LOVE AS REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE CO-EDITION with Issue 10, December 2014 | 3 EDITOR’S LETTER

Issue 10, December 2014

LOVE AS REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE CO-EDITION WITH Issue 10, December 2014 | 3 EDITOR’S LETTER

e are two African SpaceIsLove ofers an embrace to anyone whose feminists, travellers, intent is to clear ground for all people to be creators, activists, respected, have full rights, claim space in the sister-resistors public and private, be celebrated for who they and friends who are”. We began by posting poetry, photography, were lucky to fnd each other through our quotes from interviews, theory, video Wlives work. Recognising that we shared clips, cultural resources produced by much in common, one day we started friends and strangers that resonated talking about “love” and thinking with our idea of ‘revolutionary love.’ about what it meant in our work, in Te space also acted as an inspiration our relationships, in our communi- for our own art and expression and, ties and all the spaces we moved as two traveller/nomads, we also started through. On February 14, 2012 to post photographs that highlighted (Valentines Day), we decided to expressions of “love on the streets” in the ofer those conversations to the world cities we travelled through. We world through an online plat- built a playlist of love songs that spoke to form called: “Our Space is Love” self-love, community love, and love in its (ourspaceislove.tumblr.com). broadest sense as a force of transforma- Te idea was to create an online forum tion. We asked sisters, friends, and kin what ofering what we described as an “oasis, a self-love looked like and felt like to them. We meeting point and well to quench our poetic, opened up our hearts for healing and sought to revolutionary and questioning thirsts. Our build community across virtual space.

On ‘OurSpaceisLove’ we ofer our own defnition of revolutionary love:

When we say ‘Love’ we are talking about a concept beyond romance. We are talking about the feeling emanating from your heart that seeks to instigate liberation in all we do - individually and collectively. We are talking about the intentional act of embracing people who may be diferent from us but share the fact of being human. We are talking about love that inspires the desire to create spaces of peace for people harassed by dis crimination and violence. We are talking about a love that motivates us to give, share, risk and speak up in the name of our collective happiness (for which, of course,we need structural transformation- power through the people!).

We are thrilled to work with Q-Zine editing this special issue that focuses on Love. As we read through all of the submissions and considered all of the ways people are thinking about and acting in ‘Love’, we were moved to re-connect with each other again and build on our own understandings of revolutionary love. Te con- tributions in this issue are a beautiful refection of the way people are transgressing, fnding love and light in seemingly dark spaces….the way people are organising and building communities centered around love and creativity and justice. What an honour to share space with all the amazing contributors published and unpub- lished - thank you for living in love!

With Love, Illustration by Karen Watson Amina and Jessica

4 | Issue 10, December 2014 Coverpage Photo by Andrew Esiebo OurSpaceIsLove

Blog: ourspaceislove.tumblr.com/ Contact: [email protected] Q-zine Website: www.q-zine.org Issuu: www.issuu.com/q-zine Twitter: @q_zine Contact: [email protected] Lead editor John McAllister (Botswana)

Managing Editor Mariam Armisen (Burkina Faso) Graphic Designer Nye’ Lyn To (U.S.A.) Translator Abdou Bakah Nana Aichatou (Niger) Alice Vrinat (France/Belgium) Anthony Sedibo Phaladi (Botswana/ China) Brian Doe (USA/Senegal) Joshep (Morocco/Spain) Michael Kémiargola (France) Patrice L. (France) Philippe Menkoué (Cameroon) Stéphane Simporé (Burkina Faso) Issue 10, December 2014 | 5 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Q-Zine | Love as Revolutionary Practice | Issue 10, December 2014

FEATURES PERSONAL STORY 13-17 Seyi Adeganjo Love as Revolutionary 30-31 Khouloud Mahdhaoui Act Either Female or Criminal Q & A 52-55 Stéphane Ségara 10-12 Amina & Jessica Refections: I Still Remember… In Conversation 56-59 A - Chouf 36-39 Nest It’s A Girl Stories of Our Lives 88-90 Affa Aza 43-45 Kalfou Danjé Giving up on Love Feel the Image 91-92 FICTION Mariane Amara Our Struggle 20-21 Amanda T. McIntyre Under the West Indian Sky OUT & ABOUT 40-41 Alexis Teyie 32-35 Q-zine The Voice is the First to Go Show & Tell OPINION 74-75 Jessica Patricia Kichoncho 46-47 Rania Bennaceur Karuhanga Love Has No Gender Blank PHOTOGRAPHY POEM 48-51 Jessica Horn 22-23 Olumide Popoola Love on the Streets A Fierce Love 58-71 Andrew Esiebo 29 Gayle Bell Portraits of Queer Nigerians Variation on a Theme of Stardust 80-87 Siphiwe Nkosi Midnight Hour 42 Kampire Bahana For Kirabo and Grace REVIEW 72-73 Musa Okwonga 76-79 Joseph Love against Homophobia Underground Casablanca 93 Tis City, Tis Body Rita Nketiah MUSIC 94-95 Shishani Vranckx 96-97 Tatenda Muranda Minority Poetic Just – Us ESSAY 24-28 Dorothy Attakora Black Women and Vulnerability

