Sheli Teitelbaum / Los Angeles
With a bombed Israeli bus as its centerpiece, two LA brothers prepare a traveling exhibit designed to emphasize that terrorism, wherever and for whatever cause, can never be justified
On March 5, 2003, Egged bus No. 37, of the Moriah St. route in Haifa, was blown up by a suicide bomber, killing 17 and injuring dozens more, mostly school kids. In July, its roof blown out and door side blown open, the grotesquely disfigured vehicle was secured for travel, and carted off to the Haifa docks for its journey to California.
Footing the bill - $ 1,500 to Egged in payment for the bus as scrap and another $ 50,000 for shipping - was Endworldterror.com, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization headed by Los Angeles-based social entrepreneur Bernie Massey, and his brother Ed, an artist and designer of international repute. The Masseys, and a core group of supporters, intend to feature the bus as the centerpiece for a traveling tour and campaign slated to hit the highways of the U.S. and Canada in April. The group hopes to use the exhibit to challenge, reject and discredit those who accept or justify the spreading use of terror as a tactic for one political cause or another.
The twisted hulk of burned and blasted metal, fabric and plastic that was Bus No. 37 arrived in Los Angeles in August, where it was subjected to an unprecedented three-week inspection by the Customs Department, which had never, The Report was told, encountered such an unlikely cargo. Released after dirt specimens from the tires proved benign, the wreck was trucked up to an industrial section of the San Fernando Valley, where it took up a berth in the back lot of a shipping company. There, a team of workmen set about bracketing, cabling, bracing, wiring and gluing it together to render it safe for public display and fortified for travel atop a flatbed truck.
A multimedia display replete with large outdoor-screens is now being designed and will follow on another flatbed vehicle. This exhibit will present a running, graphic depiction of the horrors over 200 acts of terror have caused in countries as disparate as India, Russia, Turkey and Colombia. The display will profile incidents and incidence of terror through video presentations and multimedia exhibits, and will also be tied to the Web.
A yellow license plate and a torn banner advertisement in Hebrew running parallel to its sheared-off roof attest to the red-and-white Mercedes bus's Israeli origins. A closer look will reveal various unclaimed personal belongings found on the bus - a shoe, a pen, a homework assignment - scattered randomly about the torched steel carcass, and glued into place.
According to Massey, however, the bus's nationality, while not entirely incidental given the wave of bus bombings endured by the Jewish state since 2000, did not figure as the clinching factor in its selection.
The campaign opposes terror - any premeditated attack for political, religious or nationalistic aims in which the intended primary target is civilian - in all of its manifestations. Although Israel has suffered disproportionately in this regard, Sri Lanka, for instance, has been subjected to a similar spate of attacks, and public buses have also been targeted in India, Pakistan and the Philippines. When the Massey brothers conceived the project over a year ago, they scoured hundreds of photos of terror-attacked buses from around the world to see if any had the right physical measurements required for the traveling exhibition. None did from other countries, and the few from Israel that qualified had already been picked of whatever seats, engine parts, electrical components and other pieces that could be transplanted into other buses, and then hauled off to rust in peace in the Egged bus graveyard in the northern town of Kiryat Ata.
The shattered No. 37 proved close to ideal as the centerpiece for the campaign. Its physical dimensions met the brothers' specs for safety and travel, while the blown-out stern side of the bus provided a roadside view of the carnage within.
More significantly in terms of the bus's symbolic embodiment of the planetary terrorist scourge, its driver, who was wounded, was an Arab, and the children returning home from school on it who were killed and wounded were Muslim and Christian as well as Jewish. There is little doubt, moreover, that it was deliberately targeted because of the dismay the slaughter of so many youngsters would cause.
Apart from an item preserved from the 9/11 attack, the remains of an artifact recovered from a terror attack have not been used in North America, if indeed anywhere, to engender feelings of public revulsion. For most Americans who did not experience the World Trade Center attack or the Oklahoma City bombing firsthand, the bus presents as grim and bloody a spectacle as any are likely to see.
Whether viewers are pro-Israel, anti-Israel, or uninterested in Israel, the Masseys hope the bus will render close and personal the universal horrors of terror for those throughout the world who only know it as an abstraction. As artist Ed Massey observes, "the inanimate bus structure is so powerful visually and emotionally (that) it is visceral for the viewer. It is galvanizing. This bus speaks stunningly to the actual brutality of terror. It is raw and it is real."
