QUando, in 2011, came the news, Tawakkol Karman was in the square, under an improvised tent. To protest the dictatorship. The news gave him for sure: in Oslo they had decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for the year should have been delivered in the hands of the Young Yemeni of whom few had heard of.
He would then have divided him with two other women, the Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gboweewhich as she had contributed to the “non -violent struggle for the security of women and for their right to participate fully in the process of building peace”.
Tawakkol Karman, today 46 years old, a large smile and a colorful veil to cover her headfought for women (“but it is also fundamental to have men by your side”) before the Nobel and did not stop doing it then. Daughter of a politician leader of the Muslim brothers in Yemen (“An honest man who has always fought against corruption”), in 2005 he founded the movement Sahafiyyāt Bilā Quyūd (Journalists without chains) in his country.
Tawakkol Karman, 47, Nobel Peace. The foundation that bears its name builds schools and hospitals in Yemen.
When the “Arab Spring” – that series of revolutions that from the end of 2010 in Tunisia had spread to the whole Arab world – has broken out, decreed that the house of her parents had to become the nerve center of the group of young people who, together with her, they would take to the streets in the months to come, until Yemen had freed himself from the authoritarian government of Ali Abdullah Saleh who had ruled him since 1978. Saleh resigned a year later. Tawakkol continued to work for his “peaceful revolution” (The time included it among the 17 most rebellious women in history) Until he had to leave Yemen, in the aftermath of the socket of the Health of Sana’a by the Houthi rebels.
Tawakkol Karman and the exhibition in Bergamo
Today he lives in Istanbul, he created A Foundation that bears its name who mainly deals with building health and health facilities in his countryamong the poorest in the Arab world, upset by an endless civil war. Surrounded by the works of art gathered for the exhibition De Bello. Notes On War and Peace at the Gres Art Gallery in Bergamo, which brings together installations, sculptures, photos, videos, textile works of across 30 artists of different generations and cultures (From Alberto Burri to Anselm Kiefer, from Jospeh Beuys to Marina Abramović), Tawakkol Karman meets a woman to say once more how to “talk about war and peace in this moment of our history is important. The need for peace has never been so strong »he explains. «It is the whole humanity that is at risk. The nuclear threat is realistic, like the end of democracy. We see it: dictatorships are increasingly stronger, poverty is increasing, climate change causes migrations. And at the root of everything there is a large tank of hatred ».
Among the consequences of conflicts there is exile. She experiences him on his skin. The price to pay for its struggle is high.
My condition is the same as refugees from all over the world. People leave their country for many reasons, the first is usually that they want a safe place to live and make their children live, a place where they are not oppressed, where they do not experience the hardness of the occupation, as in Palestine. The minimum wage of these people is dignity. Another reason is poverty: people want schools, health facilities, decent houses. We must reflect on the fact that many of the men and women who arrive in the West do so because the West deprives their resources countries or chooses to support their self -caughters. For pure greed. Now the Syrians who fled when the country was under the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad allocating returning. I love my country like them, we would all like to live where we were born and raised.
The Family A of Marina Abramović. From the 8 Series Lessons on Empiness with a Happy End, Laos, 2008.
The 2011 Revolution generated great hope in Maghreb and the Middle East. Which was then betrayed.
We are very angry in that part of the world, but we have not lost hope, we are not pessimistic. This is my battle. We made a great revolution against the dictatorship. But each revolution corresponds to a counter -revolution. And we are now in this phase. What is happening in Palestine brings us back decades, of centuries: it took over 50 thousand deaths, for the most part women and children, so that the West expressed a first word of indignation. The frustration of the Arab world is great, but we have not lost hope, because people, the NGOs, a part of the media are with us.
She said more than once: “Time is on our side.”
It is. We are infinitely sad because the human cost we are paying is very high, but I have no doubts that over time we will get to our goal. Get rid of dictators and guarantee a dignified life to all citizens. The role of women was decisive.
