Muslima - Muslim women's Art and Voices

"Genitilla al Wilada" by Italian artist Maimouna Guerressi/credit:Maimouna Guerressi

I recently wrote a piece on the wonderful Muslima exhibition for the Guardian, but it got cut in half to fit the allocated space.  This is frustrating as the artists and activists I've interviewed had so much to say.  So here is the whole story with the women's quotes and ideas in their entirety. I am also including links to some of their artwork. I hope you'll like it!

 "The only woman it seems permissible to judge today and even at times ridicule, is the Muslim woman. What other woman faces as much scrutiny or is the target of random violence from both her own community and others?" asks Samina Ali.   An Indian-born Muslim who lives in San Francisco, Ali is the curator of  "Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices", a new global, online exhibition exploring what it means to be a Muslim woman today, and in the process, trying to shatter prejudice and build understanding.

"The impression many have of Muslim women is that they have no voice, no freedom -- not even a face because they move around behind burkhas! Even if a woman chooses just a head scarf, there's fear and misunderstanding about the veil and what it means to individual Muslim women to wear or not to wear the veil," says Ali, also a novelist and co-founder of Daughters of Hajar, an American-Muslim feminist organization.  "We wanted to help reverse the stereotypes and the best way to do that seemed to present Muslim women speaking to the complex realities of their own lives, through interviews and art."

The exhibition, recently launched by the International Museum of Women (IMOW) - an online social action museum promoting women's issues globally - brings together under one platform the voices, stories and work of hundreds of very different Muslim women from all over the world.

 The name "Muslima", which can refer to an ultra-religious woman as well as anyone who advances good in the world, was chosen to reflect the wide breath of views, attitudes, values and realities represented in the exhibition.  "There's a great diversity in the way Muslim women express themselves, whether through their art, clothing, values, attitudes or their understanding of their faith. It was important to capture that diversity in this exhibition. Not only does that diversity counter stereotypes many in the West have about Muslim women, but also, and equally as important, it counters the dominant narrative that some Muslims hold about their own communities: that all women must behave and look a certain way. It benefits both communities to see the reality," Ali says.

From Iranian artist Shadi Ghadirian's series "Nil, Nil"/credit:

Shadi Ghadirian

 The exhibition, organized by topics (faith, change, power, myths and more), regions or types (interviews, art or stories) features exclusive interviews with leading Muslim women leaders, such as Dr. Shirin Ebadi from Iran, the first Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize; Fahima Hashim, a leading women's rights advocate in Sudan; and Fawzia Koofi, who will be running for President of Afghanistan in 2014.  

It also showcases world-renowned artists like Palestinian Laila Shawa, Algerian Houria Niati and Yemeni photographer Boushra Almutawakel, as well as emerging voices from the next generation, such as Rajae El Mouhandiz, a Dutch singer from North African descent who is leading the movement for Muslim women's representation in pop culture.

 And there are also the wonderful "Muslima Stories", multi-media mini-memoirs in which ordinary Muslim women depict what it is to be a Muslim today. Viewers can leave comments after each art piece or interview, thus engaging in an international dialogue. 

"I wanted to participate in Muslima because I wanted to contribute to the effort of demystifying the term. For me, Muslima is a woman from a Muslim background.   It is more about culture than religion," says Algerian artist Houria Niati.  For the exhibition, she has chosen  "What If", a mixed media series in which she superposed the face of a young modern Algerian woman onto pictures of Algerian women in traditional costumes taken during the French colonial rule.  "The exhibition is full of hope. It brings all our diversities together, so we can join forces and fight for equality and freedom from wherever we are," Niati adds.

 "I usually prefer not to be associated with gender or religion or anything else in my career, but anything to help alter the perception of Muslim women is good. And art can cross borders," says Palestinian artist Laila Shawa whose powerful work "Target Wall of Gaza 1," depicting a little boy planted as a target against a wall covered in graffiti, is included in the exhibition.

"Target Wall of Gaza 1," by Palestinian artist Laila Shawa/credit:Laila Shawa

 Like, Shawa, many women participating in Muslima believe the artistic space is a better platform for discussing issues associated with gender and religion than the political arena.

 "I love this project because it is not selling one Muslim interpretation, but amplifies voices from several generations, cultural contexts and interpretations," says the young singer and artist Rajae El Mouhandiz.   "Producing work and being owners of our own stories help us in the long term to respond to ignorance.  But it also helps us to share the beauty, the diversity and the complexity of life and our individual interpretations of what religion and freedom and citizenship mean to us in this global community."

