Week 11 Antakya - my new art project - so called

 Screenshot of the olive grove that was ripped apart on 6 February 2023 in Antakya, Turkey

A brand-new week that is behind us. A clean slate as it were; and yet there are 12.5 million people in Turkey and Syria that were adversely affected by the devastating earthquakes and the hundreds of aftershocks. They lost everything, except their lives. I think that the trauma must be almost unbearable. It must be sheer horror.

Video of the chasm that was ripped open.

I won’t forget that night I received a whatsapp from my brother-in-law who lives in Wellington, Western Cape, South Africa informing me about this. My initial reaction was one of disbelief and to put in the category of fake news. And then my quest began: can I believe this? Or not? And it quickly turned out that it is true. It is a horrific truth, but still true. My next reaction was that it was a brutal creative display of natural forces; the same brutal creativity since the beginning of earth time.

My short protest about the exotic cats in captivity in South Africa is about at its end and by that I mean my sketch I created to register my dismay at this abuse of nature. Being a lawyer, I kept on reading about this phenomenon of animals in captivity, it transpired that there are more Bengal tigers in captivity in the USA than there are in their natural habitat. Well, I enjoyed my short expedition into this lot.

My "protest" against these exotic animals in captivity.

Now, I am onto the earthquake and the devastating effects in specifically Antakya. Antakya? Yes, that is Antioch in New Testament times. It is the same place where St Peter and St Paul were working tirelessly promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Crucified and the Resurrected One – the cutting edge of our Christian faith and rest. And I am aware how polemical this statement is. The cutting edge between the Christian faith and the rest? Really?

This is an aspect or viewpoint if you will, that is crucial. You either believe it or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways. Christ was murdered; it was a judicial murder. Judge Pontius Pilate found Him not-guilt of anything deserving the death penalty. This Judge was a strange character. So far it seems to me as if he is the only judge who was of the view that you, as a judge, should find the same suspect of heinous crimes worthy of death, not-guilty three times. Can you imagine? Three times not guilty. And then he did another thing that a judge should not do. When an accused is found not-guilty, such a person should be unshackled, and set free. Not Pilate. Oh, not him. He then handed Christ over to the murderous Jewish mob and the Roman Soldiers to crucify Him. Horrible. But true. Three days later He rose from the dead. St Paul, the same man, who worked tirelessly in Antakya/Antioch, promoting these facts, wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 about this lot.

I am trying to get to grips with this brutal creativity

Back to that whatsapp and Antakya. More than 50 000 people perished. Hundreds of thousands of buildings and structures were demolished. With all of this, the infrastructure of businesses and professional services came to an abrupt end. And landscapes were changed. For ever? Or shall I state until the next devasting quake; you see, Turkey is in the centre of an earthquake belt so to say. I read last night that there were more than 500 000 quakes last year of which only 100 were devastatingly destructive. And these two in Antakya of 6 February 2023 are part of the 500 000.

All of the above photos are from Antakya - how do you sketch the ruins? Rubble?

I am trying to make sense of this happening; trying to comprehend it; trying to come to grips with it. It eludes me. The videos that circulated on social media is riveting and at the same time repulsive. Now, I try to create something. And once again I will have it laminated and use as a place mat at the table. I downloaded images of the city that was destroyed and try to sketch the rubble. How do you sketch rubble? The glib and easy answer is just as you would an elephant, or a motor vehicle. I battle with that. I think I should go to a building site where a building was demolished and study it and take some photo’s – yes, I realise it is not the same. I must do something. And I will.

How are you doing? What are you doing with this quake? Does it affect you? How? And what are you doing to comprehend it? How do you grasp it?

Please write me your story: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za