![](/web/20061029120613im_/http://www.civilization.ca/cultur/cespays/images/pay1_16p3.jpg)
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(Photo: Harry Foster © Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation)
If they express their thirst for peace and aspire to a better life for
their family, artists originating from countries and territories ravaged
by conflicts-Algeria, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon-also denounce the absurdity
of war, the way it has become a feature of everyday life, as well as any
abuse and oppression of all kinds.
How can we not react when countries that we cherish-countries of our
parents, of our neighbours, of our friends-are torn apart or disintegrate,
thus putting our loved ones in peril of death? How can we not feel haunted
and wounded by so much cruelty, so much injustice, without denouncing
wrongdoing where it exists?
With their own means, the artists-who have ties both here and back
there-burst apart the borders and remind us that we are all, in one way
or another, bound up with the fate of others and that "our neighbours,
even if they live on another continent, remain nonetheless our neighbours."
If their art allows them to exorcise pain or to express anger or hope, it
also gives them the possibility of participating in the construction of
new symbolic references that enrich their adoptive culture, as they express
political and aesthetic points of view nourished by exile.
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