Iraqi image of Edmund

“AL INSAN YIMLIK AL MOANATT, AKHO FEE AL INSANEA”
(This is Arabic and when translated into English means literally,
“Man of Compassion, Brother to Humanity”)

This portrait of Edmund has been done by Towfiq Al Qady. Towfiq is an Iraqi artist, dramatist and poet. He had been an artist under Sadaam Hassein in the 1990s and was persecuted for doing art that expressed different ideas to the regime. Eventually he fled Iraq and came to Australia. Upon arrival in 1999, Towfiq spent 9 months in Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia. While there, he covered many blank walls with art to brighten them up. For paint he used toothpaste and added different colours. As an Iraqi Muslim, he had obviously never heard of Edmund Rice. The portrait grew out of a request from me and it involved an on-going dialogue over eight meetings.

The background depicts a city- Waterford, but it also stands for any prosperous city or society with all its wealth and opportunities. The right side of the picture is shrouded in darkness representing the sorrow and suffering that affected Edmund when his wife died. As you progress to the left hand side, the scene becomes progressively brighter, culminating in bright sunlight. Suffering leads to resurrection.

In the foreground we see a stone-wall that separates and excludes the poor from the wealth and opportunities that the city represents. Life outside the wall is characterized by hard rock: life is hard. In his suffering, Edmund has stepped out beyond the wall to be with the poor in their pain. The hand of one of the little girls touches and consoles Edmund in his sorrow. On the ground beside him is the lantern that allows Edmund to seek out the poor and see their conditions. The mud represents, not only their poverty and squalor, but their suffering. Edmund goes down to meet them in the mud and then lifts them up out of the mud.

The children portrayed in the picture are from different races and religions- the poor of third world countries of our day. With his left hand, Edmund embraces a boy of dark skin- Black Johnny. This is Edmund freeing all those enslaved by poverty and cut off from opportunities to achieve their dignity. There is a movement of hands as the children reach up and beseech Edmund. Meanwhile the right hand of Edmund offers hope by pointing away from darkness to light through the hole in the wall. The lantern also provides illumination and a way out of the darkness.

Through the broken wall we see pastures of green. This signifies the green of Ireland, as well as the new life of nature which is overgrowing the rocks and the concrete of the city. We see the grass giving way to a forest of trees and to the ocean in the distance. Flowers spill over the hole in the wall on to some of the children. Flowers are used in Middle Eastern culture to signify the best possible life. For Christians, we would say hope for a better life or “fullness of life.”

The city in the background is linked by a bridge. This is a symbol of cross-cultural exchange: crossing over new borders to new experiences and understandings of other cultures, peoples and religions. You will notice the dark green of the city becomes a lighter green. The way forward is not simply a return to the “concrete jungle” of the old city- the past. Awareness of creation is starting to break through our consciousness. The new future will include new wisdom through respecting nature and the planet, as well as listening to Indigenous cultures. Education breaks down the wall of poverty and exclusion and provides the way forward to freedom and dignity. A new world is being created through the hole in the wall.

The sailing boat in the harbour stands for the brothers going from Ireland to Oceania, America, India, Africa and beyond. It also represents “setting out for the deep”: the on-going quest for God calls us on to new ministries new understandings and new possibilities. The white dove above the bridge is God’s Holy Spirit moving over the waters bringing order and new life through chaos and confusion, leading the brothers and ER Network to new horizons. A new future beckons.

Jim D’Arcy