Author: mara.ahmed

uncle razi passes away

my dear uncle razi has passed away. verily we belong to god and to god we return.

he was my friend saba’s father. when i was studying at university in karachi, saba’s family was like my own family. i stayed with them often and learned consistently from saba’s wise and compassionate parents.

he was the embodiment of what we call a strong pillar of the community. in many ways, his story as a young man tracked the story of pakistan.

he was barely 15 at the time of partition, when his family left everything behind in india and settled in karachi, pakistan. he joined the navy and since every institution in the newly created state of pakistan had to be built from scratch, he was sent to england to train with the british navy. he was 17 when he left his family and headed for an entirely new country, culture, and language. he was a midshipman when elizabeth II was crowned in 1953. he remembered the naval review at spithead that accompanied the coronation.

in 2019, he did us the great honor of visiting us in rochester. i got to spend time with him and wrote about the remarkable stories he shared with me.

we ate out, went for a walk on the bridge by high falls, saw a film at the dryden theatre, went to canandaigua lake for a day. it was magical. my favorite part was sitting at the kitchen table and listening to him.

last year, i was able to visit karachi after some 16 years, and i got to see uncle razi again. saba and i had tea at his beautiful house. he received us at the door, smiling as always, impeccably dressed, with all the formalities and lavish treats pakistani tea aspires to. he had created a new group of friends and acquaintances, all over 80, who would meet regularly and enjoy one another’s company. he organized presentations on pressing medical needs, financial management, wills and real estate planning for the elderly. he was a force. unanimously admired and loved. a role model. something rare in this day and age.

u will be sorely missed by many dear uncle razi. still cannot believe u are no longer here. may u continue to excel and bring people together in heaven. inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.

My work in Photo Trouvee Magazine

Spotlight on issue 12 featured artist Mara Ahmed. “My art practice focuses on crossing borders and dismantling political and cultural boundaries. I work in multiple disciplines and narrative formats to tell marginalized stories and build community. The personal and political are intertwined in my practice. For example, the experimental short film, Le Mot Juste (2021), which was selected for an exhibition by Chicago’s South Asia Institute, is a fusion of autobiography, film, and dance. It spotlights three languages: Urdu, French, and English. In the analog and digital collage series, This Heirloom (2012-2014) which has been widely exhibited in New York and California, I recreated my own history by using old black and white photographs sourced from my family archive. In conjunction with my NYSCA-funded film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation (2023), I created three collages that subvert the colonial male gaze in found postcards from the British Raj (early 1900s). My aim was to rewrite history by relocating South Asian women from derelict studios, where they had been subjected to Orientalist fantasies, and reconnecting them to their roots. I placed the women in their native cities, adorned with architectural details and built with Indian textiles.”

Ahmed launches Warp & Weft Palestine

From Mariam Sandhu: My dear friend, fellow artist, activist, filmmaker and humanitarian Mara Ahmed has expanded a project started in 2020 entitled “Warp & Weft” to highlight the voices of the Palestinian people and the horrific situation that is unfolding in front of the entire world’s eyes. It is a compilation of Palestinian poems given voice by fellow activists and artists. I am just one ordinary human asked to participate – join us in raising the voices of the Palestinian people by following her IG account @Warpandweftarchive

Read the article by Rajesh Barnabas in the Anarchist Federation

nature cleanses our minds

it’s unexpectedly cold on long island, so much so that it feels like rochester. il fait un froid de canard comme on dit on français. but it was sunny yesterday so i bundled up and went for a walk at frank melville park right here in setauket. cold cold cold but so beautiful. nature has a way of cleansing our minds and healing our bodies. this is why the remarkable people of gaza return to the sea whenever they can. in the midst of human violence and ugliness, nature stays constant and spiritually nourishing.

A Thin Wall at the Partition Museum in Delhi

There will be a screening of our film “A Thin Wall” at the Partition Museum in Delhi on January 27th. Pls attend if you are in the area:

The Partition Museum presents a film screening of “A Thin Wall,” a documentary about memory, history and the possibility of reconciliation, with co-producer Surbhi Dewan who will be in conversation with a panel consisting of author Dinesh Shrinet, film critic Murtaza Ali Khan and poet Roshni Gupta. The discussion will be moderated by educator Pallavi Singh.

The screening and discussion will be held on Saturday, 27th January, from 10:30am to 1:30pm at the Dara Shukoh Auditorium, Partition Museum, Delhi.

Registration is needed.

Date: Saturday, 27th January

Time: 10:30am to 1:30pm

Location: Dara Shukoh Library, inside Dr. BR Ambedkar University, Lothian Road

Queries: eventsdslb@gmail.com

Website: www.partitionmuseum.org

MLK rally in Mineola

I have a dream: For Liberation from the Congo to Palestine – at an MLK rally in Mineola (which marked 100 days of the ongoing genocide in Gaza) where I was honored to speak about the “triple evils” of racism, poverty, and militarism, and reference the work of both Dr. King and Cedric Robinson who taught us the meaning and deadly implications of racial capitalism:

“Racial capitalism explains why the US and UK are bombing Yemen to protect shipping lanes, but refuse to protect the lives of Brown children in Gaza.

Racial capitalism explains why the House passed a $14.5 billion package in additional aid to Israel. The understanding is that Israel will spend that money on US bombs, and redirect taxpayers’ money (which is publicly owned) into private pockets.

Racial capitalism is why the impulse to ‘empty’ Gaza went hand in hand with bids for gas exploration along its coastline.

In the same way, the intersection between racism, the creation of ethnic divisions by colonial powers, and non-stop capitalist extraction, has led to horrors in the Congo.

