Arabs & Arabian Records Aggregator. Chronicler. Milestones of the 25 Countries of the Arabic Speaking World (official / co-official). AGCC. MENA. Global. Ist's to Top 10's. Records. Read & Enjoy./ www.arabianrecords.org
Egypt’s Mayar Sherif continued her dominant rise in the tennis world at the BBVA Open Internacional de Valencia in Spain, winning the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) 125 title and leaping into the Top 35 world singles ranking for the first time.
This is also the tennis champion’s second consecutive WTA 125 title, having clinched the WTA 125 Makarska Open trophy in Croatia on 11 June.
Sherif enjoyed a winning streak throughout the tournament, eventually defeating Spain’s Marina Bassols Ribera 6-3, 6-3. With this victory, Sherif, now ranked 31st in the world, maintained her remarkable record in WTA 125 finals, extending it to 6-0.
“I came into this tournament with great momentum from Makarska, and I wanted to capitalize on it,” expressed Sherif after her dominant display. “Right from the beginning of the tournament, I felt very comfortable, and I believe that reflected in my straight-set victories throughout.”
With an astounding 9-place leap to 31st place in the singles world ranking, Sherif is now the highest-ranked Egyptian tennis player in history – surpassing the legendary Ismail El Shafei’s career-high of 34th place.
Founded in Sweden by emerging creative Haisam Mohammed, fragrance brand UNIFORM is gaining momentum internationally. Here, Mohammed walks us through his creative process.
Haisam Mohammed often found himself drawn to the stairwells of the Swedish high rise buildings he grew up in. It was in these meeting points between homes that the scents from the different households would cascade – from cooking, incense burning, and spices.
The son of immigrants who had escaped the conflict in Eritrea, Mohammed’s upbringing saw him surrounded by many different cultures – inspiring a passion for design, architecture and beauty.
Fast forward to 2018, and he would channel this inspiration into his independent fragrance brand, UNIFORM – a vegan, cruelty-free range of perfume oils produced in France.
Blending the minimalism of Scandinavian design with transportive scents drawn from around the world, the brand recently captured the attention of A-COLD-WALL* founder, Samuel Ross, who selected it to receive a grant from his foundation supporting Black-owned businesses.
We caught up with Mohammed to talk about developing the range, how the beauty industry can become more inclusive, and why the future of luxury is sustainable.
Wallpaper*: How did UNIFORM come about as a brand?
Haisam Mohammed: Throughout my life, I have always sought for new formats to express and communicate different cultural messages, but the one format that always stuck in the back of my head, was scents.
So UNIFORM began as a passion project. My interest in scents started in the stairwells of the high-rises in Sweden. Both the one I grew up in, and the ones that I visited throughout my upbringing. The smell of food cooking, incense being lit and spices being blended used to sip through the cracks of the doors of these families and accumulate in a special scent that I have had with me throughout my life. Hence the name UNIFORM.
Talk us through your three signature scents in the range.
Maghrib, which means sunset in Arabic, is our first creation. It was inspired by the experiences of watching the sunset from the rooftops of the high-rises during summer nights. It has cedarwood and tobacco in it, and is the scent that I most clearly recognize from my childhood home and, as I later came to realise, the homes of many more ethnic families as they were cooking, burning incense, and blending spices in their home.
Limbo is inspired by my personal experience of the conflicting emotions that I experienced while commuting between the city center and its outskirts where I live. You either feel like it is an escape or a refuge – therefore the name Limbo. It’s our most complicated scent, with a combination of rhubarb, hay, and sandalwood.
Cassis is inspired by the first-millisecond of scent you experience when disembarking a plane at a new destination, preferably in the south of France. It’s a fig-scent with elements of sandalwood and coconut.
What was your experience of growing up in Sweden?
My experience growing up was split between two places. A small town in the northern part of Sweden and Stockholm. There were kids from the diaspora in both places, and we managed to build our own culture, way of life, and language to communicate based on our parent’s heritage and the cultures we now resided in.
