I just finished the piece above, which is graffiti of the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled spraypainted on the wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Leila Khaled was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It was a choice made originally to highlight the fact that what we may view through our own cultural lens may not be the truth. After finding out the image was of Khaled, it twisted the idiosyncratic ways of graffiti even more than I thought possible. Who is graffiti for? Does it ever mislead given cultural histories? Once finished, graffiti is left for people to individually decide on its meaning, as the artist isn’t aware to explain it.

Ironically, this is part of my ongoing International Anti-War Cross-Stitch series. So what is a Palestinian hijacker spraypainted on a wall with “I Am Not A Terrorist” got to do with anti-war? It’s another example of how graffiti blurs the lines between conversations and cultures. Does the stencil speak for Khaled herself? Obviously not, as she has been very open and proud about her actions with the PFLP. Or is it more about the keffiyeh she’s wearing like a hijab? Graffiti doesn’t lead us to explanation, it lets us define according to our cultural backgrounds.

Graffiti, the act of leaving anonymous (although sometimes individually tagged) art in public places, never truly gives us an answer. It is a soft moment of art on a sterile public wall or building. It is a drunken moment of anger or a release of what can’t be said in public or just done for art’s sake. To some it is disturbing. To others it is beautiful. But no matter what you may think about it, it is always the true thoughts of the people, not the governments or wealthy businessmen, it’s a way for people who don’t normally get their voice heard to speak out in a public forum, for their chance to speak out and fight back. It’s the pulse of the city.

I have a collection of political graffiti images and can’t find the original one I used for the piece above, but was happily able to find an earlier photograph of it. This piece I like not because of the actions of Khaled, but for the lines it blurs. To me, as an American, previously unaware that this photo was of anyone in particular it spoke of whispers and side glances and speculations. We don’t know who stenciled this image on a wall in an area of strife, what their original goal was, if they made the stencil in a hurry or passed them out to friends. Most likely it was done under the veil of darkness, a crying out of viewpoints and frustrations and a will to action- not of violence, but of art.

To me this image is about cultural intracacies and defining lines and juxtaposition. It’s remembrance of the invisible and cultural defining line of Muslim as “other.” The juxtaposition of Khaled’s photo next to “I Am Not A Terrorist” doesn’t make me see Khaled. It makes me see the faces of women who wear the chadoor and the hijab and the kiffeyeh that we don’t really actually see. While literally their faces and/or heads are covered, that’s not what I’m speaking of. We just see the clothing. The mark of “other.” Not the woman inside. The woman who is not a terrorist, despite what her clothing might speak of to you.

And on the nightly news, on stories perfectly edited with English translations on top, this defining line of “other” is marked over and over and over again. Whether it’s a veil or a headscarf or a burkha, we may not really notice, just that it’s a cultural marker. Instead of seeing this piece as an act of glorifying a hijacker, I see a piece of frustration and redefinition, a remembrance that despite what we see on the news and in the media, Muslim does not equal terrorist…despite the fact that Khaled herself was a hijacker. I see the hundreds of thousands of women who are not terrorists. But it’s left with other random thoughts and scribbles done late at night in the dark, no explanation given. We are left to think of it what we will. We are left to find and feel the pulse of the city. We are left to navigate between the media on our screens and the media on our streets.