Douma Underground

We could try to explain the geopolitical context. The tyrannical and corrupt regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, guilty of war crimes against its own people. The population: worn down, marked by poverty, unemployment, the repression of the Sunni majority. And of course, Daesh, who sow even more confusion in a conflict exacerbated since the 2011 uprisings. Add in foreign interests, support for the regime from Iran and Russia. American strikes against the Islamic State. There is so much to fill in before we get to the Douma bombings of the last rebel stronghold in Western Ghouta. We need to talk about the use of chemical weapons, the civilian massacres, the sarin gas, the chlorine. But what are these words worth, these explanations and geopolitical lessons, against the barbarism of these civilian attacks? Douma Underground short-circuits all of these rationalizations with its final image. After all the discourse, the analyses, the ideologies, one thing remains: bombing innocent civilians is a crime against humanity.

Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director