We were probably the first generation that grew up with the internet, so I managed to discover things within music, arts, and even food that the previous generation could only dream of. During this time I also understood the power of culture and that it sees no geographical borders. I began to understand that a person living 4000 miles away in a city like New York could still be interested in the same things I was.
How does this mix of cultures express itself in your scents?
Not only does the mix of culture express itself in our scents, but also the format that is presented in. Perfume oil is not as big of a deal in the West as it is in some parts of Africa and in Asia. I wanted to introduce the format to a new audience but I have great respect from where it came from. I discovered perfume oil from my father’s collection, which was made up of scents he bought from the mosque and carried with him at all time.
How have architecture and design shaped the vision for UNIFORM?
They are a huge part of the vision. For our first installation display inside the department store NK, we commissioned the designer Simon Skinner to translate our brand into a physical art piece and the outcome became a structure inspired by the high-rises made out of limestone blocks.
In an architectural sense, the brand stands on the idea of the stairwell, not only just being a place where you move between different levels but also a gathering location. A place where great conversations are taking place about everything from art to science to politics.
In Sweden, a defunding of youth centers has been going on for years. Every winter when the youth centres were closed and we had nowhere to go, we always used a random stairwell as our meeting place/office/think centre until we got kicked out.
Redefining what luxury means is a key part of UNIFORM. Is this a shift you see happening in the world right now?
Definitely. In our case, we want to redefine what luxury must look like or where it comes from. In a standard measure, UNIFORM would not be considered luxury based on our background, where our story stems from, and how accessible we want our products to be. But luxury for us means high-quality products that are produced with a lot of care and attention to details. Luxury has nothing to do with heritage or who stands behind the brand.
The shift I see happening is that younger people’s aspiration has gone from wanting to buy luxury products to aspiring to buy sustainable products that they can show off. Sustainability is now the new luxury.
The packaging and design for the scents are very distinctive and minimal. How did you develop these?
UNIFORM was designed to be sleek and a product that you could carry around in your pocket or handbag at any time. It should be so convenient that you pick it up and apply a small amount throughout the day to feel your best. When it came to the bottle – the process was that it needed to be a statement piece to the degree that when you pull out the UNIFORM in public, everyone is intrigued.
Because the bottle draws a lot of focus, I wanted to keep the packaging very minimal and just include the essential information. I enlisted the help of my friend Fredrika Larsson who designed the logo and helped with the packaging.
How do you think the beauty industry can be more representative? Do you feel that any progress is being made?
In two ways. Either we hire people who truly get the need for representation and are going to make a difference. Or we start our own brands like Fenty.
The beauty world has been getting better at showing diversity in front of the camera, but behind the camera there is a long way to go. Directors, photographers, make-up artists, and more important – clients still lack knowledge about why representation is important. I’m starting to think that people who do not work towards more representation, just don’t want to see improvement for under-represented groups. In this day and age, it is no longer about not knowing how to go about it. There is plenty of information online that only requires a Google search. For example, my friend created the platform Afripedia which is a curated database that connects clients and individuals with top African creatives around the world.
To be able to create innovation and further an industry you need more perspective. That is scientifically proven. You need to be open to listening and trying to understand people who don’t come from the same walks of life as you. Inclusivity should not be seen as goodwill or something charitable. It should be seen as a crucial part of an industry or a brand that wants to survive in the future.
You recently received a grant from Samuel Ross and A-Cold-Wall’s foundation to support Black-owned businesses – how do you plan to use this to develop the brand?
I am very grateful to Mr. Ross that he is using not only his platform but also his brand’s capital to inspire and uplift Black-owned businesses. That is admirable. As somebody who has financed this brand solely from my pocket, I plan to use the grant towards the expansion of UNIFORM to different parts of the world.
I said to Samuel that the plan is to pass it forward. My philosophy is that when somebody opens a door for you, you must do the same for the next person. This grant is no different. I plan to give back the same amount to the next creative entrepreneur that I meet in the near future.
What is coming next for UNIFORM? Do you have plans to develop the product range further?
We are excited for UNIFORM to be accessible in new markets and sharing our work with a lot more people across the globe. We are also looking forward to collaborating with cross-disciplinary artists to find ways to experience our perfumes in different contexts that will challenge their perception of scent.
