“Thak you for holping us,” I guess an Afghan child wrote in September 2021, upon arriving in the US as part of Operation Allies Welcome, the program that evacuated tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked with US and coalition occupation forces, who, along with their families, were facing imminent execution when the US began withdrawing from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. Over 73,000 folks were granted Special Immigrant Visa status and settled in the US. Operation Welcome Allies was the military/civilian/private sector support campaign while their asylum claims were being processed.
This drawing caught my attention while passing through an otherwise emptied Dulles airport late the other night. To say there’s a Twombly-esque quality to it acknowledges the all-over-ness of the composition, while not doing justice to the style of the marks. Many feel to me like abstractions of Arabic writing elements, in the same way Twombly’s loops can feel like cursive Ls or Is. The fat Arabic text, written in outline but not completely filled in, helps with that reading. I cannot get a plausible translation, though, so if you have a suggestion, hmu.
Anyway, when I saw this, I wondered if the child whose life the US government had put in mortal danger, then saved, had since been kidnapped by the US government and thrown into a concentration camp or deported back to certain death.
Previously, related: Cy Twombly Not Writing