Argumentative Essay: Now We Burn Art

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Now We Burn Art “everyone who could draw drew the sea (…) the sea means freedom no one can control or own, freedom for everyone.” - MANSOOR ADAYFI, a freed prisoner from Guantanamo, In Ode To The Sea’s catalog The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City has put up a controversial art exhibit called “Ode to the Sea” that features 36 paintings, drawings and sculptures - all stamped with the words “Approved by US Forces,” The art was made by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the exhibition gained worldwide news coverage due to its artists. In November, the government stopped releasing any art from Guantanamo Bay reportedly in response to the exhibit. Art from Guantanamo was already censored. No art that revealed anything about Guantanamo …show more content…

It blurred the lines between bad and good, beautiful and horrid. It scorned the absolutes that the Third Reich was built upon. The Soviet Union censored any art that criticized the government or didn't perfectly fit communist ideals. ISIS destroys art that promotes anything but following their extreme form of Islam. Governments also censor art because it connects and humanizes people, making it much harder to demonize an enemy. Nazis mocked and burned Jewish art, the Soviet Union banned the art of exiles and religious people, ISIS destroys the art of so-called …show more content…

First, the United States didn't release any art they didn't agree with. Now no art can leave our island dungeon. Our government would rather burn art made by prisoners than let it leave Guantanamo because it proves that the prisoners are humans - not monsters. Because the art depicts the views of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners and humanizes them, it makes the public ask questions about Guantanamo we couldn't when the prisoners were just “the worst of the worst”. Questions like; Who did we put in Guantanamo Bay? What exactly did we do to these people? Was torture really necessary? The government has no good answers. 779 people have been kept at Guantanamo, 41 remain. The Trump administration has freed none. 8 have been convicted in illegal military commissions, of these three were completely overturned and one was partially overturned. Only one prisoner was found guilty in a legal court case. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior state department official declared “There was no meaningful way to determine whether [the prisoners] were terrorists, Taliban, or simply innocent civilians picked up on a very confused battlefield or in the territory of another state such as Pakistan.” The government offered thousands of dollars to anyone who brought in a person they said was a member of ISIS and some prisoners weren't even vetted by any Americans before being sent to Guantanamo to be

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