NO WAR OR BLOOD FOR OIL / Geneva, Switzerland Graffiti // Rita Crane Photography
A beautiful old fountain in Geneva....with sculpture of Dionysus and defaced by graffiti. This photo was shot during the US invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003. The graffitti was shocking of course, seeing it desecrating a venerable old fountain, and it consisted only of the black spray painted writing. BUT THE INVASION IN THE MIDDLE EAST WAS WAY MORE SHOCKING.
I was visiting my family in Geneva, Switzerland, and when we passed by this fountain, I HAD to stop and take a picture.
It was when the American "SHOCK AND AWE" campaign was in full swing and we watched American tanks tearing up Baghdad in front of a backdrop of fires and smoke ..... We saw it all in our Swiss hotel room on International CNN. It was pretty SHOCKING AND AWFUL all right. Awful and shocking and it made me sick to watch.
[I processed the shot in Photoshop, and no elements have been added, except the color red. I was back in Geneva again the following year, in March of 2004 to visit my family, and went by to see the fountain. The city had completely cleaned up the graffiti.]
With this photo, I wanted to show something about how I felt about the invasion my country had embarked on to try to protect our strategic interests in the Middle East, as we buzz around in our gasoline engine driven cars. No one's at fault in this bad dream. We are all - all - in it together.....collectively dreaming the nightmare ........ one vast human unconscious subconscious motivation of sorts.........and we seem somewhat asleep with regards this kind of global travesty, assuming that war is a completely natural way to resolve issues. As if there were no other way open to us as a species.
Of course war is as natural as eating on planet earth and certainly won't stop any time soon, as long as we continue to use the primitive parts of our brains rather than the higher aspects of our consciousness. It will take centuries of human evolution for a big enough majority of our species to develop the awareness it takes to have the skill AND will for creative conflict resolution. I think it's possible, but it is a long road. In the meantime we will see more of this kind of struggle and hardship, unfortunately.
Evolution is a very slow process, but certainly it is encouraged by people expressing positive vision, creating beauty, observing the wonder of our world, sharing this across international boundaries! all these things help wake us up to our common humanity. Maybe this sounds idealistic, but I am not ashamed to have positive aspirations. I have seen people in my world change and develop skillful ways to communicate. I have seen positive change even in one generation! This is very encouraging. As the world gets smaller because of mass communication via technology, what happens in one corner of the world is quickly known everywhere on the planet. I believe this will help accelerate our development of higher consciousness. I believe ultimately human beings prefer enjoying life rather than destroying it, if given half the chance.
In the meantime, as wars rage, here are some creative and practical solutions we can all participate in to move our world in a forward constructive direction, with regards the very basic things we use to live:
www.greenbiz.com - actual news about big businesses that are going green and explaining how it makes good sense financially
NO WAR OR BLOOD FOR OIL / Geneva, Switzerland Graffiti // Rita Crane Photography
A beautiful old fountain in Geneva....with sculpture of Dionysus and defaced by graffiti. This photo was shot during the US invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003. The graffitti was shocking of course, seeing it desecrating a venerable old fountain, and it consisted only of the black spray painted writing. BUT THE INVASION IN THE MIDDLE EAST WAS WAY MORE SHOCKING.
I was visiting my family in Geneva, Switzerland, and when we passed by this fountain, I HAD to stop and take a picture.
It was when the American "SHOCK AND AWE" campaign was in full swing and we watched American tanks tearing up Baghdad in front of a backdrop of fires and smoke ..... We saw it all in our Swiss hotel room on International CNN. It was pretty SHOCKING AND AWFUL all right. Awful and shocking and it made me sick to watch.
[I processed the shot in Photoshop, and no elements have been added, except the color red. I was back in Geneva again the following year, in March of 2004 to visit my family, and went by to see the fountain. The city had completely cleaned up the graffiti.]
With this photo, I wanted to show something about how I felt about the invasion my country had embarked on to try to protect our strategic interests in the Middle East, as we buzz around in our gasoline engine driven cars. No one's at fault in this bad dream. We are all - all - in it together.....collectively dreaming the nightmare ........ one vast human unconscious subconscious motivation of sorts.........and we seem somewhat asleep with regards this kind of global travesty, assuming that war is a completely natural way to resolve issues. As if there were no other way open to us as a species.
Of course war is as natural as eating on planet earth and certainly won't stop any time soon, as long as we continue to use the primitive parts of our brains rather than the higher aspects of our consciousness. It will take centuries of human evolution for a big enough majority of our species to develop the awareness it takes to have the skill AND will for creative conflict resolution. I think it's possible, but it is a long road. In the meantime we will see more of this kind of struggle and hardship, unfortunately.
Evolution is a very slow process, but certainly it is encouraged by people expressing positive vision, creating beauty, observing the wonder of our world, sharing this across international boundaries! all these things help wake us up to our common humanity. Maybe this sounds idealistic, but I am not ashamed to have positive aspirations. I have seen people in my world change and develop skillful ways to communicate. I have seen positive change even in one generation! This is very encouraging. As the world gets smaller because of mass communication via technology, what happens in one corner of the world is quickly known everywhere on the planet. I believe this will help accelerate our development of higher consciousness. I believe ultimately human beings prefer enjoying life rather than destroying it, if given half the chance.
In the meantime, as wars rage, here are some creative and practical solutions we can all participate in to move our world in a forward constructive direction, with regards the very basic things we use to live:
www.greenbiz.com - actual news about big businesses that are going green and explaining how it makes good sense financially