6 | Issue 10, December 2014 CONTRIBUTORS

Affa Aza grew up in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica. She is the co-founder of two alternative Gayle Bell’s work has been featured in a number of spaces – for art, learning, culture, growth and dialogue. anthologies. In 2013-2014, she was a Co-Exhibitor for Te other is ‘Di Institute for Social Leadership’. Affa lives My Immovable Truth-A Dallas Lineage put on by MAP as an artist and a creative, grounded in a Rastafarian/ (Make Art With Purpose). She facilitated her and other African spirituality. Music is her art and she designs spaces GLBTQY’s oral history and performances. She can be inspired by music. contacted at [email protected]

Alexis Teyie is a 21-year-old Kenyan studying Jessica Horn is a feminist writer, poet and women’s History at Amherst College. She writes poetry and specu- rights activist with roots in Uganda. Her life’s work focuses lative fction, and is especially invested in gender justice. on questions of sexuality, health, violence, and embodied liberations. A. M.: 22, born and raised in Sousse, currently majoring in English literature and civilization. She is an aspiring Jessica Karuhanga is an artist of Ugandan descent writer who’s aiming for a career in professorship. currently based in territories of the Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas of New Credit or Toronto Canada. Her Amanda T. Mc Intyre is a Trinidadian writer. She is practice serves as an instrument for mediating on her a graduate of the University of the West Indies with First multitude of roles and subjectivities in a constellation of Class Honours in Literatures in English and she is current- blackness. She is deeply invested in and embedded by ly pursuing a Master of Philosophy in the same discipline. the displaced fbres and fssures of her hybrid fesh. Her Her thesis focuses on theatre in Trinidad, looking specif- aesthetic undulates between text, video, performance and ically at the musical plays of Derek Walcott. Amanda is drawing. one of the directors of WOMANTRA; a Caribbean based feminist group, geared towards woman centered Joseph defnes himself as a translator for social change. scholarship, activism and social programs. She also Hailing from Europe, his interest in human rights conducts classes in Creative Writing at her home in El activism, particularly LGBTI issues, grew deeper afer he Dorado. She can be reached at moved to Morocco during the Arab Spring. Since then, [email protected] he has collaborated as subtitler and translator in several artivist projects. Dorothy Attakora - Gyan straddles multiple ofen conficting positionalities. With identities as hyphenated Kampire Bahana lives and writes in Kampala, about as her last name, she is always keen on pushing boundaries the city, about Africa, music, art, resistance, love, women, and disrupting taken for granted assumptions of norma- culture, politics and all those other things that mean tivity. She is currently completing her Doctorate at the everything and nothing at once. You can read more of her Institute for Feminist and Gender Studies at the Univer- work at vuga.wordpress.com. sity of Ottawa and invested in studying the processes, discourses and practices of solidarity building across Kalfou Danje is a poet, writer, flmmaker, who diferences within transnational feminist networks, with worships Erzulie Dantor, and in life tries to master the art a particular interest in women organizing around food of being where she/he is not expected. sovereignty.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 7 in Namibia to a Belgian father and a Namibian mother. CONTRIBUTORS Her solo career took of afer her performance at the 2011 Namibian Annual Music Awards grabbed the nation’s attention. A year later she won the prestigious Last Band Standing (live band) competition in Namibia and was a headliner at the Windhoek Jazz Festival (2012) perform- ing alongside the South African stars Lira & Selaelo Selato . Te spread of her music and message was recognized when her song “Minority” was nominated for Best Single Non Album and Best Music Video at the 2013 Namibian Annual Music Awards. Her music addresses social issues leading comparisons to be made to artists like Tracy Champan, Nneka and Bob Marley. Most recently she won the Amsterdam pop music competition “Mooie Noten” (2013) because she “has strong lyrics and something to say.”

Seyi Adebanjo is a Queer gender-non-conforming Nigerian MFA media artist. Seyi’s work is the intersection of art, media, imagination, ritual and politics. Seyi has been an artist in resident with Allgo and is currently a fellow with Te Laundromat Project. Teir powerful short Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles has screened on PBS and at 17 festivals globally.

Stéphane Ségara is a young Burkinabe activist who Khouloud Mahdhaoui is a Tunisian lesbian is interested in using communications as an activist tools. feminist, camerawoman and flmmaker by profession and Writing, particularly the expression of emotion through audiovisual activist. words is an important vehicule for him. His imagination and personal experiences are his favorite source of inspi- Mariane Amara is a lesbian activist living in Came- ration. roon. A psychologist by training, she is passionate about the issues of gender identities as well as gay and lesbian Siphiwe Nkosi has been taking photographs for some literature. You can follow her blog at time now. For her photography is the refection of the self http://feur-d-afrique-noire.blog4ever.com/ and society and it can create long lasting memories. She has documented rural and urban forms of living and in Musa Okwonga is a poet, author, sportswriter, broad- 2010, documented South Africans during the FIFA world caster, musician, public relations consultant and commen- cup, which was the highlight of her career. She is also an tator on current afairs, including culture, politics, sport, avid flmmaker, involved in experimental flms. race, gender and sexuality. Tatenda Muranda is a Pan-Africanist and a self- Olumide Popoola is a London-based Nigerian- identifed suit in a feminist activist. She is co-founder of German author, speaker and performer. Her publications HOLAAfrica! and currently sits on the Advisory include essays, poetry, short stories, the novella this is not Committee for FRIDA Te Young Feminist Fund. @ about sadness, the play text Also by Mail, as well as record- IamQueenNzinga ings in collaboration with musicians. She lectures creative writing and is currently completing a PhD in creative writing. In 2004 she won the May Ayim Award in the category Poetry. www.olumidepopoola.com

Rania Bennaceur, a 21-year-old English student, Thank you all from... Tunisian blogger and activist in the process of sculptu- ring her frst paths.

