by Tahir Shah
‘The gas came in a great fog, which wafted silently into the houses,’ says one women. ‘Outside there was a stampede. All around us our friends and relatives were dropping to the ground,’ adds another.
At that moment no one could have known the awful truth: that a venting pipe at the Union Carbide pesticide plant had fractured, releasing a cocktail of eighteen toxic chemicals, including hydrogen cyanide and the deadly, unstable gas methyl isocyanate.
Unsure of what to do, thousands fled through the streets, charging directly into the path of the poison, over forty tonnes of which was being carried on the wind. Those who made it to hospital had little hope, as no one knew the cause of the disaster.
Morning brought a sobering scene of carnage. There were corpses everywhere. Families huddled together, mothers clutching their children, their eyes bulged, blood vomited down their chests. Hundreds of cows and dogs were dead, too, as were the birds, fallen from the trees.
The official human death toll that night was put at 5,325. But as bodies were scooped into massive pits so quickly, to prevent the spread of disease, no one’s quite sure how many died. The real figure is probably closer to ten thousand.
Zenath was only a child in 1984. Now an adult, she’s still deeply traumatized by the disaster.
‘Everyone remembers,’ she says gently. ‘How can we forget? It’s burned into our memories. We try not to speak of it, but it is always here inside us. My mother led my sisters and me to the mosque. We clambered over bodies to get inside, and we sheltered there, crouching down as low as we could. Around us people were praying, screaming, and they were dying. Everyone was blinded by the gas, everyone choking, desperately clinging onto life.’
Zenath would like to be married, but there’s no money for her dowry. And, in any case, no one wants to marry a sterile woman. Not even in Bhopal. Her father, a watch-repairer, blinks through extra-thick lenses. His eyesight is bad and getting worse. He’s forced to concentrate on mending wall-clocks now, and soon he’ll have to give that up, too.
Across town, at the Bhopal Eye Hospital, senior Surgeon Dr. Dubey is preparing to operate on his seventh patient of the morning. More than three hundred people flock daily to the hospital.
‘Most of those who come here suffer from nebular cornea opacity,’ he explains, ‘it’s like a cataract. Some were blinded totally, while others rubbed their eyes afterwards and went blind as a result.’
Dr. Dubey peers out of his first floor window. A line of patients snakes its way around the building. Most of them have their eyes bandaged. ‘Look at that,’ he says, ‘I treat them as fast as I can, but each day dozens more arrive.’
Miriam is at the end of the line. A mother of three, she’s blind in her right eye. And now her left eye is clouding over. She has constant headaches and can’t walk very far these days. In the stampede that December night she was separated from her husband. She presumes he perished and was buried in one of the mass graves. Each of their children has illnesses resulting from the gas. Despite applying for compensation, the authorities insisted that Miriam had come from a neighbouring city, and was merely pretending to be a victim.
Every Tuesday, Abdul Jabar, a legal advocate, gives free help to women who were affected by the gas attack, in a park in central Bhopal. The founder of the Bhopal Gas Victim’s Association, he sees that the ailing fill out the compensation forms properly.
‘Had this tragedy taken place in the West,’ he says, ‘the factory would have been levelled straight away, but here people are too accepting. It’s inevitable that there will be another “Bhopal”. Indian factories haven’t learnt from our example. It’s just a matter of time. It could happen tomorrow.’
Thousands of women need Abdul Jabar’s help. As they wait to see the man they regard as a saviour, they swap details of their illnesses. Those who come to Abdul Jabar’s sessions need all the help they can get. Compensation for the Bhopal victims has become embroiled in one of the worst bureaucratic jams in Indian history, a nation famous for drawn-out legal actions.
From the very start, the signs were bad.
Union Carbide dragged its heels for years before paying up. Finally, they made a one-time settlement of $470 million to the Indian government – that was back in 1989. But, as a stream of people in Bhopal are quick to point out, the government is in no hurry to hand out the cash. Progressing at a snail’s place, its system is still collecting millions of dollars in interest on money that hasn’t reached those who so desperately deserve it.