El Mouhandiz also wanted to take part in Muslima to share her experience as a young female Muslim artist in Europe. She says she not only faces racism in the Netherlands for being a Muslim, but also discrimination from within the Muslim community for being a singer who doesn't wear the hijab and is "too sexy."

Like El Mouhandiz, many women featured in Muslima believe that change has to come from the outside world - which needs to shift its perception of Muslim women - but also from within the Islamic framework, says Ali, the curator.   "The refrain I hear again and again from the contributors is that Islam is not the problem. Islam grants women rights that are then taken away from them by politics, power, patriarchy, tradition, and even fanatical readings of the religion. In fact, the irony seems to be that women living in the 7th century when Islam was founded had more rights than some women living in a few select Muslim countries today. For example, does Islam say a woman can't drive? Absolutely not. Didn't the Prophet's own wife, Aisha, move about on a camel -- and wasn't the camel that day's car? 

 An excerpt from Tamadher al Fahal's 'zine, "Diary of a Mad Arabian Woman"/Credit: 

Tamadher al Fahal

 “And outside of the law, people’s own ways of thinking need to change. Some Muslims seem unable to live and embrace the rich diversity within the Muslim communities. Instead, Sunnis kill Shias and vice versa. Or Muslims from the Middle East think they're more authentic than Muslims from India and vice versa. This issue of authenticity makes it so that many Muslims feel unwelcome in their own Muslim communities. ‘Maybe I'm too americanised to be considered Muslim?’ ‘If I don't cover, they'll say I'm not Muslim."   That needs to change.’

To the outside world, to those who “still think a Muslima is a sad oppressed woman who is part of harem, has no opinion or rights and basically is a house slave," El Mouhandiz has this word of advice:   "Turn off your TVs and go online to see the Muslima exhibition and meet all these amazing women and their work. They will blow your mind with their leadership, grace and talent!"

WITNESS' Human Rights Channel for Citizen Videos

Happy First Anniversary Witness' Human Rights Channel! 

 Last year, the intrernational human rights organization WITNESS launched a special channel dedicated to curate, verify and amplify videos on human rights abuses shot by citizen journalists all over the world. Many of these stories would otherwise have been buried. Over the past year, WITNESS' Human Rights Channel has curated 137 playlists, with 1,892 videos from 90 countries. 

WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that has been using the power of video and storytelling for 20 years to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. It was co-founded in 1992 by musician and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel, Human Rights First and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation.

Saudi Arabia - rise in executions and crucifixions

Saudi Arabia must halt a “disturbing” rise in its use of the death penalty, Amnesty International said this after six people were executed in the country yesterday.

Five Yemeni men were beheaded and “crucified” yesterday in the city of Jizan, while a Saudi Arabian man was executed in the south-western city of Abha.

The beheadings and “crucifixions” took place in front of the University of Jizan where students are taking exams. Pictures emerged on social media appearing to show five decapitated bodies hanging from a horizontal pole with their heads wrapped in bags. In Saudi Arabia, the practice of “crucifixion” refers to the court-ordered public display of the body after execution, along with the separated head if beheaded. It takes place in a public square to allegedly act as a deterrent.

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said the five men executed in Jizan were found guilty of forming an armed gang, armed robbery and the murder of a Saudi Arabian man. It is unclear if all five were convicted of the murder. Meanwhile, the sixth execution was carried out in Abha, where the Interior Ministry reported that a Saudi Arabian man was executed for murder.

"By the grace of God, the security authorities were able to apprehend the perpetrators. Investigation resulted in charging them with committing their crimes," the ministry's statement said, according to Reuters news agency. "A sharia verdict was issued against them affirming their indictment," it said. Their crimes were classified as among the most serious, according to sharia law.

   

Yesterday's executions take the figure of state killings in Saudi Arabia so far this year to at least 47 - an increase of 18 compared to this time last year, and a rise of 29 compared to the same period in 2011, according to Amnesty Inernational. There has also been an increase in executions for drug-related offences, with at least 12 executed for such offences so far this year.  Rates of executions in the Saudi Arabia are feared to be even higher than declared, as secret and unannounced executions have been reported.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said: “Saudi Arabia’s increased use of this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is deeply disturbing and the authorities must halt what is a horrifying trend. The Kingdom must immediately establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing capital punishment.”

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of crimes including “adultery”, armed robbery, “apostasy”, drug smuggling, kidnapping, rape, “witchcraft” and “sorcery”. Authorities  routinely flout international standards for fair trial and safeguards for defendants, who are often denied representation by lawyers and not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. They may be convicted solely on the basis of “confessions” obtained under torture or other ill-treatment.

