For the power point presentation, I selected 16 of the Fading into the Foreground images taken in Cologne and Jerusalem, of young Palestinians, Israelis and Germans civilians, but also of police or soldiers from Israel or Germany, wearing military-style clothing, as a commentary on the controversial stationing of German marines along the Lebanese coast functioning as a “peacekeeping” force with Unifil in the autumn of 2006; 6 of these (16) will be shown as A3 photos in the exhibition “Politics” at the Künstlerhaus Dortmund (D) 15.2-30.3.2008

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Early summer 2006, even before the war in Lebanon occurred, when I was invited to present work in Israel for the c.sides festival, I decided to embark on the photo series Fading into the Foreground, realising that because of the current ubiquitous military-look, a war zone might not appear so different from a peace zone, bar the casualties. Photographed in the series are also “real” military or police and military vehicles. It is not therefore necessarily always clear whether the illustrated people or cars are civilian, constabulary or martial.

A new consciousness has developed globally, towards the possibility of the symptoms of war breaking out arbitrarily and anywhere, in the form of attacks at bus stops, on trains, in cafés, on airplanes: these general anxieties are reflected in the ongoing development of a camouflage dress code. I started photographing mid June 2006 in Cologne, where I live. On 30th June, the day of the World Cup football quarterfinals between Germany and Argentina, in a manner unprecedented and very discomforting to me, coming from a family of German Jewish Holocaust survivors, crowds carried and wore German flags while singing the German National Anthem. The German press guaranteed what was echoed in television interviews with football fans at the time, that this new-found self-assuredness was not nationalism but patriotism – for the first time since the war, Germans were allowing themselves to feel pride within the common ground of football, a competitive game but not war; and they called it a “summer fairytale”.

14th August 2006, the ceasefire in Israel was confirmed after 33 days of war with Lebanon. At this time I photographed camouflage being worn by civilians on the streets of Budapest and London. I photographed the same in Jerusalem from 30.8.-5.9.2006.

The photo series grew out of the research and artwork that I have made on the fascist history of the fashion house Hugo Boss that made Nazi uniforms during World War 2. Boss has become one of the world’s largest fashion companies but now creates only fashion accessories. In denial of its own history, Hugo Boss AG refused to publish the completed research that they authorised from Elisabeth Timm in 1997 (www.metzingen-zwangsarbeit.de). These days, contrariwise, even if not created by Boss, the military look has become a commonplace and conspicuous mode.

Some years after 9.11. and the USA’s over-aggressive answer to these terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq is still raging; but this has not made the world a safer place, far from it, this unjustified war has rather encouraged justified anger from the Moslem world community that may result in further random terrorist attacks from extremist Islamist fundamentalists. We do not have a world war but the wars that we see waged daily on our television screens, whether by armies or individual terrorists, is echoed in a universal street wear of urban war-fashion. The title Fading into the Foreground describes what camouflage as army uniform that has been designed to look like foliage and blend into a landscape background, doesn’t do in the city. Civilians who wear camouflage or khaki are visibly demonstrating their readiness for action.

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October 2006, Israel welcomed the German military in the Middle East as a peacekeeping force that may be there for several years. A current sensitive issue in Germany is however, the fact that the 2,400 marines, soldiers, or police forces that were stationed along the Lebanese coast, are permitted to defend themselves should they be attacked: it is feared that because of its past Germany might not be neutral should it come to an open conflict. But because the marines will not go on land one hopes they will not come into open confrontation with Israeli troupes. Because Israel does not have a fleet in this region, Unifil is being stationed (on the coast of Lebanon) to prevent Hezbollah receiving further supplies of weapons.

In 2006 Chancellor Merkel spoke of the historical dimensions regarding German military deployment in Lebanon, without literally mentioning World War 2 in which all German soldiers were involved in the annihilation of the Jewish people.

During the football season in Germany early in 2006, one saw German flags being carried everywhere and even worn by civilians, singing the German National Anthem, often in combination with camouflage dress. A timely reminder of a militant and growing nationalism in Germany is the fact that within German shores in the province of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2006, 7.4% of the vote went to the NPD, a gain of 6.5%, thereby attaining the neo-Nazis a further seat in state-parliament – the sixth to be precise. This fact is also a further reminder of the “historical dimensions” the chancellor recently mentioned

Tanya Ury

One of the protagonists in “Falling Man” comments thus 10 days after 9/11:
‘A dozen people were grouped around a guide near the staircase to the east balcony, gazing at the sky ceiling, the gold-leaf constellations, with a guardsman and his dog standing alongside, and her mother could not help commenting on the man’s uniform, the question of jungle camouflage in mid-town Manhattan.
”People are leaving, you’re coming back.”’
“Falling Man” (p 34,) by Don DeLillo 2007, Picador ISBN 978-0-330-45618-0

PRESS REFERENCES

"'We keep faith with the SPD tradition that in the 135 year history of this land has never waged a war', stated Ruediger Veit, member of Parliament. That was in November 2001 during the chancellorship of Gerhard Schroeder. With a hair's breadth majority of two votes at the time, soldiers were sent to Afghanistan under the Uno Flag.
The spectacle was in no way exceptional: whether it was Kosovo, Macedonia or recently the Congo - foreign deployment of the army was always extremely controversial over the past few years. A completely other situation will present itself next week, when parliament decides over the German Lebanon mission. If the Chancellor Merkel had not underlined the 'historical dimension' of this deployment, one might imagine that the transport of 2,400 German soldiers to the Middle East, were a routine action." Carsten Volkery 14.9.2006 (translation from German Tanya Ury)
www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland

Interview with Bütikofer head of the Greens 14.9.2006: www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland

Monitoring of the Lebanon Coast
On the 13th of September, the German government decided to send up to 2,400 soldiers for the UNIFIL-II mission in Lebanon. The German Lower House of Parliament still has to decide on this deployment that should be in place until August 2007.

The German Marine sent two frigates, two supply ships (a deployment action supply ship and a tender) and four speedboats. The German Army should take over the leadership of the maritime operation, where marine soldiers from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands will support this action. There are plans to have Lebanese communications- officers on board.

The aim of this deployment is the elucidation and control of sea passage within the 12 sea miles of Lebanese territorial water (the territory under surveillance could be spread over an area of 50 sea miles along the coast) and the re-routing of ships under suspicion. Further duties are humanitarian help, air transport, supply of weapons and training assistance for the Lebanese Security forces and military advice for Lebanon.

Until the arrival of these ships in the area, the responsibility has been in the hands of marine soldiers from Italy, France and Greece since 8th September. The leadership of this unit was under the command of an Italian Admiral on the aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi." 17.9.2006 (translation from German Tanya Ury) de.wikipedia.org/wiki