PROFIT OVER PEACE IN WESTERN SARAHA

How commercial interests undermine self- determination in the last colony in Africa

Erik Hagen, Mario Pfeifer (Eds.)

Profit over Peace in Western Sahara examines the role of natural resources in the occupation of Africa’s last colony. Not well known to the wider public, the territory of Western Sahara is considered by the United Nations to be awaiting decolonization. Its liberation from colonial rule has come to a standstill due to Morocco’s continued military occupation of a part of the territory. The protracted conflict has dramatic consequences for the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. This book details, among other things, a remarkable vote in the European Parliament in 2011 when EU offshore fisheries were rejected by the territory. The battle over the fisheries elegantly illustrates how the EU—for political reasons and financial self-interest—has ignored basic principles of international law. Erik Hagen and the artist Mario Pfeifer have been researching this region since 2011 providing the visual material featured. Erik Hagen has followed the issue of resources in Western Sahara since 2002, both as a journalist and as a campaigner for the organization Western Sahara Resource Watch. An essay by lawyer Jeffrey J. Smith examines the 2017 landmark judgment in South Africa concerning a bulk vessel carrying conflict minerals from the territory.

Add to your order

TAMAM SHUD

An Artists Novel
Alex Cecchetti

“I am dead. Homicide, assassination, accident, suicide, the detectives have come up with nothing. The labels in my clothes, my fingerprints, my shoe size, everything has been unstitched, erased, wiped away, blanched, bleached, and consigned to oblivion. As the only clue, in a secret pocket sewn into my trousers, the detectives found a flimsy slip of paper torn from the pages of a book. On that folded bit of paper just two words, Tamam Shud, ‘this is the end.’ Experts, antiquarians, and opium smokers have been consulted, and all agree that these are the last two words in the Rubaiyat, an ancient collection of esoteric poems written by a Persian poet named Omar Khayyam. What the hell do I have to do with poetry, Persia, and hidden pockets? I can’t even sew on a button. My identity is still unknown and not even I remember much. This is why I have decided to investigate my own death.” The Tamam Shud narrative emerged through a series of episodic performances and an exhibition by Alex Cecchetti at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. For two years the writing process and the artistic process were interwoven, feeding each other as they evolved. The art project and the artist’s novel are linked together as much as the life of the victim is connected to the piece of paper found in his pocket.

Add to your order