Seasick

Something new. Rocky shore and sea north of Bamburgh - oil on canvas.

No new thoughts to tell you, only the same persistent sickness about the genocide we are enabling in Gaza and the horrors that we are normalizing.

Here I am - reflecting on the beauty of the sea, painting in the quiet safety of my home, while millions of people are living through horrors we can’t bring ourselves to even fully acknowledge in the public realm. Unspeakable things that our governments and media outlets are supporting with weapons, words, and money.

Somehow this psychotic racist genocidal regime is still destroying life at a pace and intensity that is impossible to comprehend. And something that not too many people know about here - is that this sick and depraved child killing entity is still operating a factory which creates weapons of mass destruction - just a few miles away from here, down on Scotswood Road in Newcastle. Pearson Engineering. An innocuous sounding place. Complete with the union jack on its sign - no outward indication that it is owned by “Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’, which is owned by the state of ‘Israel’, which is murdering people in the hundreds of thousands. Oh and this factory is protected very closely by a team of dedicated Northumbria police officers who dutifully haul off, manhandle, and arrest those who dare protest the existence of the weapons factory. Just doing their job, they are. And what a job it is.

What world have we created? Every day that we go about our business as usual, we are saying to each other that this is fine, that starving people is acceptable, that making weapons that tear babies to shreds is fine, as long as you are just. doing. your. job. Creating an unlivable hellscape where human beings are deprived of food and water and medicine and homes and safety and self determination is just the way it goes, this is the way the world works, keep on doing the school run, keep on with your Teams meetings and spreadsheets and eye appointments and walking the dog. Come to accept your feeling of helplessness and keep on paying bills and putting your bin out on Wednesdays and don’t forget to bring it in again right away, that would be very un- British to leave it out for too long! Keep on with everything but dont you dare try to stop or slow down mass death at the hands of the depraved state of ‘Israel’ and assisted by our so very civilized and bloodthirsty tea-drinking empire.

We are not okay. Our souls are not ok. This is so far from okay. We have normalized mass murder. We have normalized the brutalisation and terrorisation of children. Of human beings. The things that wouldn’t even be allowed in horror movies, things we don’t want to admit exist - we are allowing. We have normalized outright lies in the face of undeniable proof. Dead babies. So many dead babies. We are not okay.

God bless those who resist. May we reject the systems that perpetuate this. May we resist in every way we are able to.