Rita Nketiah is currently a Ph.D. student studying the trend of return migration amongst second-generation Ghanaians in Canada. In her creative writing, she covers themes such as African immigrant identity, race, and sexuality. Rita mainly writes memoir and creative non-fction essays. She hopes to return to Ghana some day soon to contribute to the African feminist movement and continue with her writing.

Shishani Vranckx is a soulful singer-songwriter born

8 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 9 Love as Revolutionary Practice

The idea of revolutionary love “as ‘unbound,’ ‘freeing,’ as a political act and as full of endless possibility has undoubtedly transformed the way I relate to others and to myself ”

10 | Issue 10, December 2014 Q & A AMINA & JESSICA Love as Revolutionary Practice IN CONVERSATION Illustration by Asilia

hat frst moved you to think to think diferently about self-care and my own about or explore revolutionary sustainability, the ways that we look afer each love as a concept? other as sisters, brothers, friends, comrades, family. It has also helped me re-confgure my understand- W Te impetus for my fascination ing of what it means to be in partnership WITH with the idea- and experiments and how to share intimacy in ways that honour my in the practice- of revolutionary beloved ones. love was actually my mother. As a teenager she would say to me Let me begin with this idea of self-care. “to love is to free, to love some- Audre Lorde called it self-preservation, “an act of one is to free them”. She has a politics shaped by political warfare”, Toni Cade Bambara called it out Marxist, feminist, anti-apartheid and decolonial when she said: “If your house ain’t in order, you thinking and by the particular experiences of her ain’t in order, ” Ntozake Shange reminded us that own early life in rural Uganda. She wrote recently: “to take pleasure in ourselves is subversive.” One of the things I have learned is that self-care is the “my commitment to feminist values grows out of my key to my survival and that if I truly ‘loved’ myself genuine love and respect for the woman who raised me (in a way that is revolutionary), then I would make and protected me as a child. As an adult that founding room for whatever it is that I need to survive. In love and respect has progressively been translated into a my life, that has meant creating an environment renewed commitment to women and politics in gener- that allows me to be creative, healthy and strong. al”[1]. It has meant embracing all the parts of myself - the good and the not-so-good, the ferocious and the I have to admit that tears rolled down my face peaceful, my fre and my water energies. My self- reading this as I realised that in a way my own care is by all means a process and every moment embrace of revolutionary love is part of this of every day I do the revolutionary work of asking inheritance, part of a legacy of crafing a love that myself: “what do I need to feel safe, secure and serves the interests of freedom. So revolutionary honest about who I am”? love to me is a concept very much rooted in lef/ redistributive post-colonial politics, in feminisms In terms of my relationships, I have learned to and, most potently, in motherlove. hold people with care and with intention. To hold them close to my heart centre and to truly do the work required to love them….because love is ow does that play out in your own life and worlds of activism, work! It’s not just some airy-fairy feel-goodness relationships, ways we relate in (even though it does and should feel good)…but society? lives? it is hard work! Reconceptualizing love in this way H has meant challenging myself to spend the time Te idea of revolutionary love as required to come to an understanding for myself ‘unbound,’ ‘freeing,’ as a political of what it means to love and to love deeply. It has act and as full of endless possibi- taught me to recognise that my physical and emo- lity has undoubtedly trans- tional health and wellness is linked to that of my formed the way I relate to others community and that to love myself is to commit and to myself. It has taught me myself to supporting the healing and well-being of Issue 10, December 2014 | 11 those around me….to step into what brother Darnell Moore has described as “acting in deep participation with each other”. It has also helped me to shif the [1] Caroline Bazarrabusa Horn in Voice Power and Soul ways in which I view intimacy. For me, love as mani- II: Portraits of African Feminists. Accra: AWDF, 2012 fested through intimacy should be about possibility, it

should seek to push open, and break free in the most pleasurable sense. We must be careful though, because love is also in many ways about power and we must also seek to deconstruct and unlearn some dangerous discourses lest we fnd ourselves replicating the very ideologies and systems we are seeking to dismantle.

hy are concepts of revolutionary love Wimportant? Politics is emotional. Economics is emotional. Exclusion is emotional. Activism is emotional. Psychic autonomy is emotional. Liberation is emotional. In evoking, exploring and living a politics of revolutionary love we are acknowledging that our work is not just about challenging the structural architecture of injustice but in shifing how we feel.

I think we also need in our activist work to constantly feed the positive, to instigate joy and to create resources of inspiration that can nourrish our work for inclusive, just and nonviolent societies. Love is that resource. I walk alongside you because I care about your happiness, I want your freedom because your freedom is also my freedom.

I agree whole-heartedly with you Amina that self-love is an important part of this. As a luminary feminist mentor-friend of mine Hope Chigudu says “do we really think we can transform the world if our own bodies and spirits are broken”?

hat moves you in the ways that people have explored revolutionary Wlove in this Issue? Tere are so many beautiful love stories in this issue. What a pleasure it was to read all the submissions! I think what has touched me the most is being able to refect on the many ways people are envisioning love that is trangressive, bold and imaginative. I hope folks reading this issue enjoy it as much as we have!

