Blow struck against "War on Terror"
Weapons of mass distraction checkpoints set up in Sydney
12 September 2006
In the early hours of a very wet Monday 11 September, dozens of 'Weapons of Mass Distraction Checkpoints' appeared across Sydney. As Sydneysiders began their working week, they streamed past the life-size stencils of a soldier in places as diverse as Bondi, Cabramatta, Paddington and the Central Business District.
The art event, the brainchild of artist Zanny Begg, was staged on the fifth anniversay of 9/11 to highlight the ongoing lunacy of George Bush's so-called 'War on Terror' .
In her blog, 'Checkpoint', Zanny highlights the hypocricy and ever shifting justifications for the war:The justifications for this war have come and gone out of fashion. A number of years ago a hysterical fear of weapons of mass destruction was whipped up before being unceremoniously dropped when (with feigned surprise) they embarrassingly failed to materialise. No matter – democracy and human rights were quickly wheeled in as a substitute for this minor miscalculation. But this justification soon dropped away too as pictures circulated the world which illustrated how these values were being respected by American soldiers and as citizens found that a raft of anti-terrorism laws had now made freedom of speech and assembly expendable. No matter – a new justification has been found: security. The war against peace is a war for security.The checkpoints have become something of a rolling project for Zany. It began as a project of the Blacktown Arts Centre with just ten of the stencils. They first appeared on Blacktown streets in November 2004, but a council ranger decreed that the work was "inappropriate in the climate of terrorism" and threatened the artist with a fine.
Undeterred, Zany created 100 checkpoints and they were exhibited at Sydney's Mori Gallery in January 2005. Now they have been seen all over Sydney.
