Relentless Resistance

by Will Novosedlik

Imagine what would happen if Donald Trump actually invaded Canada. Putting aside the logistical impossibility of such a move, imagine that one of his first post-conquest decrees was to ban the display of the Canadian flag. Not just on government buildings, but in shop windows, and on t-shirts, coffee mugs and lapel pins. In other words, nowhere, no-how – or risk severe punishment.

Seems extreme, no? That’s exactly what happened in israel after the Six-day War in 1967. The Palestinian flag was forbidden to fly anywhere in israel. Anyone who displayed the flag – or even its colours – risked arrest. So to work around this ban, Palestinians used the watermelon, a fruit grown across Gaza and the West Bank, as a coded representation of their flag in artwork, graffiti, and protests. The use of the symbol was reinforced during the 1980s when Israeli authorities reportedly confiscated political artwork containing the flag's colors, with soldiers warning that even paintings of watermelons would be banned. The ban was lifted in the 1993 Oslo accords, but reimposed in 2023 by israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Which means the watermelon as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity is back even bigger than before. One of the artists whose version of the watermelon symbol has had universal exposure and wide appeal is Vancouver-based Mustaali Raj, one of Canada’s most celebrated creative practitioners. Not long after the events of October 7, 2023, as he began to see footage of israel’s brutal retaliation, he wondered how many people in the West were as absorbed and as horrified as he was and began to think about how he could get the word out. Says Mustaali, “I wanted to bring attention to these issues in a way that was accessible to a lot of people. A lot of people who I knew did feel empathy for the plight of the Palestinians, but they were too afraid to share some of the more activist content, which was risky to do.” Still is.

Mustaali created a watermelon symbol in his signature geometric style, referencing a traditional Arabic form of embroidery called tatreez. Using that image as a base, he built a visual vocabulary of variations, combining and recombining the core elements to convey different messages, such as ‘stop the bombing’, ‘time is running out’, ‘give access to aid’, ‘save the children’ and ‘stop the genocide’. “I created a visual language that people could connect with and share”, explains Mustaali. “It had this childlike playfulness. I really wanted to bring attention to the plight of the kids. Because regardless of your political views, a child is a child no matter where they are, what color, what religion, what faith, and that is something sacred that we need to protect.”

It caught fire. “It was great to see the response”, says Mustaali. “I kept everything open source, so I put it on a drive. People were downloading it. People would text me, message me, all the way from France, Latin America, across North America. They were printing it and making huge signs of it at protests. A Palestinian printing company in the West Bank asked if they could use my motif for their fundraising merchandise. A couple in Doha in Qatar was making t-shirts and other clothing lines with it, with all proceeds going to charity. It was great to see it take on a life of its own.”

While the content is beloved by his followers, the platforms have been busy shadow-banning it. On his Instagram account, for instance, where he has 30K followers, his stories often get only 100 views. And he has encountered other forms of censorship, such as being de-invited from conferences at the last minute when the sponsors find out about his criticism of israel.

That hasn’t stopped him from continuing his campaign against genocide. Most recently he posted a message protesting FIFA’s inclusion of israel in the World Cup. He found it rather ironic that FIFA would invite israel and not Russia.

In his 'Colours of the Year' series, done in 2025, Mustaali took the work of 4 Palestinian photojournalists and superimposed on each of 7 images a rectangle that would be immediately recognizable to creative directors and designers everywhere as the shape of the Pantone colour swatch. Every year, the Pantone colour system chooses what it deems to be the ‘Colour of the Year’. That colour becomes a key driver of creative industry decisions in fashion, product design and interior design. By juxtaposing a tool of superficial style-making  with images of Palestinians in moments of profound anguish and grief, Mustaali darkly satirizes the Pantone Colour of the Year selection process and shines an unforgiving light on our blindness to the suffering of people of colour.

Through the creative vision of Mustaali Raj, we are forced to confront our own lack of compassion for what revolutionary writer Frantz Fanon called the ‘wretched of the earth’. It is a luxury that cannot last.

Will Novosedlik is a Toronto-based designer, writer and editor. He is known for a critical perspective on the socioeconomic impact of design, advertising and marketing.