12 | Issue 10, December 2014 Feature LOVE AS REVOLUTIONARY ACT

Words by Seyi Adeganjo, Photos by Seyi Adebanjo & Osaretin Ugiagbe

Love is a revolutionary act during these trying times in the world, in our hearts and minds. Issue 10, December 2014 | 13 14 | Issue 10, December 2014 As a Queer Gender Non Conforming Nigerian who uses we can stand fully in our brokenness and hope. Tat we art as activism I take it one breath at a time, and one day can fully express our sorrow and fght. Tat even when our at a time. Love is a revolutionary act during these trying dreams are shattered and there is no evidence of Grace, we times in the world, in our hearts and minds. are never alone.”

Who I am and what I envision for the world are build Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles is a powerful upon many pillars in this global conversation about and intensely moving document of a community vig- Human rights, Queerness, Blackness, and Africanness. il/ spiritual for Islan Nettles a transgender Womyn of It is outside the prescribed category of gender and race, Color, concerning her spirit and life. Islan was a vibrant mainstream Queer media/ and heteronormative, trans- 21-year-old womyn of Color growing up in Harlem, who phobic xenophobic white supremacist/ privilege Queer loved hanging out with her transgender sisters of color. movements Islan used her creative and positive energy along with her anti-violence values in her previous work at the One of those pillars is: Harlem Children’s Zone as an assistant photographer and fashion instructor. She was working as an intern Bridging spirituality and social justice. Honoring and assistant designer at Ay’ Medici in Harlem. Islan’s mur- reclaiming indigenous ways of healing, practicing spiri- der was a shocking hate crime because she was beat to tuality and organizing. Ensuring these practices, which death in front of a Harlem police precinct on W. 148th St are viewed, as private and personal spiritual conversa- & Frederick Douglas Boulevard. tions/practices are visible and pillars in our politics is important. We need to ensure that conversations about I was inspired to create the exhibition at the Leslie religion aren’t just about institutions, that they are poli- Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art with Queer/ tical conversation about spirituality. Our ancestors and Art/ Mentorship because we can mourn & celebrate life, present day healers/ spiritual leaders were/ are being we can love, liberate each other and not oppress our- killed, persecuted for these technologies. When we gath- selves. Because the personal is political! Because the ered for ritual/ honoring the divine/ mother earth/ our brutal and increasing attacks on Trans Womyn of Color murdered community members, we organized our com- are outrageous, and their victimization causes outrage. munities; we liberated ourselves and strengthened our Because the murders of Queer Trans/Gender Non Con- inner selves for the fght. forming People of Color is the second wave of lynching’s. Because healing and action tighten our fsts and boom Sharon Bridgforth states “Te Spirituals invite us to know our voices. that multiple things can be true at the same time: Tat

Issue 10, December 2014 | 15 Actively showcasing Queer Trans/Gender Non Con- Follow my journey as a Queer Gender Non Conforming forming People Of Color is imperative and urgent Nigerian as I return home to speak directly with ancestors, because if people continue to think the divine doesn’t connect with Òrìsà (African God/dess) tradition, and follow love them, how will people get strength to fght, love, live a trail back to the powerful legacy of my great grandmother, and worship? Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọya. Tis personal and political story vibrantly investigates the heritage of command, mythology, For any of us to do this work on an individual/ commu- gender fuidity and womyn’s power in indigenous Yorùbá nity/ institutional level, we need to know we matter and spirituality. As I encounter obstacles of a national strike and see ourselves refected. One of the ways we are visible anti-gay marriage legislation to fnd the roots of the practice, is within our gender expression. Gender is a dangerous will I be able to take on this inheritance? conversation because it makes people uncomfortable and moves them to violence. Supporting others in being Te documentary illuminates the lives of Òrìsà Ọya (Warrior visible, overcoming personal and institutional trauma’s Goddess), Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọya and Seyi Adebanjo while are rooted in my politics of using love to liberate. Which interweaving Yorùbá mythology, poetry, performance, and means taking risk, speaking up when I see injustice and interviews. am afraid. Being courageous to live and supporting community to live everyday and creating as much love, 3. Upcoming screening, Q & A in New York City fulfllment, success and joy we feel we are worthy. Trans http://cinema.tisch.nyu.edu/object/GRNYU.html Lives, Queer Lives, African Lives and My Life Matter! Courage and love are necessities to live our lives fully Gender Reel NYU: Transgender Film Festival showing Trans and liberate our communities. Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles Event Date: February 7-8, 2015 More on Seyi’s work 4. Screening and exhibiting photos from the flm 1. Te exhibition page at Leslie Lohman Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles https://www.leslielohman.org/exhibitions/2014/trans-lives/ At the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference June 4-6th, 2015 trans.html

2. Current project about being Queer & Gnc in Nigeria https://www.facebook.com/OyaWestAfrica?ref=hl

Ọya: Something Happened On Te Way To West Africa!

16 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 17 18 | Issue 10, December 2014 ISSUE 11 COMING UP IN JUNE 2015

