mouthporn.net
#north africa – @natalunasans on Tumblr
Avatar

(((nataluna)))

@natalunasans / natalunasans.tumblr.com

[natalunasans on AO3 & insta] inactive doll tumblr @actionfiguresfanart
autistic, agnostic, ✡️,
🇮🇱☮️🇵🇸 (2-state zionist),
she/her, community college instructor, old.
Avatar
Avatar
jockrivette

The North African Queer Film Festival is streaming films about queer experiences in North Africa for 2 more days, till August 20.

The films in this program serve as a window into the historical presence of queer people in the region who have always been here despite marginalization, criminalization and erasure by the current systems of oppression in North Africa inherited from colonization.

The films seem to be free to stream but you can donate of your own volition. From the website:

100% of the festival's proceeds will be distributed among organizations in the region that strive to provide essential aid and services to LGBTQ + people in North Africa with a portion of the proceeds will go to support cultural and artistic initiatives in the region that cater primarily to the local queer community.
Avatar
reblogged

Achraf Baznani / أشرف بزناني, b. 1979

small my small world the island of solitude Ready to fly Life is puzzle trapped by reality Keeper of Time Paperman Noisiness Photography the Photographer

Morocco (2010s) [Source]

Wikipedia says:

Baznani got started in photography by chance. He received a Kodak Ektra compact 250 camera for his birthday as a teen. Baznani is self-taught and has never taken photography classes. He has made ​​several short films and documentaries. These include “Walk” in 2006 and “The Forgotten” in 2007. “The Immigrant” in 2007 received several national and international awards.
Baznani is best known for being the first artist in the Arab world to publish a photo-book based on surreal imagery. Both books, Through My Lens and Inside My dreams, are surreal. Baznani places himself within his photographs of everyday objects, scenes and amusing situations.
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
darkhei-noam

Do Ashkies have any right to hamsa imagery? I haven't run into any commentary on this lately.

Avatar

First of all, shiraglassman, sorry for taking so long to answer! The beginning of Passover wiped me out.

It’s a good question… To be honest, I’m not really sure what would or would not give someone ‘the right’ to wear a hamsa. It’s not a symbol that belongs to any particular place or tradition. At the same time, from a historical perspective, it’s true that the hamsa was a prominent artistic element in Jewish art from North Africa, the Mediterranean, and Central Asia, but was not used in the Ashkenazi community until the last 50 years or so. As shown in Sabar’s essay on the Jewish history of the hamsa, in Israeli society the hamsa has been transformed into a general symbol of ‘Israeliness’ and ‘Mediterraneanness’ and in particular a symbol that is distinctly disconnected from religious and nationalist narratives, unlike the “Jewish star” (something also noticed by Alexandra Nocke). It’s not a coincidence that the hamsa appears in the logo for almost every peace initiative, alternative Israel tour, Arab-Jewish coexistence project, etc.

Is it a Jewish symbol? Definitely (well, as much as anything is a Jewish symbol). Its historical origins are unclear, but the idea of a hand as a protective symbol goes far back into antiquity. We know that the hamsa symbol was widespread among both Jews and Muslims already in the Middle Ages, and by then it had taken on different symbolic associations for the different communities — for Muslims, the “five” of the hand relates to the Five Pillars of Islam and to the five members of the Prophet’s family, the Ahl al-Bayt, while for Jews, the “five” of the hand relates to the significance of the fifth Hebrew letter “heh” as a symbol of the Divine Name as well as the iconographic importance of the outstretched hands of the Priestly Blessing (birkat kohanim).

Should Ashkenazim wear it? Well, it depends on how you feel about the relationship between different Jewish groups. Many “Jewish” customs originated in one specific group — for example, wearing costumes for Purim is originally an Italian Jewish custom; smashing a glass at weddings is originally a German Jewish custom; throwing candies at a bar/bat mitzvah is originally a Sephardi Jewish custom; etc. etc. With regards to the hamsa, while it did not originate in Ashkenaz, its symbolic associations (divine protection, blessing, warding off the evil eye) are all consistent with Jewish culture in general, and there is nothing that ties it to one specific community — it is not a symbol of “Moroccanness” or “Persianness” or anything like that. At the same, I can understand why some people might be reluctant to erase its non-Ashkenazi history. I wear it myself, and I appreciate it as a Jewish symbol shared with Muslims and not tied to the State of Israel, but I acknowledge its origins as elsewhere to my own family’s heritage. Ultimately this is my opinion, and feel free to disagree!

Avatar
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
mouthporn.net