Behind bars and erased, Banksy’s art speaks louder than ever

Artist Banksy’s new artwork on the Royal Courts of Justice, showing a bewigged, Frankenstein judge beating an anti-genocide protester with a gavel, was rapidly attacked by a panicked establishment seemingly unable to cope with critique of the Starmer regime’s war on the human and civil rights of UK people to protect Israel and corporate interests.

But the attempt to erase the artwork – normally building owners run to protect them when they appear, with a view to selling them for millions – has only amplified its message and spread awareness of it among a public already disgusted by Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian children and their families, and by the government’s mass arrests of pensioners and disabled people for holding signs the regime disapproves of.

Banksy: left with the ‘ghost of justice’

The initial attempt to scrub away the stencilled painting left behind a clear outline of the original that still made the original intent perfectly clear – and a photograph taken as the sun shone through a railing next to the remnants made it look like the protester was being beaten behind bars.

One commenter on the Skwawkbox Bluesky feed called it “The ghost of justice” – and he was right.

Another said, on Facebook:

It’s almost a metaphor for the legal system, a shadow of what it should be.

Others commented that the destruction had only amplified it, with more than one mentioning the “Streisand effect” – “an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information”. Most who commented considered it an assault on art, free speech and UK rights and commented on how the artwork’s viral circulation had become even greater because of it.

Seemingly disturbed that scrubbing the image away wasn’t working, the authorities then put up a screen, and behind it started painting over it:

But even this only drew more attention and raised more questions, with people querying why someone standing on the pavement to paint over an artwork needed to wear a helmet and disguise their face with a scarf and dark glasses.

A long history of anti-Zionism

As well as exposing the UK government’s collusion with Israel and its war on anti-genocide protest, Banksy has long used his art to expose Israel’s racism and apartheid, including a 2005 series of anti-apartheid artworks on the wall it built to cut off and segregate the occupied West Bank. And just two days ago, he posted on his Instagram page an image showing the Virgin Mary feeding the baby Jesus, no doubt in Bethlem – now part of the occupied West Bank – with a bullet wound in her breast, a commentary on Israel’s mass murder of babies, children and women:

Pro-Israel groups, who drove the government’s terrorist ban on anti-genocide group Palestine Action and would like to see pro-Palestine protest banned as well, have attacked the artist for daring to paint the artwork showing the state’s abuse of protesters – and are calling for him to be prosecuted for ‘defacing a listed building’, while the government said the building’s listed status means that it is obliged to restore the court to its original condition. Which neither the scrubbing nor the daubing with black paint does, of course.

Many would, of course, say he improved the building considerably while also making an essential point. But the Israel lobby and its collaborators in the UK government are still slow to realise that you can erase a painting but you can’t kill ideas, nor easily erase its now ubiquitous electronic presence on the internet.

Featured image via the Canary