Issue 10, December 2014 | 19 Fiction UNDER THE WEST INDIAN SKY Words by Amanda T. McIntyre & Photos Steve Hernandez

ear Tessa, the time when all I could give you were words, when the only commitments I could make were literary, In tonight’s torrents I think the time to but what you needed was not the rainy season of tell has come. It is with a great amount my imagination but a real reign of love growing up- Dof contrived patience that I produce this correspon- wards and outwards from a troubled dence. I would have written sooner but the weather history. prevented me. Te sky hidden away in her grey blankets refused to give counsel and I couldn’t make I wanted to create a space for us to fnd accommo- the decision on my own. I couldn’t fnd the words by dation, that we could crawl into and make love un- myself. I couldn’t approach you without mediation. interrupted; a space like an of-road bar east of Arima called ‘Time and Place’ where all the patrons When we met I felt the frst drops of the rainy are women who toast to life, touching their lips to season. It was, for me, the most defnitive, dupli- the wet rims of glasses, intoxicated by the disinhibi- citous and sensual moment of the year; a time that tion aforded through this kiss. A space like a ma- gave me the ability to align my imagination with tikor night that goes on forever with no bridegroom, actual experiences of you and start the production of with no pundit circling like a corbeaux, waiting to this work. I wish our moment could have remained swoop down to devour the woman’s name and but there was too much rain. It was beautiful but it regurgitate her animated corpse into the afer-life of made me realise that my approach was wrong. marriage; no girls lost forever; only wholeness and truth and celebration; safety and the blessed com- In the year’s twilight when I see the season approach- munion of the saints, who eat the fesh and drink ing its natural conclusion, I write to you out of no the wine of the salvation found between the legs of desire except, that you fnally know that I love you the divinely feminine universe, undulating in the and I’m sorry. I write to you out of the memory of ecstasy of an atmosphereS saturated with a volup-

20 | Issue 10, December 2014 tuously female energy. Tis was how my mind Tis letter is my attempt to investigate my still not distilled my raw emotions to produce a refned love properly understood consciousness of you and also for you. to simply address certain truths at the end of a season of love; the rainy season. Tis practice of constantly translating you into images was both incorrect and selfsh, as it exposed Please forgive me. Forgive my mind for the meta- us to the cruellest form of censorship, reality. I was phors it meticulously manufactured; that separated not prepared to confront this truth and ultimately, the parts of a woman whose existence was the only I now realize, the only way you could have engaged legitimacy she ever needed. Forgive my heart, which me as yourself, a self I fragmented for artistic loved that process more than it loved you, and please convenience, was through antagonism. forgive all my fawed afections still confned in the limitations set by this language. How were we to know that it would come to this estrangement? What were the signs? What was it I hope earnestly that my words fnd you in good health and I pray that with them you receive my I couldn’t fnd the words by peace on this occasion. myself. I couldn’t approach you without Under the West Indian sky, mediation. Sirjane that made us believe that rain came from the sky through some magical device? NOTES: Arima: Arima is a borough in East Trinidad. Once I had a dream and in it I saw myself asleep. I Matikor: In the traditional three day long Hindu wedding practice, walked away from the bed leaving my body at rest Matikor is the name given to the frst day. Only women are allowed and went into the most curious of adventures. to participate in the matikor night gathering. Te bride to be is in- structed by older women about sexual matters. Te process is done through humour, role-play and dance. It is a sexually open environ- Suddenly, I was lost and when I realized this I grew ment dominated by women. anxious. In desperation I tried to make my way back to my room but, before I was able to return I woke Courbeaux: A scavenger bird akin to vultures. up. It is from this dream of you that I fnd myself awakening.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 21 when to drown or drop all that stands in-between A wounded fearing holding FIERCE you away from me? we do not believe in tough love that disguises LOVE hurting more just to prove a point Poem By Olumide Popoola & Painting by Nathan for wild black girls who Majola (c) 2014 are determined to live

Poem trying to make your desires irresistible to others (Audre Lorde)

we ache and embrace our vulnerabilities to be vulnerable a vision hard fought for in a world of endless hardness if you cannot feel there is nothing to heal for let alone make better

who said that to be all open wouldn’t be the most daring of all? in itself a beginning an end courageous ferce

love

who said that light gentle bestowing, resisting all odds rooting sinking deep is not the bravest form of ferce?

22 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 23 Essay BLACK WOMEN AND VULNERABILITY Words by Dorothy Attakora & Photos by Mateen Khalid African Women Cultivating New Forms of Trust & Resistance in Activist Circles

n a crisp fall day, bundled up in an over- likely about my hair, my round and dark body. And sized sweater, riding boots and a toque, yet there was a glaring realization that while this was I set out to go apple picking with my happening, simultaneously, parts of me were being colleagues. Te apple orchard was vast rendered invisible. Whenever I feel put on display, Oand beautiful. It was all sorts of delicious shades of like my body has invited others to build a scafold of green. As if the succulent bright oranges, reds and sorts and placed me at the centre, I become aware of yellows of the leaves had been handpicked and care- all the stories about me that are never highlighted. fully, very strategically paired with the lush green I wonder if my Ashante and Fanti ancestors shrink rows of apple trees. I was surrounded by beautiful in their graves when I am oversimplifed as ‘Black’. allies, feminists who like myself have bodies marked Is there room for my tribal identities to share space in nuanced ways, setting us up in opposition to the with my blackness? In these moments I am always dominant white male gaze. I was remarkably aware reminded of my ‘African’ness’. One brush alone can- of the ways in which my body was being consumed. not paint all the shades that are bursting within. I Te stares, the shy glances, the wide eyes that looked want to remind people that I am more than the sum away when they met with mine. I could feel the buzz- of my parts but instead I self- monitor, shrink up, ing curious minds, the questions that were brewing, police my movements, and surveillance my body.

