Art

Wafaa Bilal is a struggling leftist artist who creates controversial pieces that criticize Bush and the war in Iraq. His latest “piece” called “Virtual Jihadi” was created by customizing a video game used by Al Queda to insert himself into the game wearing a suicide belt to blow up President Bush. It has no artistic merit, or about as much as a pile of dog poo with a Heinz Ketchup flag sticking out of the top of it.

Wafaa uses the excuse that his brother was nuked in Iraq to justify his pro-terror “artwork” because society loves leftists with unimpeachable “absolute moral authority.” Accusing him of being a terror-supporting asshole is wrong because he lost a brother. Just like you can’t accuse Cindy Sheehan of being a terror-supporting asshole because she lost a son in Iraq.

Now the guy’s on an FBI watch list and his latest exhibit was banned from at least one college campus. From the Times Union here:

RPI has suspended a visiting artist’s exhibition because of concerns it suggests violence against President Bush and may be based on the work of terrorists.

The move capped a chain of events — including claims the FBI was eyeing the artist — that began last month when the College Republicans blasted the arts department as “a terrorist safe haven.”

The work that provoked that attack is Wafaa Bilal’s “Virtual Jihadi.” The origin of his work is a video game called “Quest for Saddam.” The game, where players target the ex-Iraqi leader, prompted what RPI’s Web site describes as an al-Qaida spin-off called “The Night of Bush Capturing.”

Bilal hacked into that game and casts himself as a suicide bomber who gets sent on a mission to assassinate President Bush.

Bilal said his brother was killed in the conflict. His exhibit’s stated intention is to highlight vulnerability to recruitment by groups like al-Qaida “because of the U.S.’s failed strategy in securing Iraq.” It also criticizes “racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as ‘Quest for Saddam.”‘

Bilal was scheduled to give a lecture and unveil his exhibit but he was pulled out of the room by RPI officials.

Questions surfaced about the exhibit’s “legality” and “consistency with the norms and policies of the institute.”

“The university is considering various factors relating to the exhibition, and has suspended it pending a more complete review of its origin, content, and intent,” he said. “Rensselaer fully supports academic and artistic freedom. The question under review regards the use of university resources to provide a platform for what may be a product of a terrorist organization or which suggests violence directed toward the President of the United States and his family.”

RPI student body president Julia Leusner argued that it was hypocritical of Bilal to depict the stereotype he was condemning.

“If Bilal was making a point about the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war, I failed to see it, as did every other student I spoke to,” Leusner said.

Leftists love controversial art. They think dropping a crucifix into a jar of urine is the cat’s meow. And they think the purpose of art is to “start dialogue” or “challenge societal norms.” But when confronted with a piece of art that challenges leftist ideals, it gets labeled as racist, bigoted, and disgusting.

One blogger, Brian Boyko, a Wafaa Bilal fanboy, Peter Griffin look-alike and avowed anti-military leftist that is trying to emigrate out of the country, really didn’t like the idea of my own artwork as described below.

I have a self-flushing Koran. I want it to be powered by a green source, but I couldn’t find one so I salvaged the unspent carbon credits of Wafaa Bilal’s dead brother to power it.

Sounds like great art to me. It has all the trappings of a political piece- its controversial, challenges societal norms, gets people talking, and tackles the beliefs of a single political party. My art piece according to Boyko? Yucky. But strapping on a bomb to kill Bush? Teh yummy.

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