Tufing, 2017-2025, nine machine embroidered fabrics, by Cristina Lucas, a video map that documents the air bombings on civilians since 1912: the data are transformed into textile testimonies.
When – very young – did he choose the life of the activist, was he aware of the risks he ran and that they could force her to leave his home?
I knew it very well. I also had to fight inside my family, they were all very worried. My father is a politician, but he never believed in change. The revolution was not for him. And of his 10 children I have always been the one who gave him the most worries. We organized daily events in front of Parliament. We started before the outbreak of the revolution, since 2006, and we did not stop until 2012. The place where we were, a group of young people who believed in human rights, who no longer wanted to live under the dictatorship, was my home. They arrested me, but this increased the anger of the square, and after the expulsion of Ben Ali from Tunis and Mubarak from Cairo the whole country took to the square.
The role of women was decisive.
Until 2011 our role in society was that established by tradition. A bad tradition that did not allow women to have an active part in society. In that change the men were fundamental and we were good at convincing them that they had to be by our side. Our revolution is only 14 years old, we sent many dictators home. It is no small thing.
UNTITLED of the Ukrainian artist Masha Shubina, from the series “Lost & Found”, 2022.
New regimes have taken their place.
Of course, the story tells us: after each revolution, a transition phase opens. The process is not complete. And I have no doubt that we will be the winners, I repeat it since 2011 and I continue to say it today. Would you ever have said that the Syrian people would have managed to get rid of Bashar al Assad, the worst of all the tyrants?
The situation is far from being quiet in Syria. The laity and Christians are concerned that the new government of Ahmad al-Shara will not be able to provide them with their guarantees.
I believe that we must give the people the opportunity to choose their government, their leaders. That’s what is happening.
The sectarian divisions poisoned the Middle East, confessionalism in Lebanon resists and, also in Yemen, the dialogue between Shiites and Sunni seems impossible.
So you see it from your European point of view. These are the autocrats who use divisions to preserve power. Divisions are the legacy of colonialism, the result of employment. In Iraq it was the Americans who put Shiiti and Sunniti against each other, even through the Constitution. When we chose to make our peaceful revolution we did not look at these divisions, we were all united against the dictator.
Daya Cahen
(Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1969)
Birth of a Nation, 2010, Video, 12 min
© Daya Cahen Courtesy of Stigtervandoesburg
Birth of a Nation (“birth of a nation”) offers a cross -section of the Cadette school n. 9: A unique military academy of Moscow, where girls aged 11 to 17 learn to cook, march, sing, use weapons and make up and prepare for military actions – all to become ideal Russian patriots. The ordinary (risatine, innocent smiles) contrasts with the extraordinary (military uniforms, rifles handled by girls).
Fascinated by mass psychology, indractive and propaganda, Cahen wonders: what is the price of patriotism? Does it inevitably require the renunciation of independent thought?
The Nobel has changed his life and also his range of action. What is his mission now?
My battle is always the same: for freedom, peace, development. I work in these three fields for my country. Houses, schools, hospitals: we are doing this with my foundation. But the ultimate goal is to create a united Yemen, without militias, without violence, but also without guardians from the outside. And with more women represented. Under the dictator there was only one woman in Parliament. In the transition period, in our draft constitution, we introduced a 30 percent share of women in all institutions. I am against every tyranny, against all the occupations, I will always fight for this.
In 2011 hundreds of women protested in Sana’a, burning their veils in an act of challenge to the government. What does it answer to those who tell her that if she wears the veil is not free?
I reply that it is a very stupid thing to say. But I say the same thing also to those who in the Arab world claims that if you don’t wear the veil you are selling yourself. Because both positions judge women on the basis of their body, they consider the woman a material good. It is not your right to tell us what to wear. And believe that choosing to wear the veil is not a free choice means ignoring how things work in our societies. For example, I don’t like the veil that covers the face (the niqāb, ed) and I will never wear it. In life we have to be able to look at each other.
I woman © RESERVED REPRODUCTION