Mohamed Al-Fayed had waged a war of words with the British royal family after his son was killed in a car accident alongside Diana, Princess of Wales.
Mohamed Al-Fayed was an outspoken and successful Egyptian business tycoon. His death comes almost 26 years to the day after the car crash in Paris that killed his eldest son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales, on August 31, 1997.
Here are five points on the self-made billionaire:
1.Far from being the scion of a dynasty of cotton and shipping barons he made himself out to be, Fayed was the son of a poor Alexandrian schoolteacher who, after an early venture flogging lemonade, set out in business selling sewing machines.
2.He later had the good fortune to start working for the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who recognised his business abilities and employed him in his furniture export business in Saudi Arabia. He became an advisor to the Sultan of Brunei in the mid-1960s and moved to Britain in the 1970s.
3.Fayed lived most of his life in Britain, where for decades he was never far from the headlines. But to his frustration, he was never granted UK citizenship or admitted into the upper echelons of British society.
4.The defining tragedy of Fayed’s life came in August 1997, when Dodi and Princess Diana died when a car driven by one of Fayed’s employees, chauffeur Henri Paul, crashed in a Paris road tunnel. For years afterwards, Fayed refused to accept that the deaths were the result of speeding and intoxication by Paul, who also died. The distraught Fayed accused the royal family of being behind the deaths and commissioned two memorials to the couple at Harrods.
5.According to Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, Fayed was worth $1.9 billion in November 2022. With a business empire encompassing shipping, property, banking, oil, retail, and construction, Fayed was also a philanthropist whose foundation helped children in the UK, Thailand, and Mongolia.
source/content: ndtv.com (headline edited)
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Mohamed Al-Fayed was born in Alexandria and was the son of a schoolteacher.
The work, of which only 30 copies were made, contains paintings drawn by David Roberts in Andalusia in 1832-1833.
King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh has unveiled a 190-year-old book by British artist David Roberts.
The work, of which only 30 copies were made, contains paintings drawn by Roberts in Andalusia in 1832-1833 depicting a number of famous landmarks he visited in Spain.
Roberts used natural colors in the book’s 26 lithograph-printed and hand-colored paintings.
Most of the painting are devoted to Arab-Islamic monuments and palaces in Andalusia, as the book offers splendid and beautiful images of Granada and the Alhambra Palace and the fine details of Islamic architectural inscriptions.
The leather-bound book’s pages are between 38 an 53 cm in size, whereas the spine bears a gilded title and decorations with words printed in black. The covers have geometric drawings, in addition to gilded and polished edges.
The Library acquired the book in 1997 when it obtained it from the library of King Don Carlos I of Portugal.
David Roberts, who lived between 1796 and 1864, was considered one of the most prominent British painters in the 19th century and was one of the few who worked in this art form during his time.
His style of painting was easy to recognize as lithography was the only method during that time to produce accurate, true-to-life images.
Roberts was a scene painter at the Theater Royal in Edinburgh, and produced a group of oil paintings that included scenes from England, Scotland, France, and Belgium.
He toured Egypt and Syria and published a six-volume book, three of which were drawings in Egypt, and three were paintings in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The Library acquired the book in 1997 when it obtained it from the library of King Don Carlos I of Portugal. (SPA)
Moroccan Engineering Lab won two prestigious awards at the International Innovation Salon in Toronto, Canada.
Smarti Lab, a research laboratory affiliated with the Moroccan School of Engineering Sciences (EMSI), claimed two gold medals and two prestigious awards at the iCAN 2023 International Innovation Exhibition held in Toronto, Canada.
The lab’s winning invention is called the “Smart Wastewater Treatment Station” (SGWT), which is a “green, and mobile” wastewater treatment station.
According to a statement from EMSI, the innovation addresses a critical global issue and represents a “significant leap forward” in sustainable water management.
The smart wastewater treatment station was in response to the current global water crisis, EMSI said in the statement.
The second medal went to the “Meat Quality Verification System” (SMT), a system that offers a “simple and rapid solution for assessing the quality of various types of meat.”
