humanity that should be behind. They want to destroy difference. They want to rule the world based on the whiteness of their skins. This is ultimately what the poster is fighting against.
As a protest from the victim against the powerful, this is not a hate crime. This is a reasoned assessment of white supremacy in this present government and a comment upon its hypocrisy. It is a criticism of how the Conservative party have used brown people to pretend that they are inclusive and diverse when these people have actually legislated against immigrants and don’t care about brown people at all. It is an exposure of what the reality is behind the fake veneer of civilisation and the sharing of power. It is a poster from one disenfranchised from power, the woman, the brown woman. About the reality of power in this country.
Inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab sada zindabaad! Jai Maa Kaali!
Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever! Hail the Dark Mother!
diary of a lone man 