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Society & Culture

Education is Not a Crime: A Campaign Ends, A Connection Begins

October 19, 2016
Sean Nevins
5 min read
Education is Not a Crime: A Campaign Ends, A Connection Begins

Under the light drizzle of rain in East Harlem, New York, Col Wallnuts put the finishing touches on an enormous abstract mural. The work, painted on an overhang at the Choir Academy of Harlem on 127th Street and Madison Avenue, is the final mural for the Not A Crime 2016 campaign, which uses street art to advocate for education equality for Baha’is in Iran.

“We’re thrilled that Col’s wall, which is the largest one that we’ve done in Harlem, is the last one, and it feels wonderful to have completed 16 murals across Harlem this summer,” said Saleem Vaillancourt, the coordinator for the project. 

“We’re looking forward to doing more in Harlem in the next few months,” he said. 

The Not A Crime campaign, founded by IranWire editor-in-chief Maziar Bahari, started with a goal to complete 15 murals across Harlem over the summer. Each mural set out to tell the story of education discrimination, particularly against Baha’is in Iran, in a unique way. The campaign also aimed to illuminate the connection between Iranian Baha’is and the African-American struggle for justice in the United States. “The struggle for rights in one part of the world can relate intrinsically to others elsewhere who have had the same experience,” said Vaillancourt. “There’s an intuitive empathy,” he said. Baha’is are banned from teaching at and studying in universities in Iran, and face other violations of their citizen rights. They are detained and imprisoned under false charges, barred from numerous areas of employment, and suffer from what the United Nations terms “violence with impunity.”

Col’s mural, which stands across from another Not A Crime mural by TATS Cru, covers a wall almost a city block wide. The painting features large black cursive letters that say “Change the World” — a message to the children in the school, Col said. He uses various geometric shapes and designs to get his message across, a favorite approach for Col, who draws his  influence from abstract movement artists, including Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, and Jackson Pollock. “I use a lot of color in my work; you see the world very differently when you’ve got positive colors,” he said. The artist sees it as his mission in life to inspire children through his artwork. “The biggest thing for me has been to do something that can enrich a child,” he told IranWire. “If you inspire one child out of the 10,000 that you might come across, that’s successful,” he said, and then added: “Money comes and goes but giving someone something they’ve never had before, that shit’s priceless.” 

“In the Not A Crime campaign, we all believe that we’re just at the beginning of drawing this story out,” said Vaillancourt. Although Col’s mural is the last in a series of paintings that spanned over the summer and autumn of 2016, the campaign aims to keep telling the broader story that connects Iranian Baha’is and the African-American struggle for justice in the US. 

“I think we all know that there’s still a huge amount of work to do here, and any work we do in the future will have a very strong emphasis on outreach and creating more lasting and substantive connections with the people of Harlem,” Vaillancourt added.  

The Not A Crime project collaborated with people from all over the world to tell its story, including with artists in Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, South Africa, Switzerland, and the US. And its presence has been imprinted on Harlem. “I was just thinking that the revival of art is happening in Harlem and it’s nice to walk around and see beauty, something other than brick,” 28-year-old Harlem resident Wenimo told IranWire, She was referring to the 19 murals that have sprung up in the neighborhood since the beginning of the campaign.

Although the paintings were created to draw attention to the plight of Baha’is in Iran, many of the artists involved do not make direct reference to the issue. Artists were given free reign to compose their art in any way they chose as long as it had to do with education inequality. Some addressed the issue very directly, such as Rone’s mural of Nasim Biglari reading a book. Biglari is a former student of the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), which the Baha’is in Iran set up in secret after the government banned the religious minority — Iran's largest — from third level education. Other artists, such as El Cekis from Chile and Keto from Brazil, used the opportunity to address educational disparities in their own countries, while others, like Ricky Lee Gordon from South Africa and Col Wallnuts from New York, chose to paint something abstract. 

But the murals were only one part of Not A Crime. The campaign also had a strong digital presence, promoting a range of videos on social media to tell a more direct story. The murals set out to make people ask questions, while the digital campaign sought to answer them. One video outlines the injustices Baha’is in Iran endure: their businesses are torched, their cemeteries desecrated, they are forced to study in secret; and sometimes they are even killed. “This madness must stop," the video states “We can stop it! This year, hundreds of walls around the world will say, ‘Education Is Not A Crime.’”

“I think we’ve also learned the value of telling the broadest story possible about education,” said Vaillancourt. “We want to include in our future campaigning a discussion about education equality and access to education in different communities so that the importance of this issue can be raised universally, not only in the way of highlighting the story of the Baha’is in Iran, but to stand up for something that is an inalienable human right.” 

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Politics

Babak Namazi Press Release: "Shock and Dismay" at Father and Brother's Sentence

October 19, 2016
Roland Elliott Brown
4 min read
Babak Namazi Press Release: "Shock and Dismay" at Father and Brother's Sentence