The solution relies on mechanisms that analyze meat quality using specialized integrated units. The system addresses critical health and safety concerns related to meat consumption, the statement explains.
Over the years, EMSI secured a number of awards for innovation. The engineering school has won a total of 85 awards and medals on both national and international fronts.
Engineers from the school previously participated in international innovation competitions such as ICAN in Canada, Silicon Valley in the United States, the International Innovation Exhibition in China, ISIF in Turkey, Intarg in Poland, and EuroInvent in Romania, among others.
The Canada exhibition was held from August 23 to 26, and it featured participants from 50 countries with over 800 inventions.
Egypt’s Grand Mosque in the New Administrative Capital
According to the explanation, Egypt’s Grand Mosque obtained three international certificates from the Guinness World Records.
The first was for the largest pulpit in the world with a height of 16.6 meters, handcrafted from the finest types of wood.
The second and third were for the main chandelier of the mosque, being the heaviest chandelier in the world of 50 tons, and it being the largest chandelier with a diameter of 22 meters and four levels.
Egypt’s Islamic Cultural Center in the New Administrative Capital
Egypt’s Islamic Cultural Center in the New Administrative Capital is a great achievement and one of the most important projects established in the New Administrative Capital.
The Islamic Cultural Center was established in the new capital on an area of 15,000 square meters. It has a large place for services, as well as a group of spacious and multi-storey garages, with a capacity of about 4,000 cars.
Ahmed Hussen came to Canada from Somalia as a refugee. Now he’s the new minister of immigration.
Along with thousands of compatriots, Ahmed Hussen fled war-ravaged Somalia for a better life in Canada.
Hussen’s journey took him from Mogadishu to Toronto and then on to Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, where the former Somali refugee was named this week as the country’s newest minister of immigration in a reshuffle of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet.
It was a fast political rise for the rookie politician, and will put Hussen, who arrived in Canada in 1993 as a 16-year-old, in charge of the complex portfolio that oversees who is welcomed into the country.
Friends say the lawyer and social activist will be able to draw from personal experience in his new role.
Mahamad Accord, who has known Hussen for years through his work with the Canadian Somali Congress, says his friend has not forgotten his modest roots despite walking Canada’s corridors of power.
“He didn’t change,” he says. “The people around him changed.”
Accord recalls Hussen offering him help a few years back. The Somali community in the provinces of Ontario and Alberta were struggling to tackle the deaths of dozens of young Somali men due to drug and gun violence.
He says Hussen did not shy away from speaking openly about the problems plaguing the Somali community in Canada, from high rates of poverty and unemployment to gang involvement.
But Hussen was also aware of how the community could be stigmatised, and was always careful in how he spoke and presented himself. Accord says his friend would tell him “we need to change people’s perception of us”.
“He expects high standards,” he says.
Accord admits he was sometimes jealous of the lawyer and social activist’s ability to get across a difficult message diplomatically.
It was that ability that struck former Ontario politician George Smitherman when he first met Hussen in 1999. Hussen was then fighting for the interest of Regent Park, a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in downtown Toronto where he had settled with one of his brothers upon his arrival in Canada.
In 2015, he told the Toronto Star that a backlog in refugee applications for permanent residency at the time meant he could not qualify for a student loan. Living in the public housing allowed him to save enough to go to university.
Hussen lobbied to help secure funds to revitalise the crime-ridden housing project, co-founding the Regent Park Community Council.
Some long-time residents had to move out of their homes during the redevelopment and were fearful they would not be able to return; Hussen worked to ensure their interests were protected.
“There was an extraordinary tension because there was distrust and concerns among tenants,” recalls Smitherman. “Ahmed had to very carefully but forcefully represent their interests.”
Smitherman, who calls the 40-year-old Mr Hussen an “old soul”, later helped him land a job working with former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.
“He was someone who spoke with a calmness and an informed knowledge and a maturity that defied his circumstances, both as someone who was young and someone who had taken this awesomely courageous step of leaving Africa for Canada.”
Mr Hussen swept his Toronto riding in November 2015, though he drew criticism for not living in the disadvantaged riding he was elected to represent.
