I suppose this argument is starting to border on irrelevant, but with this image I hoped to convey the destruction caused by the American involvement in the Middle East. When I was in middle school, I remember being stunned to learn that Baghdad had once been an economical and social center of the world, a shining city of sorts. I always wondered what happened and how the area had fallen into such disarray. The concept of the Middle East as a thriving center of humanity is a reality that has prevailed throughout much of recorded human history. We still see hints of it this lost world, Aladdin being one of them, and my concern is that this memory is being slowly lost or forgotten.
My question always was, “what happened to Baghdad? How did it fall from greatness?” And while there are many factors that have historically led to this development, I’m hoping to recognize that our efforts and initiatives will have a marked place in history as contributing to the incapacitation of the Middle East.
If you look at the before and after pictures of Iraq’s cities, we really demolished a working and living society. By incorporating Disney and the “whole new world” narrative I hope to appeal to a sense of lost innocence in that we are not working to create the stories our children dream of. Furthermore, I put army helmets on the characters to put a strange irony on the military saying “See the world!” and Aladin saying “I can show you the world”.