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submitted 8 months ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

A painting of Lord Balfour housed at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College was slashed by protest group Palestine Action.

The painting of Lord Balfour was made in 1914 by Philip Alexius de László inside Trinity College. The Palestine Action group specifically targeted the Lord Balfour painting, describing his declaration as the beginning of “ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away—which the British never had the right to do.”

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[-] ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com 229 points 8 months ago

Probably the only type of destruction of art as protest I condone. The piece:

  1. Is not very old or culturally/historically important
  2. Directly depicts someone at the root of this conflict
  3. Was deliberately targeted and the reasons layed out

Trying to destroy unrelated art work is just wasteful of our shared human heritage. Attacking symbols of oppression however is perfectly valid in my opinion and is to me perfectly reasonable escalation when peaceful protests obviously do not bring the changes needed.

I put this on the same level as African Americans attacking statues of confederate generals and other proponents of slavery to hammer home their point.

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 49 points 8 months ago

Agreed, except that I would call this peaceful protest. Vandalism isn't violence. Violence is against a person. As long as no person was relying on this painting for their meals or shelter or whatever - and they definitely weren't - then no person was harmed.

[-] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 31 points 8 months ago

No no no, you don't understand. Violence is everything that disturbs those in power!

Mediocre art being damaged in one of the centers of power is violence.

Tens of thousands of people somewhere else dying is just a minor inconvenience.

[-] avater@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

so vandalism is in fact violence if you rely on the object? Like your car, your house, your bike...

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 17 points 8 months ago

Depends really, it's all deeply contextual. A landlord kicking a family out because they can't make rent is violence. Cops destroying an encampment of the unhoused is violence. Those people are hurt by those actions, even if not immediately.

It's not about reliance exactly, but about harm to people. Any action that can reasonably be assumed to harm a person is violent. Pulling a lever isn't violent, unless it's the trigger of a gun aimed at someone. Then a series of predictable physical processes unfold that lead to serious harm.

Breaking a plank of wood isn't violence, even if it belongs to someone else. That's just property destruction. But if someone was standing on that plank of wood and they fall to their death, you killed them.

[-] dept@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 8 months ago

actually later on this will add more historical value to it.

[-] auraness@lemmy.world 27 points 8 months ago

Another important detail to consider is that these pieces are really only worthwhile for their historical value. I would argue that this response is more significant than the original production of the painting.

If anything, the value of this painting will increase due to the added historical value of this event.

[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 19 points 8 months ago

Definitely. Historic or not, don't put bad people on pedestals. E.g. there's a reason why you don't see statues of Hitler in Germany.

[-] Tja@programming.dev 4 points 8 months ago

But you do have statues of Bismarck for instance. Who also "set in motion" the holocaust, as much as this guy the current situation in Gaza.

Both did things that some 50 to 100 years later ended in death of innocent people.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

So did Charlemagne. Wait he actually committed genocide himself in the war against the Saxons. It's not what they're remembered for, though.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 7 points 8 months ago

I just want to point out that most of the other time you hear about "attacks" on art the piece is perfectly fine. They'll attack pieces shielded by glass. It makes a statement and does no damage (maybe a little mess to clean up). Like the recent Mona Lisa "attack" you can't miss that it's covered by glass as you're spending 30m getting closer. It wasn't a mistake that no damage was done.

I do agree in this case it's fairly justified. This man doesn't deserve to be remembered fondly.

Ok, ya got me.

They can burn this picture of some dead asshole for all I care.

I will say though, I doubt it's particularly effective at drawing undecideds to the cause.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 points 8 months ago

If they made a single person google the Balfour Declaration I'm pretty sure they won the exchange. Now you're getting to get a split of people reading just the Declaration, which seems harmless enough, and people reading what it actually did, which was anything but harmless, but you can't control that.

this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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