Once the money was safely locked in the State’s coffers, those making a claim were forced to queue up for days for a token which would permit them to get a claim form. Then began the convoluted process of claim courts and endless hearings. Victims need to attend as many as thirty hearings to have their claim considered. The only way to oil the wheels of justice is a seven hundred rupee bribe. But few people have that kind of cash.
The former Chairman of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, is deeply unpopular in Bhopal as one might expect. His name forms part of a common slogan on walls around town – reading simply ‘Hang Anderson’.
As he lives in quiet retirement in Florida, Union Carbide itself is eager to distance itself from responsibility. The Bhopal plant was, they say, owned by a separate entity Union Carbide (India), even though the American parent company is said to have owned more than half its stock. They protest, too, that the damaged venting pipe was sabotaged by a disgruntled employee.
Back in Jai Prakash Nagar, Ambereen’s neighbour, Amina Beeh, pulls a scratched chest X-ray from a box and wipes it with her scarf. Like many of Bhopal’s women, she’s suffered for years from a catalogue of health problems, problems that are getting worse.
‘My lungs were burnt, as if acid was poured into them,’ Amina says. ‘And I need regular treatment for a severe gynaecological disorder.’
Staring out at the former Union Carbide factory, Amina dabs her eyes. It’s time for her medicine. Putting away her X-ray, she gulps down an assortment of pink and white pills. Then, she leans back into her chair, and sighs.
‘Every day at this time I do this,’ she says, ‘I close my eyes and remember how different it used to be. I think of the faces of my family and all my friends,’ she whispers, ‘and I pretend the gas never came. For a moment I breathe easy, and I forget.’
FIFTY
The Guerrilla Girls
A PAPER TRAIL OF CLUES hidden at key points in downtown Manhattan leads you the basement chamber of a dilapidated office building.
The sect is distrustful of visitors and will go to any lengths to ensure security. Stone steps spiral down into the hide-out. A bare lightbulb hangs above a solid oak desk. And, reclining in a worn leather chair, disguised in a woolly gorilla mask, is Alice Neel, self-styled Guerrilla Girl.
New Yorkers pride themselves on their reputation of being impossible to surprise. They’ve seen it all. Businessmen roller-skate to work; exhibitionists run naked through the streets; and cow-girls do lasso tricks in subway trains. Weird fads come and go with the seasons. But few of the city’s oddities and bizarre underground cliques stand the test of time… none have survived like the ‘Guerrilla Girls’.
As plumes of vapour rise from the steam grates down in SoHo – Manhattan’s artistic quarter – a gang of figures dart through the shadows back to their hideaway where their leader is awaiting them. Their faces concealed in snarling gorilla masks, this secret quasi-terrorist cell is New York’s most belligerent feminist force. Scorning the male establishment, demonstrating against sexism in the art world, the band of die-hard feminists is known to all New Yorkers.
Formed a decade ago by a rebellious group of women artists, the Guerrilla Girls were galvanized into action by their disdane for what they regarded as New York’s male artistic mafia. They pledged to harass, humiliate, and even to raid, institutions opposed to the cause of women artists.
The Guerrilla Girls have been honoured by feminists in the United States and, indeed, throughout the world. B
ut, as their followers praise them, the Guerrilla Girls are mocked by many New Yorkers as the biggest joke in town.
Despite this, what began as a contest against Manhattan’s misogynistic museums and art galleries, has now expanded to take in new themes. Today, the Guerrilla Girls’ devotees say they battle to give a voice to those fighting against issues such as abortion and AIDS, rape and even female circumcision. As the scope of their battleground extends, the Guerrilla Girls encourage women in other cities, and in far off nations, to make use of their tactics and take up struggles of their own.
In a society where one’s reputation is everything, the Guerrilla Girls have used humiliation as a terrorist tool. One night, lower Manhattan was plastered with thousands of simple black and white posters. The bulletins depicted no gruesome scenes, but instead listed names. The Guerrilla Girls’ own unmistakable artwork – naming sexist galleries and their associated officials – became their calling card.