The decision to use a bus as an emblem for all kinds of terrorism was confirmed by a recent study conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose, California. The study, says Bernie Massey, declared that the commuter bus has become the most widely shared symbol of terrorism throughout the world.
"The bus is the universal symbol of public transportation everywhere in the world, so people relate to it," says Courtney Mizel Green, one of the leaders of the project team.
Bernie Massey, 44, is a producer of public education and civic participation projects that focus on contemporary issues, and the founder of the Center for American Studies and Culture, an independent, nonprofit organization. He conceived the project with his brother Ed, with whom he often collaborates to draw attention to various high-profile social causes. Unique and striking visuals are a trademark of their projects.
Aware of the political divisions around every world conflict that has included terror, the Endworldterror team has drawn up a concise and direct Statement of Principles for their newest project, which it hopes will permit people with otherwise conflicting political values or ideologies to join together in opposition to terrorism.
The statement defines terrorism as the deliberate targeting of civilians for political, nationalistic or religious purposes, and distinguishes it from guerrilla warfare, which involves attacking military targets. It also distinguishes between terrorists - who often purposely hide among civilians, thus putting them at risk - and states that cause civilian casualties while operating against terrorists. Governments are obligated to minimize civilian casualties if they wish to remain immune to charges of "state terrorism." Terrorists who wage their wars from a civilian base become morally culpable for bystander casualties.
The Masseys are not your typical California do-gooders. They know the world can be a rough and nasty place. There are many causes, they say in their statement, which deserve attention and resolution, not only through political action and popular opposition but, according to international law, when all else fails, through disobedience, resistance and violence against military targets. They are (secular) Jews, to be sure. But they regard terrorism as a broad international human rights problem, with consequences for the entire world.
"There are many compelling causes and grievances," Bernie Massey says. "But there is no justification whatsoever for attacks whose principal aim and primary goal is to kill grandmothers shopping for groceries or families waiting in line at theaters. Terror is terror, just like rape is rape. It's always wrong, no matter who the victim is, the identity of the perpetrator, or the cause.
"Justifying terror for any cause is as obscene as defending slavery as a legitimate economic modality," he says, and terror is so reprehensible and affects so many countries now that it is imperative that the tactic be repudiated by everyone regardless of political belief, religious background or nationality. Anyone who can't bring themselves to do that is part of the problem. And fingers need to be pointed in their direction."
The campaign is set to launch in late spring, first in California, then through Canada and the United States and ultimately Europe and Asia, on what the Masseys envision as a five-year mission. Look for us, they say, at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in New York and Boston this summer. Before they can hit the road on the U.S.-Canada leg of the tour, though, Endworldterror.com must raise another $ 1 million beyond the half-million already in hand - and the Masseys are confident they will do so - guaranteeing that they set out on schedule. This is half of what it would cost if launched by a commercial group, says Bernie Massey. The budget is kept low, he notes, by relying on team members to work with businesses and volunteers who may be impassioned by the issue. "People power will drive the campaign," says Massey. "We believe there are enough people outraged by terror who will help in any way they can."
The Massey brothers bring 20 years of experience in using high-impact visuals to support public campaigns aimed at provoking debate about national and international issues. They've developed and produced projects on sexual assault and recidivism (Morality/Mortality), extremist groups in America (A History of Hate), education and civic responsibility (youTHink with the Zimmer Children's Museum in L.A.), and several projects for seriously ill or traumatized children (Portraits of Hope). In development are national initiatives on child abuse and teen pregnancy.
The Masseys and the Endworldterror team anticipate that this project will be provocative. But they are undaunted by the pockets of resistance they will assuredly encounter on the road. They are encouraged, moreover, by support received directly from three of the fathers who lost children on Bus 37, and who are spokesmen for the 17 families who lost loved ones: Yossi Mendelevitch whose son Yuval was 13; Yossi Zur, whose son Assaf was 17, and Ron Kehrmann, whose daughter Tal was also 17.
"This is much more than a national security issue," says Bernie Massey. "It is a hearts and minds issue. As long as you have reasonable people who justify terror under certain circumstances and for certain causes, we will live on an incredibly dangerous planet. Our job, which we intend to do by involving as many community groups and institutions as possible, is to create a cultural change in the way people view the issue. It's a winnable battle, but it's going to take a couple of decades. This campaign is part of the solution."