On the day Kabul in Afghanistan succumbed to the Taliban forces, there was a collective groan of agonized voices around the world.. What will happen to our Afghan sisters? It also highlighted what is happening to our Muslim sisters elsewhere.. for me, the question that haunts me, what is happening to our Iranian sisters? Educated, Elegant and Expendable as per the Mullahs
Someone sent me a photo of Mother Daughter Doll in Hijab and it was very powerful .. I thought the photographer might be Irani because of the deep sensibilities that portrait depicted but it was the work of Yemeni photographer, Boushra who now lives in Paris with her husband and four daughters.
Born in Yemen in 1969, Boushra Almutawakel found that she possessed a passion for art, expression and dialogue in her youth. After studying abroad during her college years in the United States, Boushra returned to Yemen in 1994 and has become an internationally hailed photographer and visionary who is helping bridge discourse between Western and Middle Eastern cultures through art.
Even though her photographs had been exhibited in the west for years, I had not come across the Mother Daughter Doll in hijabs or the Hijab series... Congratulations, proud daughter of Yemen!
(the haze divides the road that leads to Yemen, I was on the road from Salalah in Oman to the Yemeni border, but was not allowed to proceed beyond this)
The Question now is ?
What will happen to our Afghan sisters?
Ask our Iranian sisters and for them Hijab had become a symbol of oppression by the Mullahs and their government and they cannot wait to shed it, unless to use it as a fashion scarf like many westerners do.
As a good friend of mine from Karaj, Iran said to me over an Iranian derived North Indian dinner at a restaurant called Hyderabad in Kuala Lumpur : I am glad they forced me to learn about Islam, now it is so easy to reject it.
Congratulations, France.. you have always given refugee to artists fleeing oppression, lack of liberty, and not to mention civil wars.
Many names come to my mind
Oodles of Jewish intellectuals and artists who had to leave Algerie, Moroc and Tunisie
Enrico Macias, Claude Challe, Patrick Bruel...
Albert Memmi, whose books on his Tunisian childhood, I enjoyed very much
Among Arabs fleeing their lands, and Muslims from Iran, Kurdistan and other places, the name of Amin Malouf stands out.. there are many Maghrebi French writers living in France..
