Nawal el Saadawi

"my mother's name - Zainab - disappeared in history; disappeared"

Nawal el Saadawi @Southbank, London - 15 April 2010

These words sum up much about our patriarchal world. Aspects too that I have thought about myself - and felt at times alone and almost mad in these tumbling reflections. There was a time that I changed my own name upon the turn of them. Yes, I have not always been Caroline Watson! For some that know this fact about me, it is an amusing anecdote - and for me I too laughed (and continue to) at the linguistic, cultural, societal conundrum that I was trying to weave my way through (the process is ongoing... and not resolved... ). That story is for another day - for today belongs to Nawal el Saadawi: born in Egypt (1931); Feminist; Writer; Activist; Physician; former Presidential candidate; former Prisoner; Woman.

Tonight, Nawal el Saadawi raised a standing ovation. Sprung by her force, her smile, her positive composure, her clarity, her bravery, her resiliance, her politics and wisdom, we had absorbed something of her formidable spirit.

Her achievements, and her radicalism and stridency, are extra-ordinary. She spent 50 years campaigning in Egypt against female genital mutilation - for which she was punished. In 2008, the practice was finally outlawed. Most remarkable in this, is her breaking through language - for language is a matrix in which we are all held. Imagine taking words used to name and describe sex organs and sexuality at a time and in an atmosphere where they were unspoken, and for which almost everyone would spit on you for doing so - and writing about them. Publicly.

She has suffered recrimmination for her writing, for her ideas, and - ironically and powerfully (since we are talking about his-story and her-story) - for what her daughter has written. In 2007, her daughter Mona became the target of contraversy when she wrote an article on Mother's Day, and undersigned it absorbing her mother's name "Nawal" into her own. She was making a point of gratitude, connection, respect - visibility - to her mother (and also a legal point). Two years of prosecution for heresy ensued. The case led to a new law for the rights of the child, giving children born outside marriage in Egypt the right to carry the name of the mother.

Nawal el Saadawi had much to say:

"writing is like breathing;
it is very natural,
it is like talking.
We are all born writers"

"What is feminism?> Feminism means that you become angry when they treat you unjustly"

"I became a feminist when I was a child"

"veiling and nakedness [ref. women] are two sides of the same coin"

"when you become creative, you become dissident"

"when/if you challenge, you win;
if you are afraid, you lose"

"we live in a world that separates everything;
but everything is connected"

(all quotes are from tonight's event at London's Southbank, where I had a front-row seat and Nawal spoke directly into my eyes)

where Three Dreams cross

Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

(@Whitechapel Gallery, London, E1)

Self-assured and celebratory: this exhibition brings together the works of 82 photographers spanning 150 years, 3 nations and many more (sub-)communities besides. It is quite a remarkable collection, with many of the images being displayed together for the first time.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the "the crucial moment when the power to hold a camera, frame and take pictures was no longer exclusively the preserve of colonial or European photographers". These images of "self-representation" and "self-determination" are presented thematically in five broad groups - The Portrait, The Family, The Performance, The Street, and The Body Politic. The curators have opened themselves up to inevitable critique by presenting in this way, as naturally there is overlap between the categories - but it works. More conventional categorisation would have supressed connections that are there to be made in the eye of the viewer. I enjoyed hearing the echoes whispered between sections, and between time and place.

Unabashedly, it is the content that is strong in this exhibition.

D. Nusserwanji - Studio Portrait, Bombay, c.1940s
Arif Mahmood - Hanuman Temple at Soldier Bazaar, Karachi, 2008

Both above images are black and white prints - the studio portrait having been touched with glitter and paint. Arif Mahmood's three works from Karachi were striking - including this one of the Hanuman Temple at Soldier Bazaar. Painted over beautifully by Shaukat Mahmood (no relation) who died of cancer shortly after completion of the project in March 2009, the images revisit the dying art of the painted photograph as well as bring into play the very contemporary contention over post-production.

A collection of images from the exhibition is nicely presented here. And here are some more:

Above:
1. Anay Mann, About Neetika, 2005
2. Dileep Prakash, Christine Fernandes, Khurda Road, 2005
3. T.S. Satyan, Boys Cooling off on a Summer Day in Bombay, 1970
4. Umrao Singh Sher-Gill, After a Bath: Self-Portrait, 1904
5. Munem Wasif, Illegal Immigrants from Myanmar, 2007

Top:
Gauri Gill, Balika Mela, Lunkaransar, 2003

I *heart* Stokey @16C!

The mood of London and the temperament of its citizens change with the weather.

Today: it's the sunniest Saturday of the year so far, and the people are out! 11am down Ridley Road market, and a young pecked-up stall holder has his shirt off and is getting the sun-protection cream on. Optimism is in the air! To the sound of steel drums, Stoke Newington Church Street was re-opened (having been closed to traffic over the winter for improvement works), and the local political parties were out - taking the first official breaths in their pre-election marketeering. "I *heart* Stokey" balloons garlanded Church Street, and some floated into the stratosphere to the rolling notes of the Nostalgic Steel Band.

The Green Party had a very positive and impressive stand. The ruling Labour Party (on behalf of Diane Abbott MP) were looking confident. The red balloons celebrating the new tarmac sung in their favour. I was disappointed to find only a girl in a blue dress handing out smiley stickers on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Other LibDem representatives were also lingering, but on request - no literature. The Green Party seemed much more organised and on the ball. Subject to close-reading of their literature, for the first time perhaps they have my local vote.

I will celebrate my first election in solo autonomous living with my colours in the window. (LOL: My mum would say I should clean the windows first!) - I will go for two colours!(green & yellow) - But please Hackney LibDems, raise your game.

Stokey really was a-buzz; it felt like everyone was out. A craft fair in Abney Hall, a produce market with tasties if you could grab them, ripe blossom, red balloons buoyant and the red ribbon being cut. Church Street is open again, and the summer (and the election) is ON!

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities."

- Jean Houston (b. 10 May 1937, New York City)