Share: the cookbook from women in war-torn countries

Food that makes us feel at home, food to share and celebrate, food to sustain and nourish, food prepared in spite of war – food to celebrate our common humanity.  Next week, Women for Women International is launching “Share”, a cookbook that covers all of the above.  The book, edited by Alison Oakervee with the foreword by Meryl Streep, is a collection of recipes and stories from women living in war-torn countries in which Women for Women International (WFWI) work.

Women for Women International is an international charity founded by Zainab Salbi in 1993. Dedicated to working with survivors of conflict, the charity's core belief is that stronger women build stronger nations and that with adequate access to information and resources, socially excluded women can lead change toward stable societies.  WfWI supports women with financial and emotional aid, job-skills training, rights education and small business assistance in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Sudan.

The uplifting book also has recipes from renowned international chefs such as Alice Waters, Maggie Beer, Rene Redzepi and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and humanitarians such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Christine Amanpour, Desmond Tutu, Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney and Mia Farrow. Illustrated with stunning photography of the countries as well as the food, the book features  everyday dishes, family meals, and recipes perfect for sharing and celebrating. They range from traditional Afghani bichak pastries and Congolese sticky doughnuts, to spicy cashew and tomato soup, beef rendang and orange-scented almond cake. Interspersed throughout are inspiring stories from the women whose lives have been changed through the intervention of WfWI. All the royalties from the book will support WfWI's farming and food training initiatives, as well as provide micro-financing in the eight countries in which WfWI operates. The book officially launches on 16 May 2013, but is already on Amazon.

Afghanistan: young woman killed in front of 300 - Stop Violence against Women

Members of Afghan activist group Young Women for Change/copyright AP

Enough!  Stop violence against women in Afghanistan.


Afghanistan has been called the most dangerous place to be born a girl. Violence against girls and women is endemic.   From beatings behind closed doors to targeted attacks on brave women human rights defenders speaking out in public, anything goes. The majority of these crimes go unpunished. Instead, victims are often punished for committing 'moral crimes' like running from abusive relationships, attempting to protect their children from a violent father.

"I work mostly on cases where women have been accused of 'moral crimes', like running away from home after being abused, or where women want to free their children from an abusive father…,” says Masiha Faiz of Medica Mondiale.  “The police and courts don’t want us to defend these victims. They will hide the cases and try to send the women back without investigating. A woman’s word isn’t worth anything to them." 

The killing of a young Afghan woman by her father in front of a large crowd last week - on the grounds that she had “dishonoured” the family - is yet another example of the shocking violence against women and further proof that the authorities are failing to tackle it. 

The woman, who has two children, was shot dead last Monday (22 April) by her father in front of a crowd of about 300 people in the village of Kookchaheel, in the Aabkamari district of Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan, according to an Amnesty International report issued today.

The woman, named Halima, who was believed to be between 18 and 20 years old, was accused of running away with a cousin while her husband was in Iran. Her cousin returned Halima to her relatives ten days after running away with her. His whereabouts are unknown.

The killing came after three of the village’s religious leaders, allegedly linked to the Taliban, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that Halima should be killed publicly, after her father sought their advice about his daughter’s elopement. Halima’s father and the three religious council members who issued the fatwa have reportedly gone into hiding. The local police say they are investigating the case, but no one has yet been arrested in connection with the killing.

Amnesty International’s Afghanistan researcher Horia Mosadiq said:  “The deeply shocking practice of women being subjected to violent ‘punishments’, including killing, publicly or privately, must end. The authorities across Afghanistan must ensure that perpetrators of violence against women are brought to justice."

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) documented more than 4,000 cases of violence against women in a six-month period last year (21 March-21 October 2012) - a rise of 28% compared with the same period in the previous year. The AIHRC has also criticised the Afghan police in Baghdis for recruiting suspected perpetrators of such violence, including a Taliban commander and his 20 men implicated in the stoning to death of 45-year-old widow Bibi Sanuber for alleged adultery in 2010.

In August 2009, Afghanistan passed the Elimination of Violence againstWomen Law, which criminalises forced marriage, rape, beatings and other acts of violence against women.

“Afghanistan’s law for the elimination of violence against women is a very positive step, but it will not be useful unless it is properly enforced - something we haven’t seen so far,” said AI's Mosadiq.

Amnesty is calling for people to ask their MPs to stand up with women in Afghanistan and pressure the UK Government to support practical steps to tackle the abuse – steps like supporting women’s shelters or facilitating specially trained domestic abuse representatives in the police force. 

With international troops leaving next year, peace negotiations with the Taliban and upcoming Presidential elections, it is a critical time for Afghanistan. “We need our Government to act now to ensure gains made since the fall of the Taliban are not lost, and that women are protected from violence in all its forms,” says Amnesty.

Sign the petition here.