24 | Issue 10, December 2014 space and doing so alone. I had ample opportunity to share what was unfolding within, yet I could I WANTED DESPE- not formulate any words, any language to share RATELY TO SHARE with them what I was feeling. I was expressionless, WITH THE OTHER caught in what I call, an inexpressible moment, what Toni Morrison calls ‘those unspeakable WOMEN that had accompanied me how I things, unspoken’. Tere is a level of vulnerabili- had to work myself up that day to join them. Tat ty that comes with exposing tensions that others experience of being a minority, of walking alone cannot identify with. Tere are the fears that come even when in a crowd can be unbearable. Tat from being conditioned to believe that you will be although I love nature and the outdoors, reminders read as hyper- sensitive, irrational, angry and in my of my experiences growing up in small town case, the ungrateful African immigrant (I am never Ontario continue to make me numb at times, and read as Canadian citizen although I am). Audre without the slightest warning. How do I share with Lorde (1984) says, “Women of color, grow up with- these women that having recently watched 12 Years in a symphony of anger, at being silenced, at being a Slave the rows of apple trees triggered awful slave unchosen, at knowing that when we survive, it is narratives like books I had grown up reading such in spite of a world that takes for granted our lack as Roots, Amistad, and Te Book of Negroes. All at of humanness, and which hates our very existence once I found myself engaged in a balancing act, of outside of its service. We as Black women have had working through my triggers, suppressing negative to learn to orchestrate those furies so that they do experiences of my past and working desperately not tear us apart, we have had to learn to move not to surrender to my fears. Tis was a level of through them, and use them for strength and force vulnerability I had not expected and it required and insight within our daily lives. Tose of us who unspoken trust in my colleagues to keep from did not learn this difcult lesson did not survive, unraveling completely . Te experience meant and part of my anger is always libation for my fall- I was reliant on them not to engage in language en sisters”. As someone studying solidarity building or acts that would be equally as triggering, but I across diferences within transnational feminist couldn’t communicate this to them. Tis is not the networks, the apple orchard became for me a frst time I have felt this. I have experienced similar microcosm of the very thing, which I am deeply inexpressible moments while organizing in colla- invested in understanding. boration within activist’s circles.

I don’t want to impress upon anyone the notion THAT FALL DAY that not coming undone is something to be ashamed BECAME MY ENTRY of, commended or that one should work through internal triggers alone. I want to avoid this idea that POINT into wanting to create dialogue demands individuals carry the burden, and I most around the silencing and self- surveillance certainly want to avoid stigmatizing or even endor- that takes place within feminist circles even when sing mental health constructions that applauds the they aren’t voiced. In the end I eventually shared ‘model citizen’ as one that does not ‘leak’ their my apple orchard experience with my colleagues. problems into the public. In no way do I purport None of them had experienced such discomfort to say that my ‘keeping it together’ on the outside, nor had they even known I was working through while navigating all these various emotions on the all of those things during the trip. Yet as women, inside is a best practice. However, I want to provide at some point we had each worked through some a personal example of how difcult it is to engage in tension that day that we had not shared with the the work we do as activist, even when working with others. What I realized was this, everyone has their allies. ‘orchard’ where they sit with discomfort while organizing as activists, and these types of experi- s a collective, not only were we eclectic ences can be very painful. and aesthetically beautiful, together we were queering spaces, more specifca- What does this mean for us as women, as activists lly apple orchards! At the same time, I coming together to organize? I believe deeply that Awas hyper aware of how I was also racializing the such experiences point to how we are cultivating Issue 10, December 2014 | 25 new ways of trust, vulnerability and resistance as rooted in love. Love for my ancestors, my people, activists. I wonder how many other African women my community, the work, the end goal, and myself. work through internal ‘stuf’ when meeting in a Love keeps me going during the difcult moments I diverse collective. As an African woman myself, I feel stuck and unable to express myself. know all too well what the world has been conditioned to think of me. I know that even within feminist movements many women (not all) grew up “Te ways in which we with the World Vision narratives of fies swarming swim in and out of our swollen bellies. I am aware that colonization, imperialism have created a world where some con- oppression, the ways in sciously or unconsciously still perceive Africans as which we tread murky less than the brilliant beautiful people that we are. I know that my journey in academia as a feminist, a waters as oppressor. womanist, I have had to be purposeful about claim- ” ing my identity as an African- feminist. Some are shocked to discover that there is even such a thing as African feminists, as we African women are usual- he ways in which we swim in and out of ly the subjects Western feminists are trying to ‘save’. oppression, the ways in which we tread murky waters as oppressor. Tere is am always reminded nothing neat or tidy about our identities, “I Tand thus our interactions with each other cannot of my ‘African’ness’. One be perceived as such. To negotiate tensions, those spoken and unspoken, those things that get lef brush alone cannot paint out, that go unsaid or unexpressed are difcult all the shades that are (Takemoto, 2001). I am reminded that although a scar may be healed it nevertheless opens us up to bursting within. the previous time the wound was opened. Tere ” tends to be a continuous reopening of the wound Let me stop here and say that I by no means want to (Takemoto, 2001). Te voices of women who homogenize all African women, nor do I think we continue to step into the reopening of wounds all experience such inexpressible moments in our by engaging in activist organizing should not be day-to-day lives as activists. Tere are many ways negated. Te ways in which we as African women we are pushed to cultivate and re-defne new forms take up activism, engage from the ground up, is a of organizing. Furthermore, there is no one fxed wonder, a miracle. By negotiating past hurts, past conceptualization of an African woman. I acknowl- traumas, we as African women engaged in solida- edge that my use of the term African women, limits rity building across diferences indeed cultivate the endless possibilities of all the nuances that come new ways of organizing to include trust and together to shape our various bodies and minds. I vulnerability. know that by taking on such language I make invisible all the parts of us that makes me uncomfort- In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks (1993) shares how able when I am put on display. I do however, believe by moving ourselves from manipulated objects to that community work, organizing, and activism is self- empowered subjects, Black women have by particularly difcult, complicated by the very thing necessity threatened the status- quo. By engaging in we are proud of, our African identity. I can’t deny radical organizing grounded in love, African femi- that my identity as an African feminist doesn’t make nists disrupt traditional ideas about what it means me refect on the tools I need to equip myself with to engage in activism. We re-imagine the various when organizing, or that love is my weapon of choice possibilities of collaboration despite past negative each time. It takes love, unfltered, un-afraid, ‘stand experiences and continue to create new forms of in this pain until the end’ type of love to keep me organizing. By engaging in practices that have going in this fght against patriarchy, misogyny and sought to (and continue to) marginalize African so many other vile forms of oppression. What are women, some continue to utilize love as a tool of the uses of my past pains? How do I remain tender political resistance and survival. Te very work we during inexpressible moments? Tese practices are engage in is spiritual, the relationships and dyna-