Speaking last April in the House of Commons, he raised concerns about the recent drowning death of hundreds of migrants from Somalia and the Horn of Africa, saying: “Asylum seekers are not criminals. They are human beings in need of protection and assistance and deserving of our respect”.
Smitherman sees Hussen’s background as both an asset and a possible disadvantage in the challenging portfolio.
“It sets up for tensions also as expectations are increased,” he says.
Following his swearing-in, Mr Hussen, the father of three boys, told media he was “extremely proud of our country’s history as a place of asylum, a place that opens its doors and hearts to new immigrants and refugees”.
Hussen has always referred to himself as a Canadian first and Somali second, says Accord. In 2015 Mr Hussen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he does not want to be labelled a “Somali MP”.
“I’m a Canadian. Somali is my heritage and I’m proud of my heritage but I have a lot to contribute to Canada. And I’m a mainstream guy. I’m not limited by my community,” he said.
Hussen replaces John McCallum, a veteran politician who is going to become Canada’s envoy to China after managing Trudeau government efforts to bring in over 39,000 Syrian refugees in the last 13 months.
“The real message of the new appointment is that the government wishes to profile refuges as a more salient part of our immigration program,’ says Jeffrey Reitz, a University of Toronto sociology professor.
“But it does raise the question of the mainstream immigration programme,” he says.
The rookie minister will face challenges in the key, and rarely uncontroversial, portfolio.
McCallum recently introduced contentious changes to Canada’s popular family reunification programme, replacing a first-come, first-serve process with a lottery system to randomly choose 10,000 people who filled out initial applications to express interest. Critics say that reuniting families should not depend on luck of the draw.
Another recent decision to scrap a rule limiting how long foreign workers can stay in Canada is being targeted by the opposition as potentially harmful to the country’s work force in the long run. Immigrant rights groups have been critical of the programme, arguing the workers under the program are vulnerable to abuse by employers.
He will also have to defend a recent Liberal decision to significantly reduce the number of private sponsorship applications for Syrian and Iraqi refugees because of a current backlog.
Canada plans to bring in 300,000 immigrants in 2017, the majority of them economic immigrants.
source/content: bbc.com (headline edited)
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Ahmed Hussen is Canada’s new minister of immigration in Justin Trudeau’s government / pix: AP
Last week’s Arabian Flavour Festival in the Dutch capital celebrated Arab culture, cuisine, crafts
‘It’s all about sharing love, identity and culture,’ organizer tells Arab News
The first edition of the Arabian Flavour Festival took place in Amsterdam last Saturday.
In an intimate outdoor setting, the festival celebrated the diversity and richness of Arab culture, cuisine and crafts.
Organizer Shadow, originally from Syria, said his aim is to create a platform for promoting both international and Middle Eastern artists, for people to mingle and to share their cultures through storytelling and arts.
Set in the idyllic Tolhuis garden, a cultural and culinary meeting place in Amsterdam, the one-day event welcomed over 1,000 visitors from different backgrounds.
Organized by The Shadow Projects, the festival featured two stages with performances by dancers, singers and poets, along with a dabke workshop, pop-up food and merchandise, all within an Arabian atmosphere.
“It’s called Arabian Flavour because there’s a flavor of Arabic culture, but at the same time it’s an opportunity for people to integrate,” Shadow told Arab News.
“There’s always a performance other than Arabic to let people understand that this isn’t an Arabic party (but) just an Arabian Flavour.”
The idea started after Shadow starred in the documentary “The Story Won’t Die” about Syrian artists in Europe and America, from award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerso.
In 2021, because of Shadow’s efforts, the documentary was showcased at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, whereafter the concept gained more and more traction.
Initially, it began as a gathering showcasing talents at home, but expanded to various stages throughout Amsterdam, and now the Arabian Flavour Festival is the biggest such festival in Europe, according to Shadow.
The organization places significant emphasis on diversity and inclusion. “If you’re an Arabic singer who isn’t well known, you don’t have work anymore if you move to Europe,” he said, adding that Bottom of Form the festival is open to whoever wants to perform.
The organizers state: “It is magical to see people who share their passion, and it is most important that they express themselves authentically.”