In Sudan too, the atrocities that we are seeing emerge from a divide and rule policy that created conflict and facilitated colonial theft. 

Whether it’s the domestic policing of Blacks, immigrants, and Muslims, increased incarceration and border security, or racist wars such as the war on terror or the war on drugs, we always return to the unholy alliance between racism, economic exploitation, and military violence.”

Thank you dear Farhana Islam for inviting me and thank you dear Nia Adams for introducing me to Farhana <3

my work in master’s showcase

last friday we went to the opening of the master’s showcase, an invitational exhibit organized by the huntington arts council which showcased the work of award winning artists during the 2023 exhibition season. honored to be invited to share my work – three digital collages constructed with south asian fabrics depicting lucknow, bhubaneswar, and dhaka and connected to ‘return to sender: women of color in colonial postcards & the politics of representation,’ a nysca-funded project. so lucky that my parents could attend the opening with me.

Noqtah #1: Religion in modern and contemporary art of the MENA region

Wendy Shaw (Ph.D. UCLA, 1999) is Professor of the Art History of Islamic cultures at the Free University Berlin. Her work focuses on the impact of coloniality on art-related institutions, modern art and pre-modern discourses of perception, with emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and regions of Islamic hegemony.

Watch Wendy Shaw’s 30-min lecture for Noqtah, an Instagram Live Series organized by AMCA (Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey) here. It was originally posted on Oct 26, 2020.

on new year’s eve: free palestine

on new year’s eve, at the threshold of 2024, i want to send my love and duas to the people of palestine, especially the beautiful children of gaza and their extraordinary families.

it’s been emotionally shattering to bear witness to the sadistic violence unleashed on them by the israeli government, its army and mercenaries, so i cannot imagine the horrors they have experienced on the ground. they are being subjected to hunger and thirst, bombs and snipers, torture and detention, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. they have lost families, bloodlines, homes, limbs, the very contours of normal human life that anchor our reality. there are no words. language fails to capture such extreme loss and torment.

yet palestinian communities have been able to come together, under perverse circumstances, to help one another: dig children out of the rubble with bare hands, bake bread in makeshift ovens and feed neighbors, console grieving fathers and kids with mangled limbs, bury loved ones as well as the bodies of strangers. i marvel at young journalists in their 20s, in the springtime of life, who refused to leave gaza so they could continue to tell their people’s stories and stop the genocide.

against these scenes of human compassion and courage, we’ve seen the deranged cruelty and arrogance of mainstream israeli society. it’s not just israeli politicians lusting for a gaza holocaust, it’s israeli soldiers hoping to kill more babies, and israeli teenagers drunk on racism and supremacist vulgarity. the difference is clear. settler colonies are ungainly cartoons disoriented by their own hubris. harmful to others, but ultimately also harmful to themselves. a kind of self cannibalism.

as humans, we come to this world with one and one certainty only. that our time on this earth is limited and that we will die – sometime, someplace, somehow. why not lean into that knowledge and live a life of connection and generosity. we can learn so much from indigenous communities.

The Warp & Weft Archive Palestine

Dear friends, the Warp & Weft audio archive came together as a way to connect people from across the world during a global pandemic which caused untold loss and grief. It is an ongoing project that allows diverse people (separated by arbitrary yet brutal political borders) to share their stories and feel a sense of collective power. 

Today we launch the next phase of this project. In the midst of the gruesome genocide we are witnessing in Gaza, people from around the world are welcome to join us in reading, holding up, and sharing the voices and stories of Palestinian writers, poets, and activists. This is an open archive, so contact us if you would like to contribute a reading and pls follow us @WarpAndWeftArchive 

We start with Fatima Mohammadi (Kansas City, Missouri) reading Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), a Palestinian poet and memoirist known for her representations of resistance to Israeli occupation in contemporary Arab poetry. Fatima began with: “I acknowledge that I occupy the land belonging to the great Lakota, Nakota and Dakota, Kaw and Kickapoo nations, in a country built by the labor of enslaved and disenfranchised people.”

Listen to EXISTENCE by Fadwa Tuqan on Instagram @warpandweftarchive

Warp & Weft by Shadab Zeest Hashmi,

Friends, as you know, The Warp & Weft archive of multilingual audio stories from across the world is an ongoing project.

Today I am honored to share a new poem by Shadab Zeest Hashmi, a Pakistani American poet and essayist whose work has been published worldwide. Recently, she spoke about Sufi archetypes at the London Arts-based Research Institute/AIJS online conference “Emergence of Soul: Jung and Islam.”

In her beautiful new poem, “Warp and Weft,” Shadab writes:

Limits are to be kissed. The warbler marks its territory with song/ And a country of sweet echoes is born, a mythos of whistle, rasp, chirp/ Ours is a song of the loom, with the warp and weft of old country/ and new.

Please listen here.

Later this week the Warp & Weft will begin its series on Palestinian writers and poets, so pls stay tuned.

‘life and times of michael k’ in brooklyn

thank u for all the lovely birthday wishes, friends, and thank u for the powerful prayers for palestinian liberation. my one birthday wish this year.

i spent some time with my daughter in nyc yesterday and saw a play based on a book by j. m. coetzee, ‘life and times of michael k,’ in brooklyn. his work is grim and heartbreaking but also full of humanity. my eyes welled up many times over the course of the play because it depicts the horrors of war — something we are witnessing daily on our phones and sceeens.

this afternoon i met my son in midtown before taking the LIRR back home to long island. didn’t do anything else today to respect the global strike for gaza. may the mayhem end. may people have a chance to mourn what they have lost and begin to rebuild their lives. ameen.