The first words of the longest letter sprayed on the Wall
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Apr 07, 2009 -
In a short time, Farid Esack, scholar and human rights activist, shall place an open letter on the Wall near Ramallah. This is accomplished in collaboration with the Dutch “Send a Message” Foundation, and individual sponsors from all over the world who are asked to
make a contribution of 20 euro's, via www.sendamessage.nl/
the-longest-
letter .
On this site you will also find Esack’s open letter, which comprises 1998 carefully formulated words and will reach a length of 2,625 metres. Esack testifies in his open letter that the situation for Palestinians is far worse than what was experienced in South Africa under apartheid. Esack is a black South African, worked together with Nelson Mandela.
The founder of Sendamessage.nl is the Dutch (script) writer Justus van Oel:
'In the spring of 2004, I visited Gaza and other parts of the occupied territories. I was shocked by what I experienced, and by everything that I –apparently–
did not know, or did not want to know. With support from ICCO, a large Dutch NGO, and the Dutch advertising industry we organized three workshops with young Palestinians. Our goal was to create effective, out-of-the-box communications concepts, that were inexpensive to execute as well. Our first project, still running, was making it possible to leave a personal, spray-painted message on the Wall. Over 800 messages have been placed. Now we go one step further. I asked the well-known Farid Esack to write an Open Letter, to be sprayed on the Wall. Esack gets beyond the anger. He is a reconciler. He can endeavour to place himself in another’s situation. He can convince and he can touch people. All in all, he possesses a combination of talents that, certainly in relation to Palestine, are nearly always a rarity.'
The Palestinian partner-organisation of Sendamessage, the PFF, will take care of the actual execution of the Open Letter Project and handle local communications. The ‘out of pocket’ project costs, including setup, transport, paint and documentation amount to around 12,000 euros. Those costst are expected to be covered by individual sponsors, via www.sendamessage.nl/
the-longest-
letter. Surplus money is destined for small-scale social projects in Palestine. A documentary on the project will be filmed by Federico Campanale and Iona Hoogendoorn.
The first 500 words will be sprayed around April 19, 2009. On May 10, 2009, the full text of the Letter by Esack (1998 words, 2625 metres long) will be completed on the Wall near Ar-Ram (South Ramallah), on the Palestinian side.
Photographic material:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-longest-letter/The Longest Letter project is run by two organisations, one in Holland and the other in Palestine. The Sendamessage Foundation, www.sendamessage.nl, Holland is an official registered charity and the Peace and Freedom Forum (PFF) in Palestine, is a legal, registered youth organisation in Ramallah, Palestine. The Longest Letter is their second mutual project. The first, which is still running, has inspired over 800 individuals worldwide to have their personal message sprayed on the wall. The project has raised €14,000 so far. Some of these funds are destined to help set up a laundry service for students in Bir Zeit, Palestine, and a small amount of the money will go to the execution and setting up of the project which receives no external funding. The same goes for the Longest Letter project, which has been set up and will be run almost entirely by volunteers. We rely exclusively on individual sponsorship and your contribution makes a huge difference.
