Coexist…and there’s an Islamic connection, but you’ll have to figure it out for yourself.

An article in Artnet News is circumspect.

Street Artist Combo Brutally Attacked for Pacifist Tag Post Charlie Hebdo

It seems like something one would be hard pressed to disagree with: the word “coexist,” written on a wall using a Muslim crescent as the letter “C,” a Star of David as the letter “X,” and a Christian cross as a “T.”

But in Paris, this particular iteration of the popular inscription—here, created by the street artist Combo, who also pasted a life-size photo of himself next to it—didn’t go down well with everybody. Le Monde reports that four young people asked the artist to remove it last weekend, and beat him up severely when he refused to do so.

Combo ended up with a dislocated shoulder and many bruises.

It’s not a laughing matter, but I can’t entirely choke back a chuckle at the grim absurdity of it all.

I’m flashing back to Gandhi, who pushed back the British colonizers with a program of non-violence. Of course, non-violence can only be effective against a fundamentally decent opponent. Gandhi’s advice to the British during WWII was problematic.

I appeal to every Briton, wherever he may be now, to accept the method of non-violence instead of that of war, for the adjustment of relations between nations and other matters […] I do not want Britain to be defeated, nor do I want her to be victorious in a trial of brute strength […] I venture to present you with a nobler and braver way worthier of the bravest soldier. I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to maintain military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite our great leader and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them […] my non-violence demands universal love, and you are not a small part of it. It is that love which has prompted my appeal to you.

Ummm, yeah, what he said. Not.

Back to Combo in France…here is the translated Le Monde article. It describes his injuries: “Dislocated shoulder, painful bruises and eight days of total incapacity for work.”

And with respect to the assault, we’re left with one big question: Whodunnit?

Here’s what we’re told:

Combo was born to a Moroccan mother, and identified himself as Muslim. The Artnet News article attributes the attack to “inter-religious tensions that plague France”, which would imply that it wasn’t Muslim-vs-Muslim.

Combo declined to discuss the identity of his assailants. “It would only add fuel to the fire,” he told the French newspaper.

Hmmm. The story omits or misdirects from a major detail, doesn’t it?

Another report, in The Guardian: “French street artist Combo says he was beaten up”.

“Says he was”? Is the reality of the story in doubt?

The young French street artist Combo, known for his topical graffiti around Paris, has revealed that he was beaten up in Paris while putting up his latest work: a picture of himself standing next to the word “coexist”, written with religious symbols.

He wrote on his Facebook page that he was knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by a group of men as he was pasting up some art on a Paris street late at night. He tried to defend himself from the beating.

Ah, a Facebook page, under the name Culture Kidnapper. The relevant text is in French, but a translation:

Last night I was attacked for my art.

Last night I stuck in the streets of Paris, it was late and I was alone. When behind me a group of 4 men asked me to stop. They did not like most likely not my work and ordered me to erase it, insulting me. To which I said no.

They then begin to hit me: One by one, two by two, all at the same time. I ended up on the ground, beaten. I defended myself as best I could. I didn’t give up, and they eventually left me bleeding and ran off. They promised me the same treatment if I started again and told me to shave off my beard.

I am being deliberately vague on the description of these cowards and the exact location where it happened, because for me it doesn’t matter where they come from, or their skin color or religion or political ideas. They represented only stupidity and ignorance.

I do not want to be pitied because I am aware of the risks I take in my profession. But I want to denounce this type of behavior. My work is challenging, as intended. But no one and nothing can stop me from speaking and practicing my art and fighting for my ideas.

Tomorrow I’ll return to paint, and after tomorrow, and the next day too. Our ideals are worth more than their low ideas.

Okay, mysterious assailants. Probably Vikings.

And Gandhi peacefully won his struggle with Britain, and now India and the Vikings of Pakistan rattle their nukes at each other. Which presumably means nothing, or it would be reported in the media.

This section is for comments from tammybruce.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Tammy agrees with or endorses any particular comment just because she lets it stand.
2 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. Shifra says:

    Well, Maynard, I heard POTUS say it was just a “random” act of violence. And anyway, we should all get off our high horses and …..

  2. Alain41 says:

    Gandhi’s WWII advice was consistent with his celibacy advice. Nutty. (Because he slept with multiple naked young women to prove that he would not succumb. Also, when one of his female companions became ‘too old’ at 33, he replaced her.) http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html

    Mark Steyn makes a good point in a recent interview with Laura Rosen Cohen; to Europeans, Never Again, does not mean, No more Holocausts. It means, No more nationalism leading to war.

    25 years following the 1938 Munich Agreement, the NATO powers picked Munich in 1963 to have their annual Security Conf. to show their unified commitment to fight the Soviet Union vs appease. When the Soviet Union fell, NATO lost its shared objective and Europeans defaulted to their position of, the more international agreements the better. So in 1999, Russia was invited to join the annual conf., and accomodations must be made for a fellow member. That’s not appeasement. It’s Coexist. Never Again.

You must be logged in to post a comment.