Monday, August 10, 2015

African Child 2

Is there something psychological in the fact that most of my portraits focus towards the left hand side of the canvas; or is it unconsciously political in some obscure manner (note that I have chosen to colour this paragraph in red)? 

Do left-handed people do the opposite?

Do politically conservative people do the opposite?

These, it seems to me, are the truly, profoundly, deeply, universally insignificant and unimportant questions that no academic has ever bothered to ask, let alone try to answer, and why would they? And yet, who knows, maybe it matters.





And maybe the children of Africa matter too. Not terribly many people seem to be asking that question either, and those who do, like the current British Foreign Minister, simply answer it by wanting to send all the refugees from Africa home again, while the UK Department for International Development wants to find new ways to rob Africa of its resources, out-source slavery back to the continent, and seek better opportunities for UK companies to get rich by pretending to help the continent.

"Britain will boost investment into promising businesses in Africa and South Asia to create jobs, stimulate growth, and end dependency on aid," is the slogan on its website.

Which businesses do they have in mind? The international arms trade? The planting of still more cotton for export, so that when drought and famine come the locals have nothing they can eat? We'll drill your oil for you? Or maybe they are thinking more like the Americans, who just want to open branches of Macdonalds and Starbucks and sell cellphones anywhere they can.

And maybe I just answered the question in my opening paragraph after all.

No comments:

Post a Comment

A Mischievous Birthday Gift for Damien Hirst

You can find David Prashker at: http://theargamanpress.com/ http://davidprashker.com/ http://davidprashker.net/ https://www....