TO WAR

23 october 2002

The world seems to want to go to war. I don't want it to. Nobody who can do anything about stopping it is going to listen to me.

That's what I thought a few months ago. It's what I still think now.

My first reaction was to go into my workroom and make a painting. I already had a large, landscape proportioned canvas primed and sitting in my easel. I painted the canvas black then I painted the word SILENCE in white big bold letters. Then I added a yellow stripe at the bottom.

While I was making this painting I had a thought process that went something like this.

Maybe I should stop talking for a year as a zen-like silent protest against the prospect of this war. But then I thought about all the problems that I would cause for my family if I tried that and, anyway, I couldn't keep it up. Then I thought about it being arrogant and self-indulgent and not one life being saved. And if I really wanted to stop the war I'd go and work for Amnesty International instead of making this painting.

So, instead of thinking about my futility, I thought maybe I could manage a day of silence, and I thought about the practicalities of getting through a normal working day without saying a word. Maybe I could cut up a sheet of white cardboard so that I would have a stack of cards that could fit in my pocket? On the face of each card I'd write something like, 'today I'm silent as a protest against the war' or 'coffee' or 'where is the lavatory' or 'fuck you'.

Finally, and this was the big thought, in the whole-line-of-regular-sized-thoughts that I'd been having, I should produce a commercially available pack of cards called Silent Protest. Instead of four suits there would be 52 cards with 52 short statements or questions or single useful words - maybe leave a couple blank for whoever, to add their own.

I might not be able to manage more than a day of silence but if I got these Silent Protest cards printed up and distributed to bookshops, maybe other people would do days of Silent Protest which would soon mount up way past the 365 days that I originally envisaged.

Would one less person be killed? I don't know. But I wasn't going to let this possible futility stop me now. And why stop at stopping World War? Why not all those little petty domestic ones that go on in our families, bedrooms or at work? So I had the cards designed and printed.

At 7pm on Tuesday 29th October, I will be giving a presentation of Silent Protest to a small invited gathering... at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell (warning no drinking or smoking allowed).

This will be followed at 9pm by a more rumbustious and open to all presentation at the Foundry, 84 Great Eastern Street, EC2 (warning drinking and smoking allowed but no dancing). The flames of debate will be fanned and the artist Tracey Sanders-Wood will release 1000 helium filled balloons.
Why Silence? Because it's golden, sound, worth a shot. Because somebody once said 'the right to silence is our trump card'.