26 | Issue 10, December 2014 mics we foster must be grounded in spirituality, in Is this not tenderness in action? If the work we do love. requires us to think about who grants access to people, what stories they have told, how they have ccording to bell hooks, love is a combi- told it, and whose stories are being told or lef out, nation of six ingredients: care, commit- are we not being knowledgeable about how to care ment, knowledge, responsibility, respect for others? Te process of healing while simultane- and trust. Love has a place in I say yes ously navigating spaces that reopen our wounds at Ato all the warm emotions in community work, in the very least requires commitment, to trust others activism and solidarity building, particularly across and ourselves. Practices of healing should be linked diferences. Emotions are ofen written out of orga- to practices of political resistance (Glass, 2007). bell nizing, devalued and negated. Love should not be hooks says that healing is “a healing into wholeness, seen as in opposition and in confict with logic and moving away from the sense of self as splintered, reason. Indeed it (and lack thereof) is the reason for and fractured and broken. Not a healing into per- many things we engage in. Doing, living and em- fection, but rather an acceptance that says we are, bodying feminism, and engaging in building soli- at our core, essentially whole even in the midst of darities requires more than just what meets the eye. our faws and our woundedness”. Te sites of inju- How do we engage in conversations of solidarity ry, where the work we do takes place, the our ‘apple without speaking about our relationships with each orchards’ of our lives can also be sites of possibility. other? As African women we continue to engage in Te complex nature of solidarity building requires activism even when it hurts us. We heal through the that we continuously question what others are triggers and we are not alone in doing this. I giving up and working through to enter such spaces. acknowledge all the ways in which other marginalized bodies, those marked by society, are also resisting and actively cultivating new ways of utili- Issue 10, December 2014 | 27 zing love as a tool to organize. Indigenous/ en across the world in their struggle says, even in Aboriginal/ Inuit women, those with disabilities, the midst of my internal turmoil, I see you, I both visible and invisible, queer women, gender acknowledge you and I am here for you. It says that bending/fuid/non- conforming folk are engaged in I trust my being in your hands, to be vulnerable in creating new narratives within activist circles. I want our growing. My vulnerability and trust for you, to acknowledge femme identifed woman who get as much as my intellectual capacity, my knowledge read as straight, Jewish, bi-racial and Métis women and passion allow me stand in solidarity with you. who get read as white, and trans* woman who get Care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust, if bell hooks is on to something, that these things make up love, I will continue to I want to acknowledge pack them with me every time duty calls. femme“ identifed woman who get read as straight, Jewish, bi-racial and Métis women who get read as white, and trans* woman who get read as alt and thus not seen as the women that they are” read as alt and thus not seen as the women that they are. Te experience of Muslim women who get read as suspicious and any other marginalized communities rendered to the margins. I believe deeply that any woman that holds within her heart some form of grievance as a result of colonization, imperialism, White- Supremacist, able bodied, Christian, capita- list, heteronormative, cis- gendered society should be acknowledged for the many ways in which we resist discourses that seek to erase us. I see you; I acknowledge you and I am grateful for your solidarity in the struggle. To all our allies who continue to check their assumptions, their privileges and walk alongside us, thank you. Collectively the very nature of our showing up in activists circles and remaining should be documented, archived and celebrated.

hen I consider all the ways in which patriarchy and even feminism has tried to write me out, spoken on my behalf, narrated my stories in ways Wthat tested my vulnerability and shattered my trust, and yet I remain vigilant in being heard, present, seen, known. In all of these ways I am cultivating new forms of trust and vulnerability by continuing to engage. Reconciliation and forgiveness breaks through unspeakable ways of experiencing trauma. Choosing to stand with my sisters, with other wom-

28 | Issue 10, December 2014 Poem VARIATION ON A THEME OF STARDUST By Gayle Bell Te skin of her clothes touched me Her perfume whispered in my ear of China She twirls around in my daydreams Jazz playing low Laugh faint as a kittens mewl Te day switches to fast forward Sometimes I wonder why I spend Te lonely night, dreaming of a song She who looked at me Licking her peppermint lips I blush as if my body Is in on a secret Lef at the way station Of my daydreams Sometimes I wonder why I spend Te lonely night, dreaming of a song Sunset turns in for the night In another place Urban cave-dwellers Begin their mating dance Jazza Mustaza is playing songs Of love under Luna Azul Even the dust is busy Conjuring Sometimes I wonder why I spend Te lonely night, dreaming of a song

