After our Gaza / GSD “Christ In The Rubble” incident, and after Sleuther’s delivery of his 95 Theses to the Dean of The Anglican Cathedral, it did not take long before Samuel came up with yet another brain-wave to further highlight the dire situation in the Gaza strip. We labelled our next joint project, “Opening Pandora’s Box”.
At first, I was not especially keen on the idea, but eventually Samuel, as he energetically set about his art and craftwork, persuaded me that his Pandora’s Box idea had merit, and could conceivably be implemented at short notice and to good effect in an effort to help loosen up debate on The Rock of Gibraltar regarding the desperately sad conflict in the Middle East. And so it came to pass, on the morning of 13th January 2024, Samuel and I (aka Sleuther) ventured into town with two Pandora’s boxes.
Samuel wore a Gibraltar cap, and Sleuther put on an undertaker’s top hat. Knowing that Gibraltar’s Re-enactment ceremony takes place at noonday, we thought there might be some excellent video / photo opportunities, and were not disappointed, especially as we saw the group looking smart in World War II British Army outfits.
Opening Pandora’s box with military precision to depict genocide in Gaza, Samuel & Sleuther keep a watching brief on troops at the re-enactment ceremony.
Earlier, the morning’s ventures had gotten off to a rather unexpected but somewhat amusing start. When we first took our boxes into the cafe Roxy, in Irish town, and showed them to those sitting inside the cafe, a couple of the elderly Moroccan gentlemen wrongly assumed that the miniature mannequin bodies on display were free cigars, and tried helping themselves. They were a bit bemused by it all, but suffice to say it was all very friendly.
As we subsequently walked towards the top end of Irish Town, Samuel met a lady named Tracy who was happy to lend support to the cause. A photograph of the “Welcome To Gaza” box was duly taken outside Benjamin Hassan’s Fine Art Studio. Tracy’s and Sleuther’s sullen expressions summed up the overarching mood of the project. There was and still is a deadly serious message to impart.
During the rest of the morning and even well into the afternoon our “Welcome To Gaza” boxes attracted the attention of various police officers, both uniformed and plain clothes, but Sleuther being a crime analyst by profession, remained fairly confident that no objection could be raised about Samuel’s display boxes. With his criminal intelligence analyst’s hat on, this was about heightening awareness about a dire situation, a global existential threat, and acts of genocide.
Sleuther had learned that there was a coffee morning event in the Anglican Cathedral. Earlier in the week, Sleuther had hand-delivered his laminated 95 Theses on Gaza to the Dean Ian Tarrant, so it seemed right and fitting for the Pandora’s Box to be likewise on show in the Cathedral, too.
Over tea (not of the Yorkshire Tea Bag Boxes kind), Samuel and Sleuther both very much enjoyed chatting to an educated lady named Jean who had no objection whatsoever in posing for the camera after listening to our motives for making these “Welcome To Gaza” box models.
In Main Street, people were asking us about the “Welcome To Gaza” boxes and taking photographs. One mother and her teenage daughters all took photographs of the boxes on display and thanked us for what we were doing by way of street activism. Again in Main Street, we stopped to briefly chat with John Culato too, and had a photograph taken together. Pictures were taken with numerous others.
Just before the noonday re-enactment ceremony started, a gentleman named Jonny Walker asked to go before a camera and speak about the situation in GAZA, as he saw it. Sleuther and Samuel had no desire to censor what Jonny felt obliged to say before a camera, and so we gave an undertaking to publish his missive unedited.
Jonny Walker in Gibraltar – Uncensored
After the noonday procession was over, Samuel and Sleuther headed off towards Morrisons. On the way there, Sleuther bumped into Caz who approved of the boxes every bit as much as he had previously approved of Sleuther’s laminates during the Covid Plandemic era.
The next day, Samuel made an appearance at the Anglican Cathedral, and reported to Sleuther that one of the parishioners told him to keep up the good work.
In the evening, Samuel and Sleuther went to the local cinema to watch the film “One Life” which has been labelled The British Schindler’s List. The trailer can be watched here.
“One Life” is a 2023 British biographical drama film directed by James Hawes. It is based on the true story of British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton as he looks back on his past efforts to help groups of Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to hide and flee in 1938–39, just before the beginning of World War II.
The reason why Sleuther took Samuel to the cinema was partly because Sleuther’s original inspiration came from Jayne Wink’s non-political vigil for the children on 19th December 2023. Sleuther watched the film above, with Jayne Wink’s non-political goals kept very much at the forefront of his mind.
Sleuther thinks it is manifestly wrong to stay silent when children are getting harmed, and finds the wilful blindness on show abhorrent. When innocent children’s lives are being destroyed, voices need to be heard, not suppressed. Samuel agrees wholeheartedly.
In a spirit in keeping with Project Servator, Gibraltar needs to be allowed to speak freely on such important global matters, without fear of censorship and political interference, and Samuel and Sleuther, as two unlikely lads from the north of England, do not intend to be unlawfully silenced for doing nothing wrong in speaking truth to power whenever and wherever it needs to be done.