Among the performers was DJ Maherrie, a Syrian DJ who amazed the audience with a fusion of Middle Eastern melodies and modern European rhythms to raise awareness of his heritage.
Dutch singer-songwriter Maxine Zain shared her hopes of inspiring people with her heartfelt songs, and specifically highlighted her enjoyment in seeing traditional Arabic music connecting well with the artistry of Dutch artists like herself.
Pauline Koning, a passionate self-taught Dutch musician and belly dancer, made an impact with her performance of her own song “Kefaya Ghyab.”
In her music, she blends Arabic, Western, and Yemeni musical elements, drawing inspiration from her nostalgic love for Umm Kulthum, and praises the language’s poetic nature and rich emotional vocabulary.
The Arab tradition of belly dancing, Koning said, “represents a powerful symbol of empowerment for all women, not only embodying archetypes but also having the power to transfer certain emotions.”
Shadow earned his name for his ability to bring subcultures from the shadow into the light, and the event lived up to this name as confirmed by visitors’ reviews. “I’m very curious about Arab culture. It’s a refreshing perspective opposite Dutch traditions,” said one visitor.
Another visitor attended the festival as an opportunity to connect with language partners and practice Arabic.
Three friends from Yemen were interested to meet Dutch people and exchange stories about their respective cultures.
Aside from the Arabian Flavour Festival, they also host monthly Arabian Flavour Nights. “The dream is to, in the next year or so, organize a three-day festival,” but in the end “it’s all about sharing love, identity and culture,” Shadow said.
All the projects are funded by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The first edition of the Arabian Flavour Festival took place in Amsterdam last Saturday. (Instagram/@theshadow.amsterdam)
Throughout history, Algerian women have fought injustice at work, in the home and on the battlefields, yet their contributions are relatively uncelebrated.
Throughout Algeria’s history under French colonialism, women played a vital role in the quest for self-determination, as well as in protecting and developing the country’s culture and traditions.
This was particularly apparent during the War of Independence (1954-1962), when Algerians fought to free the North African country from 132 years of French rule in a battle that would come to represent the epitome of fierce revolutionary resistance.
Driven by the resolve to liberate Algeria at all costs, women took to combat in an expansive range of roles including as paramilitary fighters, transporters, fundraisers, nurses, cooks and communicators.
One of the many tactics often adopted by female agents during the war was to act as communicators between the Algerian soldiers and the population as a whole, in order to raise funds and propagate news about the revolution. Ironically, by taking part in such high-risk operations, Algerian women strategically subverted the colonial stereotype of the tepid and submissive native woman afforded to them by the unsuspecting French army.
On 5 July 1962, the revolution ended in liberation for Algeria. But while one battle ended, others would soon begin for the country’s female population.
Algerian women would continue to actively engage in national politics in the years following independence, fighting patriarchy, misogyny and political alienation by ex-fellow combatants who were dismissive of their seat at the governing table of the new state.
Despite the many obstacles Algerian women have faced, they have remained socially and politically active. This can be seen by the return of women to the political forefront at the launch of the popular movement, known as Hirak, as well as the Revolution of Smiles.
The protests were triggered by former-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s announcement on 10 February 2019 that he would seek a fifth term in office. The Hirak succeeded in ousting Bouteflika, but the struggle to bring the structure of the entire regime down continues.
Despite their enormous historical contributions, Algeria’s iconic women remain somehow uncelebrated outside of the Grand Maghreb and the Arab world.
Here are eight revolutionary Algerian women whose defiance of social and gender norms has cemented their place in history.
Lalla Fadhma N’Soumer (1830-1863)
Lalla Fatma N’Soumer is renowned as an icon of female armed militancy (Wikicommons/ean Geiser/pd-us)
Born into a family of religious marabouts in 1830 (during the fall of Algeria to French colonisation) in a town called Soumer in the Kabylie region, Lalla Fadhma N’Soumer is renowned as an icon of female armed militancy and an Islamic religious authority of her time.
Known for her intellect and ferocity, she led the first wave of resistance (1850-1857) against the French after the death of Cherif Boubaghla in a battle on 26 December 1854.