Each poster, which bears the characteristic stamp of ridicule, along with the honorary epithet Conscience of the Art World, rocked the art establishment from the start. New York’s wealthy gallery district ran rife with rumours. Who were the Guerrilla Girls? How would they take out their fury? Were any of them – as the rumours suggested – famous artists themselves?
Overnight it seemed that feminism was back with a stylish, sleek and new bellicose face. During the ’eighties, when prices of art skyrocketed, as huge corporations began to invest in paintings and sculptures, very few female artists had their work represented by mainstream galleries.
Suddenly, the voice of female artists everywhere was visible. Refusing to reveal their identities, the Guerrilla Girls insisted on anonymity. This, they maintained, focused the limelight on their cause, and would not hinder their own artistic careers. The underground sect – who always wears gorilla masks when in public – takes the names of dead women artists. It was as if all the forsaken women artists from history were rising in torment from their graves.
As the great cultural bastions of New York tried to guess who the Guerrilla Girls were, the troupe hit randomly at gallery openings and shows. Gallery owners saw the attacks as a social conspiracy against them; many proprietors would not speak out for fear that their studios would be trashed. Rumours spread like wildfire – mingling with the facts – until it was no longer possible to distinguish actually how daring the Guerrilla Girls had been.
There are stories of galleries being daubed with slogans, of guests at grand society launches being trussed up with ropes, and tales of gallery owners having bottles of vintage red wine poured over them. And, as the art world speculated on the Guerrilla Girls, their spies, working at the city’s artistic treasure-houses, helped co-ordinate battle plans – relaying information to the Girls’ secret nerve centre downtown.
Among the main targets have been the most respected showcases of the art world, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim and The Whitney. Demonstrations take different forms depending on the whim and fancy of the Guerrilla Girls. Sometimes they turn up en masque to cause havoc with the authorities, in other instances they plaster galleries and art museums with their lewd, hard-hitting posters. Always, they aim to deride the brotherhood of male gallery owners and dealers in control.
As their campaign gained momentum, gathering support from other feminists within the community, the Guerrilla Girls began to appear on talk shows and on lecture circuits: always appearing in primate masks. Prominent gallery owners defended the lack of women artists they represented, by saying that women were just ‘less productive’ as male artists. At the same time, they played down the extent of the Guerrilla Girls’ infamous assaults.
For a decade New Yorkers have been divided over whether the Monkey Women, as they have become known, are a worthy cause, or just another clique on the lunatic fringe. ‘If I ever got one of them in my cab,’ says Lou Shrender – a yellow cab driver for thirty-two years, ‘I’d rip off her mask and take her to the police station. They’ve got nice cages at the police precincts, just right for a gorilla. People are sick of the Guerrilla Girls: they play the media like a fiddle – everyone’s frightened of speaking out against them for fear of being seen as sexist.’
Most gallery owners – like Pat Hearn of the well-respected Hearn Gallery – are careful to praise the cause of the Guerrilla Girls. After all, one’s never sure where Guerrilla Girl spies are lurking. ‘The Guerrilla Girls are no joke,’ says Hearn. ‘People take them very seriously in New York. I feel that their anonymity makes them a much more credible force. I, for one, would never try to find out who they really are.’
Alice Neel, self-styled Queen of the Guerrilla Girls, rests in the underground hide-out. The chamber is shaken every few minutes by a passing subway train. ‘We want to make feminism fashionable again,’ she says through the mask’s set of snarling yellow teeth. ‘It’s for us to show that feminists are a broad spectrum of women – they come in all shapes, forms and colours. People used to think that feminists came in one style… that was the media’s manipulation of the word “feminist”.’
‘Guerrilla Girls are anonymous because we want the issues we support to take centre stage, not individuals. The Guerrilla Girls are from a long tradition of masked avengers which include Robin Hood, Batman and Wonder Woman. I can’t tell you how many of us there are – maybe there are a hundred, maybe a hundred thousand.’
