Aussie Sculptor Refuses To Take Down Anti-Burka Mural - Repaints it 40 Times
Offline 
Glass sculptor and artist Sergio Redegalli said his anti-burka mural was created to generate public debate. Picture: Justin Lloyd Source: The Australian
Mr Redegalli's mural has been defaced more than 40 times. Picture: Simon Bullard Source: The Australian
- Artists' anti-burka mural creates racist storm
- Work has sparked violent protests, debate
- Refuses to take it down in name of free speech
A SYDNEY artist whose anti-burka mural has infuriated left-wing and Islamic activists is vowing that the provocative artwork will stay in place despite death threats, abuse, a string of vandalism attacks, a violent weekend protest and a police request to remove it.
Newtown glass sculptor Sergio Redegalli has this week restored the mural painted outside his studio for more than the 40th time after dozens of graffiti and paint-bomb attacks by protesters who say it is racist and inflammatory.
In the latest incident last Sunday, a crowd of 50 activists hurled paint at the mural and then turned on police who had to call in reinforcements to restore order.
Seven men were arrested and charged with offences including resisting police, assaulting police and destroying or damaging property.
The charges will be heard in Newtown Local Court next month. Redegalli blames local left-wing groups, rather than Muslim activists, for the incident.
The sculptor, who is a well-known figure in inner-suburban Newtown, says he has since been visited by local police who asked him to take down the mural after learning of a threat to fire-bomb it.
He refuses to do so in the interests of free speech and public debate.
"I'm not going to let the bullies win," Redegalli told The Australian yesterday.
"I'm not doing it for pride (but because) I don't believe bullies have the right to stand over people and deny us our freedoms."
Redegalli painted the mural and slogan "Say no to burqas" on an exterior wall of his glassworks last September, after a local fashion designer received death threats over a plan to feature models wearing the traditional Islamic garment in a fashion parade.
The artist says his objective is to promote debate about the Islamic face veil, which he sees as a symbol of repression and violent extremism.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/sculptor-sergio-redegalli/story-e6frfku0-1225990694187?from=igoogle+gadget+compact+news_rss
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
- Login to post comments
But if muslims are allowed to invent and then promote a book that calls for my deserved torture and death, then secular people should be free to draw on walls.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I totally admire the guy ( the artist ) for having the balls to express such an unpopular, politically incorrect message. He reminds me of Brit atheist / comedian Pat Condell who is absolutely completely unapologetic about revealing the slave mentality that permeates Islam. Funny, Condell who is basically a leftist / progressive is accused of being racist, and right wing because of his failure to get on the "tolerance" train regarding Islam's most recent effort to claim Europe as it's own.
Bravo to all the ballsy atheists who call it like it is.
Amen and power to him. It's his damn wall.
"Redegalli blames local left-wing groups, rather than Muslim activists, for the incident." - how sad. As a "left-winger," I hate hearing about how wimpy some of us can be.
Yep, I have strong leftwing tendencies but only fools would fail to see that islam is far to the right.
It's funny to think that in a muslim society the leftie men would be forced to conform at the point of a gun and leftie women would be in the front rank to be stoned. At the very least they'd be completely ignored.
There's something profoundly stupid about left wing pussies who fail to see that it takes a dick to f**k an arsehole.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Good luck to him. I hope he doesn't get murdered.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
A few years ago some lebanese muslims got into a fight with surf lifesavers at Cronulla in Sydney. There had been simmering tensions for 25 years. The leb boys have always mouthed off at local cronulla girls in bikinis calling them whores - and my dad had the Cronulla Presbyterian Church for 9 years from 1979 on into the 80s and I lived there again from 2001 to 2004 so I saw all this stuff first hand with my own girlfriends and their girl mates. The media ignored the long history of antagonism in the aftermath of the riot but this mutual aggression goes back a very long way.