While her enemies called her the Joan of Arc of the Djurdjura mountains for her military campaigns, she was also referred to as “lalla” or “lady” to signify her honour and sanctity.
In her article about Lalla N’Soumer, author Samia Touati recounts that on the day she was captured by the French army, Marshal Jacques Louis Cesar Alexandre Randon (1795- 1871) asked Lalla N’Soumer why her men violently resisted the French troops.
She replied: “God wanted it. It is neither your fault, nor mine. Your soldiers went out of their ranks to penetrate my village. Mine defended themselves. I’m now your captive. I have no reproach to you. You shouldn’t have any reproach to me. It was written this way!”
Zoulikha Oudai (1911-1957)
Zoulikha Oudai is known in Algeria as “mother of martyrs” (Creative commons/memoria)
Born Yamina Echaib in 1911 to an educated family in Hadjout, Zoulikha’s commitment to freedom fighting began as a mediator between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the Algerian population.
A nationalist party formed in 1954 and which went on to rule Algeria after independence, the FLN initially resisted French colonialism through paramilitary guerrilla warfare.
The secrecy of Algerian independence operations warranted the need for mediators such as Oudai to contact Algerian families individually and confidentially to raise funds for the FLN.
In October 1957, the French army arrested Oudai and tortured her for ten days.
After refusing to divulge secret information, French soldiers pushed her from a helicopter, earning her the title of “mother of martyrs”.
Algerian writer Assia Djebar evokes the figure of Zoulikha Oudai in her 1977 film, La nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua (The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua) and her 2002 novel, La femme sans sepulture (The Woman Without a Tomb).
Djamila Bouhired (1935-present)
Djamila Bouhired was a militant during the war (AFP)
Born in 1935 in the historic neighbourhood of Al-Casbah in Algiers, militant Djamila Bouhired showed signs of political leadership in the early years of her childhood. As a pupil in a French school, Bouhired once rebelliously sang “Algeria is our mother” instead of “France is our mother.”
At the age of 20, Bouhired enthusiastically joined the FLN and later on the Fedayeen (armed militants) to take part in guerrilla warfare against the French colonists.
After she was arrested in 1957, Bouhired was tortured by being beaten, burnt and electrocuted at the Rheims prison where she was incarcerated.
Worldwide, activists marched to demand the release of Bouhired. Renowned Syrian poet NizarQabbani, Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Egyptian president Gamal AbdelNasser all called for her release.
She was honoured by key personalities in the region: Nasser once received her in Egypt, Qabbani wrote a poem about her, the Lebanese musician Fairuz dedicated a song to her, and Chahine directed the 1958 film, Jamila, the Algerian, about her life. Bouhired was also featured in the 1966 Italian-Algerian production, The Battle of Algiers.
But after independence she was deliberately alienated from the political scene by fellow male FLN combatants. Bouhired decided to fight yet another battle against Bouteflika’s election when she marched alongside young student activists last year.
Exasperated by the injustice of patriarchy, Bouhired asserted women’s role in liberating Algeria by announcing during protests last year: “Our blood is the same as men’s. Our blood is not water. Our blood is blood.”
Louisette Ighilahriz
Louisette Ighilahriz’s memoire released in 2000 ignited a conversation in France on torture (AFP)
Born in 1936, militant and author Louisette Ighilahriz devoted her youth to helping the Algerian revolution by working as a courier to transport the FLN’s documents and weapons.
Ighlahriz documented her incarceration and torment at the hands of the French army in her autobiography, Algerienne. This account not only testifies to women’s active engagement during the Algerian war, but it also highlights the widespread use of torture committed by the French, which was finally acknowledged in 2018.
It was decades before Ighilahriz was finally ready to speak about the horrors she faced. In her book she gives a painful account of the dehumanising treatment, the beating and rape at the hands of French army captain Jean Graziani, while in prison.
In addition to the physical torment, Ighilahriz was forced to live in her own excrement: “My urine leaked through the sheet covering the bed, my excrement mixed with my menstrual blood and formed a stinking crust” which pushed her to the edge of insanity.