Under the deep cover of their secret lair, the Guerrilla Girls plot their next moves. Like any revolutionary unit, they spend hours planning which institutions to abase, and the individuals to lambaste. For such an enraged feminist sect, no member of society is more loathsome than the white male.
‘The majority of power is in the hands of white men,’ says Alice Neel as she adjusts her gorilla head. ‘Most gallery owners, dealers and art critics are white men. It’s obvious that if you’re a white male you see things in a certain way. Your vision – which is going to be a white male one… is therefore going to be limited.’
Despising the white masculine sector of society as they do, the Guerrilla Girls are careful to tow a diplomatic line at all times. ‘We’re not talking about eliminating white men altogether,’ cautions Alice Neel, ‘we’re advocating an opening up of the field to let in other sensibilities as well. That’s what the battle’s all about!’
As well as being hailed as heroes by their admirers, the Guerrilla Girls are denounced by those they attack. ‘We get a lot of hate mail,’ says Neel, ‘one guy wrote a long seething letter blaming us for AIDS. He went on and on that we were a bunch of dykes who were forcing women to hate men, and we were spreading AIDS to men as revenge.’
Over the first five years of Guerrilla Girl combat, New Yorkers witnessed a subtle and gradual shift in the art world. The major museums and plush galleries introduced exhibitions of female artists. But it’s impossible to say whether the welcoming of more female artwork was a result of guerrilla tactics, or the effect of the current era of political correctness.
As the fans of the Guerrilla Girls insisted that their attacks were making headway, the masked feminist avengers made a dramatic shift of their own. ‘With the onslaught of the first Gulf War,’ says Gertrude Stein, Guerrilla Girl, ‘we couldn’t ignore the fact that President Bush’s administration would go to war over oil. We knew that the Gulf War was very wrong. At the same time we realized that a lot of issues were affecting us as artists and women.’ Within days, the wrath of women throughout society seemed to be voiced by the new and omnipotent Guerrilla movement. The white male-dominated art world took a deep sigh of relief, as the feminists in woolly masks turned their attentions to government.
A caustic campaign began against both the major American political parties. The Monkey Women blamed the Republicans for the breaking down of society: insisting that they were in some way responsible for female circumcision, breast implants, liposuction and even foot-binding. Observers – including many Guerrilla Girl followers – were confused by what the Republicans h
ad to do with the ancient Chinese foot-binding. Opponents to their causes, contended that the Girls had progressed from the lunatic fringe to the asylum itself.
Another campaign hit hard at the Democrats for their policies on homelessness, on gay issues, rape and abortion. The Guerrilla Girls’ prominent posters mock the establishment from every wall: (Q. What’s the difference been a prisoner of war and a homeless person? A. Under the Geneva Convention, a prisoner of war is entitled to food shelter & medical care).
Every time New York’s establishment is struck by a shocking act, the Guerrilla Girls’ involvement is called into question. But, as the scope of Guerrilla Girl activities widens, a new and possibly devastating situation is taking effect.
Encouraged by the group’s success, a spate of Guerrilla Girl impersonators have hit the street. Although discredited by the bona fide G.G. movement, the recent radical Guerrilla wave of rhetoric is threatening to undermine the original Guerrilla Girl triumphs.
‘When the Guerrilla Girls started out they had the right idea,’ says Mary Cassatt – leader of a Guerrilla Girl splinter group. ‘But now they’ve gone soft… they get paid thousands for lecturing at colleges – they’ve lost their focus.’
Mary Cassatt and her faction of hardened Guerrillas operates out of a secret East Village location. ‘We refuse to sell out like the founders of the movement have done,’ continues Cassatt. ‘If necessary we’ll resort to violence – we have to get the message across to a new generation, and we’ll do whatever it takes!’
Nearby, at her own secret den, Alice Neel – an original Guerrilla Girl – is wary of upcoming factions. ‘New groups calling themselves Guerrilla Girls are sprouting up,’ she splutters through the growling disguise. ‘We encourage others to use our methods but to distinguish themselves from us and our own work. The Guerrilla Girls are inherent to New York… our habitat is SoHo.’