Illustrator Wu He Qilin responded to Australian Prime Minister Morrison

 

Illustrator Wu He Qilin responded to Australian Prime Minister Morrison: What you soldiers did is much crueler than my paintings!

2020-12-04 

(I have not had time to translate this myself, but ran it through Google Translate, so there is some clumsiness in expression.  However, the views of the originator of the artwork that upset Morrison are clear and should be available for Australians to read.)

　　

Wuhe Qilin　　

 

I painted the picture that made Australian Prime Minister Morrison angry. Until now, I have felt a little unbelievable. As a head of state, Morrison would have such a great emotion for a CG (computer graphics – ed) illustration work like me that he would criticize my painting at a press conference.

　　

In fact, Morrison’s anger and emotions should not be directed at my CG illustration that reflects reality at all, but should be directed at the government and garrison of his country, especially at the part of the Australian garrison that really committed brutality. Soldier, Morrison should be ashamed of his country's connivance and permissiveness of soldiers stationed abroad.

I made this painting on the evening of November 22 and during the day on the 23rd. At that time, I saw this news. It was very clear that the Australian garrison killed 39 civilians in Afghanistan, including two soldiers who cut their throats with daggers. A 14-year-old Afghan teenager.

After seeing this news, I felt very angry and shuddered. I can hardly imagine that in today's world, when the civilization of human society has reached such a level, why is there still such a cruel brutality by the national army?

　　

Out of a simple humanistic emotion, I processed and created my anger and shuddering feeling at the time, which is this CG illustration work. As a human being, I am ashamed of these Australian soldiers who committed brutality.

　　

Morrison also questioned that my painting was "forged," and some foreign netizens said it was PS (Photoshopped – ed). I want to say that their focus should not be whether this is a real picture or a creative work, but rather the event itself presented in the picture.

　　

I am an ordinary CG illustrator who is not well-known in China. I am just using my own works and ideas to record a truth. I regard the truthful record as my responsibility.

　　

This picture is my creation based on facts. Of course, the elements in the picture and the scenes in the picture are not real. In reality, there is no Australian soldier standing on the national flag and wrapping the head of an Afghan teenager holding a sheep with the national flag.

　　

But the Afghan teenager's throat cut by Australian soldiers happened in reality. I don't want to present this cruel picture to readers too intuitively. I covered the corpse behind the soldier with the Australian flag, and wrapped the head of the Afghan teenager with a corner of the flag. I asked the boy to hold a lamb in his arms, which contrasted with the color of the picture. Therefore, when readers saw this painting, they would pay attention to the lamb first, and then they would notice that the boy was holding his throat with a knife. At the same time, I designed an effect of the blue of the Australian flag to "swallow" the red of the Afghan flag, which is also a kind of insinuation of the reality in Afghanistan of some countries such as the United States and Australia.

　　

What I drew seems to be absurd, but it is actually something that happened in a certain corner of the world. I hope that more people will see this painting and pay attention to this tragedy that has happened in reality.

　　

In the process of creating CG illustrations, I did use Photoshop as a tool, but it is not PS. PS has a real photo as the foundation, but all the elements in my CG illustration are created by myself and combined by Photoshop. Realism is one of the styles of CG illustration, and many of my previous works are also in this style.

　　

It is a certain fact that the Australian troops killed Afghan civilians. How many people they killed, and what kind of responsibility they will bear in the future, Australia needs to give an explanation to the Afghans and the people of the world. Our focus should be in this direction. What happens in the real world is far more cruel, more bloody, and more chilling than what appears in my paintings.

Australian war crimes: hypocrisy over freedom of speech

 

Xi Jinping, reacting to the controversy that has so outraged Australians over the throat-slitting image based on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan, did not say yesterday:

“The Chinese Government condemns the Australian atrocities in Afghanistan. The thoughts of all Chinese are with the families of those who have lost their lives in these barbaric acts. We will not remove the image. Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a free society.”

However, Australian Prime Monster Tony Abbott did say in relation to terrorist attacks on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in 2015:

"The government condemns the atrocity in Paris overnight. The thoughts of all Australians are with the families of those who have lost their lives in this barbaric act. Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a free society.”

It does strike me as slightly hypocritical of current PM Scummo Morrison that he can demand the removal of the offending image, and also demand an apology from the Chinese.

I once supported China when it was still a socialist country.  But after Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping introduced capitalist reforms that eventually saw the country change its direction, not only practicing capitalism at home, but also accumulating “overseas interests” that it now has to project military power to defend.

The image that has so offended Morrison and a great many Australians is provocative and designed to offend.  But it is also grounded in the reality of allegations made by serving Australian soldiers to a 2015-16 enquiry commissioned by the Army under sociologist Dr. Samantha Crompvoets following rumours of Australian war crimes.

Crompvoets repeated allegations made by the soldiers she interviewed: when helicopters landed in villages, any villagers running away were fired upon, “killing many of these men and boys (and sometimes women and children) shooting them in the back, while running away.” Other soldiers would take any surviving men and boys “and ‘interrogate’ them, meaning tie them up and torture them…for days and the whole village would be deprived of food, water and medicines…When the Special Forces left, the men and boys would be found dead: shot in the head or blindfolded and with throats slit,’’ she wrote.

One “disturbing example” given by soldier informants occurred when Australian soldiers driving along a road saw two 14-year old boys who they decided might be Taliban sympathisers. “They were stopped and searched and then their throats slit.  The rest of the troop then had to ‘clean up the mess’…the bodies were bagged and thrown in a nearby river.”

It was this report, delivered in 2015 but kept secret at the time, that led Angus Campbell to commission the report into allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. Campbell (now head of all Australian Defence Forces) did that in March 2016. 

The more recent report is heavily redacted (sections blacked out) and it is not known whether the throat-slitting allegations were among those that were regarded as sufficiently credible to warrant charges of murder.

But given that those allegations are now in the public arena, is it at all surprising that people and countries critical of Australia should throw these allegations back at us?

And would it not have been more statesman-like for Scummo to have responded by saying that he regrets the content of the image, but regrets even more the allegations on which it is based and the shame brought to Australia by findings of credible evidence of war crimes by Australian soldiers?

Above: Afghanistan 2007.  Australian troops display a Nazi flag.

Above: Afghanistan 2012: Australian troops signal to US helicopter using racist Confederate flag.

Above: Australian soldier murders unarmed, defenceless Afghani citizen

 

 

 

The hand that carried the coal

She refused to

Shake the hand

That carried the coal

That obscenely fondled the coal

That brandished the coal

Taunting the nation

Embracing fossil fuel

In our blackest hole –

Parliament

She laid down conditions

For shaking the hand

Of the mirthmaker

Of the smirker

Of the loyal servant

Of the big corporations

Whose home still stands

Unlike her own charcoaled decay…

And he turned and walked away.

Nero fiddled for six days

And seven nights while

Rome burned

We’ve been burning for months

So whose crime is greater?

History’s harsh judgement

In flames he has earned.