This account of torture is similar to other narratives on the experiences of other activists, including the biography, Pour Djamila Bouhired, by Jacques Verges (1957) La question by Henri Alleg (1961) and Djamila Boupacha (1962) by Gisele Halimi. Ighilahriz was, however, the first Algerian woman to speak out about rape in a personal autobiography.
Today, the 83-year-old remains active, talking about the betrayal of the revolution by its own militants after independence and participating in today’s revolution.
Zohra Drif (1934-present)
Born into an upper-class family in 1934, it was retired lawyer and politician Zohra Drif’s education that led her to develop staunch feminist and anti-colonial positions that propelled her active engagement with the FLN.
In her memoir, Inside the Battle of Algiers, Drif recounts the joys of having access to information on resistance while at university:
“We finally had access to the publications of the many parties and associations comprising our national movement: the UDMA’s La Republique Algerienne, the PPA-MTLD’s L’Algerie Libre; and El Bassair, published by the oulema. The press brought us information, opinion pieces, and analyses from various perspectives, while lectures by the very individuals engaged in the early struggle gave us the means to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
After independence, Drif continued her political engagement both as a lawyer and as a member of the Algerian Council of the Nation. Her autobiography Memoirs of a combattant of the ALN: Autonomous zone of Algiers is a testimony of her struggle during the Algerian revolution. Her feminist activism continued after independence as a critic of some of the government’s policies.
When a new Islamic family code was proposed in 1981 that would ultimately limit women’s rights within the household, Drif joined fellow feminists as they swarmed the streets of Algiers calling it “the infamy code”.
Drif also joined the masses that marched against former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term in Algeria last year, calling for the president’s resignation and opposing having a military state.
Salima Ghezali (1958-present)
Salima Ghezali fought against fundamentalism during the 1990’s civil war in Algeria (Creative Commons/Claude TRUONG-NGOC)
A founding member of the group Women in Europe and the Maghreb and president of the Association for the Advancement of Women, in Algiers, Salima Ghezali is known for her active role in fighting against fundamentalism during the 1990s civil war in Algeria.
The rise of Islamist patriarchy in Algeria was demarcated, on the political scene, by the proposition of a new family code in 1981 which designated the male patriarch as the head of each family, thus giving him authority over women.
Working as the editor of Algerian French-language weekly La Nation put Ghezali’s life in great danger because of her unyielding political opposition to the government of ex-president Chadli Bendjedid and the Islamist party (FIS). Her dissent against censorship infuriated both the Islamists and government officials.
Ghezali’s bravery as a journalist and a feminist was acknowledged worldwide; she received accolades from the World Press Review and the European parliament.
Nour El houda Dahmani and Nour El houda Oggadi
Today’s revolution is built on the back of the struggles of the past. The young students Nour El houda Dahmani and Nour El houda Oggadi are two women who joined the anti-corruption marches last year to demand long-overdue democratic reforms and a political system representative of its young population.
Law student and activist Nour El Houda Dahmani, 22, was arrested in September 2019 while marching in the Hirak student-led protests against the militarily imposed presidential elections.
Dhamani, who was holding a poster at the time of her arrest, reading: “All of the corrupt shall be held accountable”, soon became one of the many iconic faces of the Revolution of Smiles.
Although Dahmani stated that she was not mistreated in prison, the experience of incarceration was traumatic. She was supported by vast numbers of people, as she explained in an interview with Berbere Television: “When I read the articles written about me, and I heard that people marching in the Hirak were asking for my release, even my incarceration did not seem cruelly bad anymore.”
Upon her release, Dhamani only had one goal: to return to university despite missing an entire term.
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Like Dhamani, Nour El houda Oggadi is a student and activist who was arrested a couple of months later, on 19 December. She was charged with “demoralising the army” because of her social media posts and signs she carried while marching, which were part of demands calling for Algeria to function as a civilian, not a military state. Oggadi served 45 days in prison.
Prison did not deter Oggadi; after her release, she stated her pride in her role in this Hirak, which she describes as “the birth of a new generation.”
The two students became powerful symbols of female resistance in Algeria, just two in a long line of women fighting tyranny and injustice.
