Eight billion people of the world are forced to helplessly watch nine million Israelis massacre two million inhabitants of Gaza, corralled in a mere 45 square kilometres — the size of DHA Karachi.

Powerful countries that could stop this massacre choose not to, countries whose strident moral policing of human rights across the world now sounds hollow as they openly support Israel’s aggressions, despite protests by their own citizens, whose voices are brushed aside.

Throughout human history, merciless actions of aggression have traumatised those who long for peace. Artists, poets and songwriters have found the story of the Massacre of Innocents a powerful symbol of the horrors of war, whose new expressions are the heartbreaking images of children killed in Gaza.

The Massacre of the Innocents in the Bible refers to the Jewish King Herod’s orders to slaughter all newborn male children in Bethlehem when he learns from the Magi, the wise men from ‘the East’, that one of them will be Jesus.

The ongoing Israeli onslaught against civilians in Gaza is a reminder that merciless aggression has, for centuries, traumatised those who long for peace

While there were other similar stories, such as the Pharoah’s order to kill all male children at the time of the birth of Moses, the story of Herod took on symbolic meaning for artists during the Religious Wars of Europe between the Protestants and the Catholics, which lasted from the 16th century to the 18th century.

The almost continuous wars, including the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War, were accompanied by mass killings on both sides in the most brutal of ways, including dragging people out of their homes and burning them alive. Whole communities were massacred. The Albigensian Crusade in the South of France in the 13th century that killed nearly every man, woman and child of the breakaway Christian sect, the Cathars, was the first large-scale massacre in Europe. It killed up to one million.

Although paintings of the Herodian Massacre of the Innocents are seen in many mediaeval churches, it was Renaissance Art, with its emphasis on realism, that created the most graphic paintings of this theme — a disguised protest against the brutal religious wars of their own time.

Many artists painted this subject, but the most iconic paintings are by Peter Paul Reubens, a scholar, diplomat and businessman, who turned to art at the age of 33. His birth town, Antwerp, was the site of massacres of the Dutch by the Spanish army that raped and killed 7,000 people. It was also the height of the Inquisition and the Little Ice Age, when temperatures dropped dramatically, leading to food shortages and social unrest, adding despair upon despair.

Rubens painted three large paintings — Consequences of War in 1638 and two versions of the Massacre of the Innocents in 1611 and again in 1636, clearly haunted by the theme. These paintings shock the viewer with images of little babies trampled and dashed to the ground, as their mothers desperately try to protect them.

In the 1638 version of Consequences of War, Venus — the goddess of love — tries to stop her lover Mars, the god of war, who is egged on by Alekto, one of the Furies representing constant anger. The Furies lived in the Greek Underworld and served Hades, the god of death and riches. War is shown symbolically destroying harmony, art and learning.

The Coventry Carol is a haunting lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children. It was composed in the 16th century and is performed till today as a Christmas hymn, and the theme of the Massacre of the Innocents continues to inspire songwriters.

During WWII, 3.5 million children in England were evacuated from the cities to safer rural locations. Gazan children have nowhere safe to go. A video shows a Palestinian child kissing the hands and feet of his dead four-year-old brother saying, “Let me say goodbye to him. My dear brother, where can I get another brother like you? I didn’t get enough of you.

“Just bury me with him! Bury me with him!” he cries, as they place a white sheet over the lifeless child.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at
durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 10th, 2023