The Swiss artist Marc Rodin, who was born on September 29, 1945 and died on the eighth of April 2023, and who was known by his nom de guerre "Jihad Mansour", is one of the unique artistic cases in the history of the Palestinian cause, as the man – who has nothing to do with Arabs and has no Palestinian origin – adopted the struggle and defense of the Palestinian cause throughout his life using his art.
Rodin Mansour studied graphic design, then became involved in politics in 1968, and later worked as a graphic illustrator for the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1980 to 1991, during which time he produced more than 200 posters to defend and support the cause, paying a hefty bill for it.
Conjugation already say
Rodin lived all his life, translating his political convictions and leftist ideas into action; he joined his comrades to struggle against the Zionist enemy along the front lines in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, was arrested several times, and was once sentenced in absentia in Switzerland to 4 years in prison.
Looking at the posters Mansour presented to the Palestinian cause, we find that he was deeply aware of the imperialist policies that led to the emergence of the Zionist entity, and presents through his works the visual image of the spirit and essence of the Palestinian cause, as it is an occupied state that has been destroyed by imperialist colonial policies, and can only be liberated through armed struggle.
The messages were not at the expense of form in his works; the colors, symbols, and even the words used in his posters implied an artistic and aesthetic scene alongside political messages.
For example, in the cover of "The Experience, the Witness and the Martyr," which he designed in 1980 for Al-Hadaf magazine, the weekly political newspaper of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), founded and edited by Ghassan Kanafani, we see a map of Palestine appearing on Kanafani's sea-colored, olive-and-earth face.
Cover of "Goal" magazine Ghassan Kanafani The Experience of the Witness and the Martyr (Al Jazeera)
The political event is an artistic motive
The Palestinian uprisings were a major inspiration for Rodin's leftist ideas, and this was expressed in many posters, such as the Land Day poster "The Galilee Intifada Embraces the Hebron Intifada," where a Palestinian flower bud splits the star of the Israeli flag. In this poster – and in many posters – the artist and the politician meet at one point of intersection, they accomplish a kind of revolutionary rejection that many international conferences and international dialogues have failed to achieve.
We also see in the poster "The Blood of September Embraces the Dawn of Independence" Rodin's ability to deliver his political messages strongly, where resistance strengthens and triumphs as much as the Israeli occupation authorities exacerbate the aggression against the Palestinian people. In doing so, Rodin reinforces his work on resistance into artistic icons in the face of the colonizer, turning rebels and revolutionaries into immortal symbols in the memory of the Palestinian people.
"I am Swiss, but in my heart I am Palestinian." This was the last thing that the late Swiss artist Marc Roden said during his tribute in Amman in 2013 on the occasion of Land Day, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called him in a statement in the following terms: "The comrade fought side by side with his comrades in Lebanon the battles of the Palestinian revolution, and then lived his life traveling in Arab and European countries, against the criminal policies of Western imperialism, and as a result he was arrested more than once by the Swiss authorities."