Suffer in Silence

Suffer in Silence

Lauralei

My piece is a drawing that depicts the world flag, the shape of a human head, and the shape of a soldier. This symbolizes the people being tortured, and the soldiers doing it. I also have two quotes, “Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about things that matter,” and, “The greatest tragedy is not the brutality of the evil people, but rather the silence of the good people.” Both quotes were said by peace and civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr. I used fine point sharpies for the outlines the words and black paint for the outlines of the people. I then used red, blue, and a tan/gold color for shading the background.

I chose this subject because I think that torture is so wrong. I understand that people do it because they want answers, but it is still not okay. People should not be tortured. Most of the people who are getting tortured, didn’t even do anything wrong. A lot of people only confessed because they thought they were going to die, or they couldn't take it anymore. We all have such amazing lives, and we can’t bother to help the people that don’t. There are very few people who care about other people!

I was inspired to make this piece and chose this right because I think that it is so wrong that people just like you and me are being tortured, and just the thought of torture is so horrible. My information came from some online sites where it said that many men signed the confessions because they couldn't stand the torture. A lot of my research led me to the torture of people by the Rwandan military. They are being tortured because the Rwandan military believes that they are part of a group called the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda).

My message for this piece is that people are being tortured and nobody is doing anything about it. The stencils that are filled with the thoughts that they must be thinking, or the feelings that they have, but they keep them inside all bottled up. My piece is supposed to explain how people are torturing other people and we are doing basically nothing to stop it. We are just holding our feelings in, and that is why the open stencils have words in them. I hope that this art will open some eyes to the problem of torture around the world.