In any case, as the population of lebanese muslims grew, they got bolder with the insults and it was in this increasingly tense atmosphere that about 20 leb boys got into a blue with 3 North Cronulla surf lifesavers down in the park at the bottom of the Kingsway and knocked them about. Needless to say, that weekend a protest was organised in support of the North Cronulla clubbies that quickly turned to complete shit, as this clip shows.
I think 9/11 was probably a catalyst for this behaviour but I think the london bus bombings in July 2005 had an even bigger effect on the local psyche. There were also the Bali bombings in 2002 and then again in Nov 2005. There's a memorial for 3 local girls murdered in the Bali bombings by the park shown in this footage and local feelings for leb muslims after these events turned seriously nasty.
For about a week after this riot, which really constituted 10,000 local celtic Aussies vs 3 or 4 no doubt Aussie born and bred leb lads from Bankstown, gangs of muslim boys rampaged the beach suburbs at night smashing hundreds of car and shop windows and beating up and stabbing white people. Police did little and laid few charges and things calmed down on their own. Personally I think both sides behaved disgustingly but it's relatively certain it would only take one serious attack in Australia to set this off in a far larger way.
Aussies aren't as polite as the dutch or the brits. In fact, I think there's an undercurrent of something pretty ugly going on here as you can all see. But to call it straight racial nationalism while ignoring the history of hostility and the mind bending events of the first 5 years of the new century is bloody stupid. In any case, murdering this artist or anyone else in Australia in the name of allah would be stupid.
BTW, this is flat out redneck footage/soundtrack, so don't look if you think you'll be offended. That means you, Brian37.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVrksu0XW0w&feature=related
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I heard that the governor of Texas made a prison out of tents. Now I see where he got inspiration, from our islamic neighbours, of course. Good luck to the artist, but he should rather project the picture on the wall from somewhere high and away, so they can't paint it over.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Bravo to him too, maybe some women in that area kidnapped by that culture will see that this guy is trying to help them out of their superstition.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Actually, that was the sheriff of Maricopa county Arizona.
Among other things, he is noted for forcing inmates to wear pink underwear, instituting a chain gang to clean up the roads and mandatory registration for selective service.
Americans either love him or hate him, there is no in between. Since the only one who matter keep voting him back into office despite all the trouble he causes, he will likely remain in his job for years to come.
=
Isn't this the guy who has reduced spending by farming his convicts out to work in animal control shelters and puts them to work every Christmas on his tree farm?
I'm sure his salary is well supplemented with the kickbacks he gets.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
I love that. I don't know when, but I know I'll end up using it somewhere.
What? You have never seen that movie?
=
That is a fantastic idea. The projector, not necessarily the tents.
Burkas are an insult to the men of their culture. I don't know why more people don't see it. Wearing a burka says men are like two year olds - trying to grab candy and screaming when their mom's drag them away. Why would you wear something that proclaims your men are no more than little babies?
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
It's that easy to offend B37?
edit; holy fucking shit the lunatics have taken over the asylum!
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
We're all as mental as each other if you scratch the surface, eh?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Yes, it is that easy. The only thing worse than banjo music to me is mastication. If you wanted nuclear codes from me, either of those as a form of torture to me would get you those codes. I do have my limits.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Aussie's have balls. I love their style.
I think that with the internet, which affords us a lot in terms of non censorship, you'll see a whole lot more people being influenced to talk openly and voice their negative opinions on religion, whereas, religions had succeeded in making themselves 'sacrosanct', and everyone with a dissenting voice walking around on eggshells around them.
Those days are on their way out, slowly.
Thank god....
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I forgot to add that my being shocked was in reaction to the music.
Btw AE, I thought the rednecks in Oz were called bogans...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I personally think of the word "yobbo" rather than "bogan" for that sort of person, but "bogan" may work for the younger generations.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
He's going on my Hero Wall.
In Sydney they are westies or bankies (south westies). In Victoria and Tasmania they're bogans or bevans. Not sure about Queensland. Maybe it's yobbos there.
In days of yore, Cronulla and Maroubra kids were surfies or surf rats and it was a derogatory term.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck