Yesterday was the opening of the exhibition Rum för Frihet – serier om Palestina, at Rum för Serier (Friisgatan 12, Malmö). I have a comic in the exhibition (Arg Kanin om ett Folkmord) and so do Joe Sacco, Layal Safieddin and Seyda.
Here’s a bit of context:
-Malmö is host to Eurovision this year.
-Eurovision has not thrown Israel out of the competition, thereby siding with their ongoing genocide. People are angry at this.
-Actually, their participation in the event is only secondarily what people are angry about. If they’d end the occupation they can join whatever music things they want. Which is good to keep in mind when confronted with the official rhetoric…
-Malmö, in cooperation with Israeli security personnel, tries to remedy the situation in the usual, normal way: they’ve called in cops from all over Sweden + some from Denmark and Norway. And given them new, more powerful guns. And probably psyched them up for the biggest police event since Gothenburg 2001…
-They’ve prohibited Palestinian flags in the Eurovision venues.
-Friisgatan has been proclaimed as the festival street, so since Rum för Serier is on that street, they decided to do a pro-Palestine exhibition.
-Panora/Folkets Bio, a movie theatre on the same street, also have lote of pro-Palestine programming.
-Lots of windows on the street (and in the rest of Malmö) have Palestinian flags hanging from their windows.
-There are cops everywhere now. Cops with automatic weapons. Also snipers.
-The hospital now has armed guards. Unclear what threat they’re under…
-None of this is normal or sensible. And it’s all in defence of a state guilty of genocidal war crimes and a decades-long colonial occupation.
Here’s a few panels from my comic (I may do an English translation in the future):