Video Games: real racism in a virtual world

A fascinating new study in the current issue of the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia uncovers blatant racism in video games.

I hadn’t thought of race in gaming, but considering video games’ widespread use and impact, it's an issue well worth addressing. And we should look at sexism in gaming, as well.

Researcher Kishonna L. Gray writes that in video-game culture, the default gamer is a white male. Those outside that privileged group are often marginalised, labelled ‘deviant’ and punished for their ‘deviance’. Women, ethnic minorities and people of colour are portrayed in a stereotypical manner, reinforcing notions of whiteness, blackness, racial hierarchies, masculinity and sexuality. 

As part of her research Gray observed, interacted with and interviewed African-American gamers playing Halo Reach®, Gears of War 2®, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2®, and Call of Duty: Black Ops® on Xbox Live over a period of eight months. She uncovered disturbing patterns of behaviour and a space racialised by the profiling of non-white or non-male gamers by their speech. In particular, she found that some gamers picked up on linguistic cues from others that suggested they might be black. The black gamer would then be confronted about his colour and provoked by the use of racist slurs. Other gamers would often join in with the insults. The episode would end with one of the gamers leaving or being kicked out of the game, or the offended gamer retaliating with his own volleys of profanity and racist language.

Most worryingly, such racism appears to be ‘normalised’ in the Xbox Live sessions she observed, with offended users rarely complaining. When Gray confronted the gamers who used racist language, they categorically denied being racist. They further defended themselves by claiming it was ‘just a game’, that the words they used were meaningless or that they would use the same offensive terms to refer to white people.
 
Gray observes that ‘the overt racism that used to permeate our society has been introduced in this virtual community.’ Although it is difficult to quantify, and may not be the norm across all of Xbox Live, the gamers of colour she interviewed were racially abused daily. They were also adamant that they did not experience similar treatment elsewhere.

Gray concludes that much of this abuse occurs and is allowed to continue because of the mistaken belief that black people, women and minorities are not gamers (in fact, I recently read that 42% of gamers are women); the games themselves continue to be created by and for white males. Until gaming changes considerably, it would appear that only white males can leave their real-world identities behind when they enter the virtual world of Xbox Live.

Black and women game creators, we need you!  Where are you?

International Roma Day - EU must end discrimination against Roma

A girl stands behind the foundations of a 2m-high wall separating her community from a non-Roma neighbourhood in Horea Street, Baia Mare, Romania, July 201/photo credits:Mugur Vărzariu

April 8 is International Roma Day – an occasion to celebrate Roma culture, but also to push European governments to guarantee basic rights to Roma.  The estimated six million Roma living in the European Union countries are one of Europe’s largest and most marginalized minorities. Across Europe, they are blatantly discriminated against and are victims of violent attacks while European Union’s governments are turning a blind eye and the EU is not forcing them to protect Roma.

To mark International Roma Day, Amnesty International is releasing a new briefing on discriminationagainst Roma. It says that Roma living in EU countries fall far below the national average on almost all human development indicators: disproportionately at risk of poverty, eviction and violent attack. Education levels are also far below average, only one out of seven young Roma adults has completed upper-secondary education. Education is actually segregated in the Czech Republic, Greece and Slovakia, a practice at odds with both national and EU laws prohibiting racial discrimination.

Forced evictions of Roma communities is regular practice in a range of European countries such as Romania, Italy, and France. Policies promoting or resulting in ethnic segregation of Romani communities have been also pursued.

More than 120 serious violent attacks against Roma occurred in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria between January 2008 and July 2012, including shootings, stabbings and arson attacks. State authorities, including the police, have in many instances failed to prevent or thoroughly investigate these attacks.

More than a decade ago, in 2000, the EU adopted the Race Equality Directive that prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity in the workplace, in education, and in access to goods and services, housing and health care. As the EU’s executive body, the European Commission is empowered to act against EU member states when they fail to comply with EU law. However, so far this has never happened.

Amnesty’s briefing “Human Rights here. Roma Rights Now. A wake-up call for the European Union" insists that the EU take decisive action to tackle discrimination against Roma in Europe.

 “The EU must implement immediately the considerable measures at its disposal to sanction governments that are failing to tackle discrimination and violence against Roma. Such practices run counter to EU law and the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights it was founded on,” says AI Europe and Central Asia Programme Director John Dalhuisen

 “What we see is the Commission sanctioning countries on technical issues in areas of transport and taxation, for example, but failing to grapple with issues which are of vital importance to millions of people, such as forced evictions, segregation and hate-motivated attacks.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning EU has the power to end discriminatory practices that are rife in many of its member States. It must use these now.”