Wednesday, 21 December 2016

Aleppo : Picasso's masterpiece in 21st Century

On 26 April 1937, during the Spain Civil War, Guernica, a town in Biscay province in Spain, was bombed by Nazi German and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists.
It included the intentional targeting of civilians by air forces. More than 1,654 people were killed at the time.

Guernica by Picasso. | Oil on canvas. | 137.4 in × 305.5 in | Madrid, Spain 1937
In response to that genocide, Pablo Picasso painted one of his masterpiece and one of the most powerful anti-war paintings called Guernica. 
Guernica demonstrates the tragedies of war and the torment it causes upon people, especially innocent civilians.

Much the same as Guernica there is one more city experiencing something similar today. The city had a population of over 2.5 million back in 2011. In 2012 a civil war started when a large number of rebels began challenging the rightist government. The violence reached its climax in 2016 when the government was backed by a few other countries. The overwhelming airstrikes by military resulted in migrations of more than 10 thousand residents. In December 2016, the cruel forces conquered the city and vanquished the Rebels but everything was devastated. Thousands of innocent people including children and women were brutally killed.

On 12 December 2016, after conquering the city of Aleppo, the military began executing innocent civilians fiercely. More than 82 on spot executions, including women and children, were reported by international media.

Aleppo, Syria's second-largest metropolis, has turned into another Guernica. Since September 2016 Russia and Syria, at the request of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, started nocturnal air strikes on Rebel-held parts of Aleppo. By December 2016, the strikes became intense. The Russian and Syrian military crossed all the limits of human rights violation and war crimes. Thousands of innocent people including children and women were massacred. They did something called "double tap" attacks which targeted the rescue workers and first responders at the location of bombing. Even hospitals were not spared. There is nothing left in the city except debris and dead bodies. At this moment, the magnitude of loss and fatalities is obscure.


Aleppo | Courtesy: www.thenation.com


Between 2011 and 2016 the number of deaths in Syrian war is estimated around 470,000.

I have always wondered that what it would be like to see something like holocaust or Guernica in 21st century. How people would react and stop it? How they won't let it happen again because now the world is a "better place". Now that it just happened, I don't know how to react!

World Response

What will happen next is that the cataclysm will be seen in most of the art forms. Someone will make one more painting, much the same as Guernica. People will esteem and value it and shed some fake tears. Movies and documentaries will be made on it. The artworks will be appreciated by the entire world simply like 1937 Guernica.







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