Protecting windows

Photo ANC

The aerial bombardment of civilians as a legitimate war strategy
really got to the point of no return during the Spanish Civil War.
Guernika, the raids on Barcelona in March of 1938, Madrid, the first
to suffer, though it is mentioned less as the battle front was on the
edge of the city itself at the university campus. Difficult to separate
civilians from the military.

Sounds familiar.


Shattered glass from windows can be lethal in explosions. I don't
know what caused the decapitation of the Palestinian child in the
photo but I do know who is responsible - and I'm still trying to
comprehend something I read yesterday: that some Israelis are
taking plastic chairs and cans of pepsi out onto the hills of Sderot
to watch the raids and cheer the explosions.

Then I remembered these other photos.

To be a spectator of this war is almost unbearable. To study a past
war in any depth is almost as bad, in spite of the ideals, the
solidarity, the hope that is tangible. Sometimes just a small thing
can help, some indication that people prefer to create rather than
destroy.


Protecting Windows

Some of the first civil defence instructions issued in the autum of
'36 by Manuel Muñoz.

Paper tape to be glued on all house windows.

In neat criss-crosses.


Until, perhaps, you start to think something else would look better.