Wafaa Bilal interviewed on the RPI censorship

A recent email from Jim Finn:

I want to pass on some information about what is happening here at RPI in Troy, New York. Iraqi-born Chicago artist Wafaa Bilal's art show called Virtual Jihadi has been "suspended" by the university on the day before Spring Break. Below is a link to an interview with Wafaa from today just after campus security changed the codes on the arts building as well as an article in today's Washington Post.


Terror-Themed Game Suspended
Iraqi-Born Artist Asserts Censorship After Exhibit Is Shut Down

By Robin Shulman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 8, 2008; A03

NEW YORK -- In the video game that Wafaa Bilal created, his avatar is 
steely-eyed and hooded, with an automatic rifle at his side, an 
ammunition belt around his waist, a fuse in his hand and the mien of 
a knightly suicide-bomber. He is the "Virtual Jihadi."

The Iraqi-born, Chicago-based artist said he adapted his game from an 
earlier version made by al-Qaeda's media branch to raise questions 
about Americans' conceptions of the enemy in Iraq.

His work was briefly exhibited Thursday night at Rensselaer 
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. The game was projected on a giant 
screen so that one viewer at a time could play -- until 
administrators shut down the show Friday morning. The institute 
needed time to review the show's "origin, content and intent," said 
William N. Walker, a vice president.

To Bilal, who said he was arrested several times for his artwork in 
Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it was censorship.

"It's an art show that is trying to solicit a conversation among 
people," Bilal said. "And when you shut it down, you say you don't 
have any right to say your point of view."

The game has a tortuous history. It began as a downloadable video 
game, Quest for Saddam, that was devised by a young American and 
allowed the player to kill identical Iraqis in the desert while 
hunting their leader. Then the Global Islamic Media Front, the media 
branch of al-Qaeda, created its own version, Night of Bush Capturing, 
changing the characters so that the player kills identical Americans 
and ultimately President Bush.

Bilal hacked into the al-Qaeda version and created a character based 
on himself: a faculty member at the Art Institute of Chicago who 
loses his father and brother to the war in Iraq. The character 
becomes an al-Qaeda recruit and hunts Bush.

That was enough to get the FBI involved. Someone complained to the 
bureau, whose agents contacted the Art Institute's administrators, 
Kathy High, head of the arts department, said in an interview.

Paul Holstein, a spokesman for the FBI's Albany office, would neither 
confirm nor deny her account.

"Under certain circumstances, it would be appropriate for FBI agents 
to attend an event open to the public for the limited purposes of 
determining if there's anything relevant to national security," he 
said. "If agents attended the event and determined there wasn't 
anything relevant to national security, they wouldn't pursue it 
further."

Bilal said he hopes to raise questions about stereotypes of Iraqis, 
and about conceptions of what creates a suicide bomber.

"I wanted to let people see how bad it feels to be labeled and 
hunted," he said.

Walker, the vice president, said in his statement that Bilal's 
lecture before the exhibit was "stimulating and thought-provoking," 
but "questions were raised regarding its legality and its consistency 
with the norms and policies of the Institute."

The controversy erupted two weeks before Thursday's opening, when the 
College Republican blog called the art department a "terrorist 
safehaven." Some students began to lobby the administration to cancel 
the show.

"The message he's putting forth marginalizes the seriousness of the 
threat of Islamic terrorism," said Ken Girardin, 23, chairman of the 
College Republicans and a co-author of the blog.

The arts department, known for cutting-edge work, overwhelmingly 
supported the exhibit. Faculty members said Bilal is a bridge-builder 
and cited an emotional conference call he had set up for them with 
Iraqi art teachers.

High, the department chairwoman, defended Bilal in an e-mail to a 
critic as a "respected artist" who "does not support al-Qaeda."

"It makes me very sad," she said.

Svetlana Mintcheva, the director of the arts program of the National 
Coalition Against Censorship, said, "A video game fantasy about 
terrorism is not a terrorist act."

Several of Bilal's other works evoke the violence of the current war. 
In his piece "Domestic Terrorism" in Chicago in 2007, he confined 
himself to a room in a gallery where he installed Web cameras and 
allowed Internet viewers to watch him eat, sleep, drink and read -- 
and fire yellow paintballs at him.

On http://www.dogoriraqi.com, people can vote on whether to subject a 
cute pug dog or Bilal to waterboarding, a technique that simulates 
drowning.

Bilal announced Friday that he will make a copy of his work to be 
shown at the Sanctuary For Independent Media in Troy starting Monday. 
He will leave the other version of the piece at the Rensselaer 
Polytechnic Institute as he awaits its decision.


Reply

 

Link: YouTube - Wafaa Bilal interviewed on the RPI censorship.

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