Freedom to Create

You must be in a pretty horrific situation if you perceive that setting yourself on fire is the only way to escape from it. The aftermath of attempted self-immolation by some Afghani women is documented in photographs by Lynsey Addario, showing at a new exhibit in New York.

The art on display at the Freedom to Create exhibit at the Ana Tzarev Gallery is not limited to these terrible experiences though. The exhibit which opened with a forum about empowering women through creativity showcases art by women from countries such as Iran, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan and Lebanon. Some of the work is an affirmation of being human in a society that may try to prohibit that expression. For example, Salome, a Iranian rapper and poet, is keen to point out that she is not a "feeble woman struggling to fight for her right to sing" in a country where arts and culture are heavily restricted, especially for female performers. She says she wants to be recognised for expressing herself creatively and not as a struggling woman in an oppressive society.

Freedom to Create which is a non-profit organization based in Singapore was established in 2006 to "harness the power art and culture to build more creative and prosperous societies" and since 2008 has been awarding prizes to artists, too.

Vice president, Priti Devi, told me the organization believes in building societies from the bottom up.  She says: "We want people to use their talents to express themselves and to have the right to be creative that everyone must have."  If people are able to express themselves they have the confidence to use it and do other things with it, such as using it in an entrepreneurial way and this can reap financial reward for the individual, the larger family and then society, according to Freedom to Create.

Devi says if this can happen the world's attention can become focused on their activities which can help funnel in more money to their societies. She points out the recent events in Egypt as a broad example of people being forced to live "smaller" lives and not being part of a global economy. "They realised they were left out of prosperity and they realised they wanted to be a part of that. Flourishing is not just the right of a few people."  This is Freedom to Create's role, adds Devi.

Muslim Women's Film Festival

Tomorrow in Los Angeles, hundreds of films from around the world by women living in Muslim majority and western countries, will be shown. These women's voices will be added to a global discourse that usually lacks them. The Muslim Women's Film Festival will be a part of a wider initiative to get these women’s stories heard by a New York-based charity called Women's Voices Now.

The 98 short films in the festival (available online), focus on stories about and mostly by women and girls living in Muslim majority societies and those living as minorities around the globe.

The mixture of fiction and documentary films looks at the lives of Iran’s first female bus driver, two women married to the same man, and an all-female Tae Kwon Do group in Afghanistan.

The aim of the festival is to allow Muslim women to tell their stories by themselves through citizen journalism and the Internet, so their voices and perspectives register on the western public consciousness.

Catinca Tabacaru, a lawyer and head of Women's Voices Now, says: “The content of the films is surprising to western audiences who are not used to seeing Muslim women portrayed as heroes and changemakers."

The festival is not a one-off but a year-long campaign with focused events planned in other countries (a UK visit is in the works, too), beginning with the festival. The organization plans to travel to Muslim majority countries and show these films. Tabacaru says that the festival and campaign is not about fixing these societies but “creating a platform” for women’s stories.

Rebel Queen

I wrote a piece in the New Year Eve's edition of the Guardian about the last queen of the Punjab, Jindan Kaur.

The piece highlights the life of an inspiring, gutsy and far-from-perfect heroine in Punjabi culture. But it is also is a microcosm of a wider issue that needs to be highlighted: that there is a culture of female dissent in the east. This may seem obvious. But how often are women in "the Orient" to use Edward Said's term, made to appear too eager to be dominated and often victims rather than pro-active women in charge of their destinies. Too often and this view is perpetuated in the media too.

Knowing about a historical figure like Jindan Kaur may not change the image of women or even people's minds overnight, but it shows that there are figures to look back to. Complex women who had much to contend with and showed grit and persistence in the face of odds. Highlighting such women helps us begin the process of asking: where are they? How can we continue to highlight them and raise awareness of them?

There is a argument I did not get to make about how western feminists can sometimes look down on women’s struggles in eastern countries without realizing that a history of dissent does exist and we don’t always know about the figures that instigated it. Or the figures are not always spoken about in a way that makes them recognizable as part of a social movement.

But there are figures like Jindan Kaur. Then there are others like the writer Amrita Pritam who wrote about the horrific fallout for women in the Punjab during Partition - stories not discussed enough. Also the Rokeya Hossain story mentioned in the feature - Sultana's Dream - came ten years before what is considered one of the first western feminist utopian stories, Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This indicates a visionary attitude for society by women living in it at the time; not just passive women living as victims of oppression.

What history/stories are we missing while we are engaging in debates? When I went to the British Library to do research on Jindan Kaur, a search of her name yielded few results in the computerised archives. The librarian told me women were "very badly represented" in the catalogue. There needs to be radical rethinking of how we view history and one place we can start is by digging out these 'hidden heroines' and spreading awareness of them.

International Women's Week

I played a hand in organizing a performing arts concert and a crafts and cookery fair as a part of a Women's International Leadership program last week. The events took place at a New York graduate residence to celebrate International Women's Week.

The point of the performing arts concert, was to celebrate female creativity and so, art produced by women. One of my favorite sights was seeing a colleague crochet sitting on an armchair, in between serving wine at the reception preceding the concert! We were lucky to have one of New York City's most sought-after jazz singers, Karen Oberlin (left).

Her soulful, graceful and generous performance reminds us that we have a lot to learn from the experience of preceding generations of women and should humbly pay attention.

The crafts and cookery fair may baffle some in how it celebrates modern womanhood but its concept was quite simple: to reclaim traditional crafts for modern women - without the patriarchy!

How many of us have mothers or grandmothers who may have grown up learning to cook, embroider and sew for their families - skills for which modern women may seem to not have much use for. But as busy professional women, we still have to eat and sew fallen buttons onto our clothes. Yes, we could throw money at getting these activities done, but we can also learn these skills to become more self-sufficient, rounded people. And some of them are meditative and enjoyable like knitting. (One colleague taught a Harlem family to knit - including the father! - at our event!)

Simultaneously these "quaint" crafts help us reinvent and remember a legacy of our foremothers and express our modern selves artistically. We actually unwittingly hit upon a trend too, as this article from the UK's Guardian.co.uk shows more women turning to crafts as an activity for pre-wedding parties during hard economic times.

One of the activities at the fair was creating lavender pouches out of old bras, which may well beat burning them. Some men eyed this table rather nervously, one of them implying that handling a bra may distract him from the process of making a pouch! Which brings me to another thought...whilst these events were a part of a Women's Week, it was good to see men come out, enjoy and play a part in all of them! Call me a deluded idealist, but I would love to see more of them cook and sew and so, contribute to male-female equilibrium in households everywhere!

South Asian Women's Leadership

Tonight, I went to an event organized by the unapologetic South Asian Women's Leadership Forum in downtown Manhattan about breaking into the publishing and journalism industries. There was no talk of race or gender as barriers to working in the industries, simply lots of good tips, strategies and advice on how to do it. An American mindset? Maybe. But it still made me wonder why after my eight years of journalism in England, this kind of simple support network does not exist in London...