Issue 10, December 2014 | 29 Personal Story EITHER FEMALE OR CRIMINAL By Khouloud Mahdhaoui

was born on June 3. My gender, which by then too. At that time I was unable to conceive my became my single identity, was born even existence without the constant comparison to the before I took my frst breath. I was already a opposite gender. I found love, but also frustration, female before my birth; I was already a female hatred, jealousy, fear, loneliness… In short, I had Ibefore having a name. I was a second-class human, become an adult. I was a female. IN THE COURSE OF YEARS Ten I existed. I became a little girl but didn’t adopt AND LOVE I DENIED MY any sort of codes. Nobody cared, though. Pants or FEMININITY. I FOUGHT TO dress, truck or doll… I was at worst a smart and FULFIL MY CHILDHOOD ambitious little girl. I yearned to become a male, but DREAM, GRAVITATE TO- that was only a child’s dream, a female child’s dream. WARDS MY OWN LEVELS. IN MY HEART I WAS A Ten I started my periods, a revolutionary day in MALE. I HAD TO BECOME A my personal development. I changed from girl to MAN. woman. I would no longer have the right to childhood dreams, I had to join my team, assimilate the Te equation was simple. One needs to be a man role of a Tunisian woman and blend into the mass of in order to love women, a man that I was not, but those who venerate the almighty phallus. perhaps I could become. I understood my manufac- turing fault and got to the bottom of it. Only a few At the age of 14 I fell in love with a woman who, small adjustments were needed. I felt happy. apparently, had so far kept her childhood dreams

30 | Issue 10, December 2014 ut it did not take too long to get onto the other side of happiness:

“You were born a woman and will always Bbe,” would chant in unison my family, social morality, laws and religion.

“But how am I supposed to love women then?”

“You will not love them, you will just love men.”

“But how could I, they burp (like me), they fart (like me), have hair everywhere (but slightly less), grab questioned everything that society had instilled between their legs 24/7 (I wanted to), and do not in me, these poisoned gifs that alienated me, even have breasts (unlike me)!!” such as the comfort of the cultural heritage, the concept of family, virginity, patriarchy, wom- Tat day, I realized that, as a woman, I love women Ien’s fragility and men’s strength, paradise, and even because of what makes them diferent. But above all, Sunday couscous. I was a woman. I immediately shaved my mustache and stopped grabbing my crotch. Certainly, I would gladly swap all that. I want love, sex, and to just have fun! Awoken from my childhood dream, I saw myself falling into an adult nightmare, that of being a So I’ve been a criminal for several years now. I have Tunisian woman who loves women, a criminal. loved criminals, evolved in criminal spheres, befriended criminals, and fnally found a criminal A criminal of love and desire? Yes! of my own; a criminal whose smile clears up all doubts and fears, whose eyes will be my fnal home.

But, when I fall asleep at night in the arms of my beloved, I cannot help but think that a child born today, nearly thirty years and a revolution afer, shall - like me - be either a female or a criminal.

I then decided to be an activist.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 31 Out & About SHOW & TELL A CONCEPT STORE & CULTURAL HUB IN THE HEART OF OAKLAND

In the words of Alyah Baker, Co-Owner, transcribed by Q-zine, Photos by Mariam Armisen

he concept of Show & Tell was shaped by people of colors (POC) communities, women, and two visions – the main one was our com- non-profts organizations working with children mitment to be ethical and socially respon- because we feel that there is also a need to help sible with regards to how we select the children. Tbrands to feature in the store and the second was to support the local economy and the great artists here Art has also been part of the concept from the in Oakland. So the underlining concept of the store beginning. Our approach to featuring art and is sustainability, social responsibility, independent artists is similar to how we curate merchandise for designers that are not mass-produced. the store – to represent who we are and what we stand for. Te great thing about Oakland is also that Te social element of what we do is our focus on artists walk into the store to say “hey, I make art, are groups/communities that we feel are under-served, you interested in showcasing?” combined with our under-represented, including queer communities, own connections in the local art scene – that how

32 | Issue 10, December 2014 we curate the art in the store.

With regards to price range, we try to keep everything under $100 – the medium price point is around $30. It was really important for us when we open to make sure that merchandises were accessible for the vast majority of people in Oakland.

Te Details

1427 Broadway, Oakland, California Hours: Monday – Tuesday, 12:00-6:00pm Wednesday-Friday: 12:00- 7:00pm Saturday: 1:00-6:00pm Tel: (+1) 510-463-4964 Website: showandtelloakland.com

Issue 10, December 2014 | 33 34 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 35 Q & A

STORIES OF OUR LIVES (AND THE POLITICS OF TELLING A Q&A with The NEST by OurSpaceIsLove & Q-zine OUR OWN STORIES) Stills by NEST

: Tell us about Te We made the flm as part of a body NEST, who the people of creative work to counter pervasive behind it are and when anti-gay sentiments that populate was it formed. mainstream media. Tese narratives Q where LGBTI individuals are demo- Te NEST is a community of artists nized, pathologised or reduced to ini- and audiences interested in alterna- tials representing “key populations” tive thought, as well as music, flm for NGO reports - are unacceptably and theater production collective. It dehumanizing. One common tactic existed as a mental space long before is to present LGBTIQ issues as being we got physical premises in late 2012, “imported from the West”, yet every- (we turn 2 this year!) co-founded by thing in our lived experiences and George Gachara (the flm’s execu- everything that we learned in our tive producer) and Jim Chuchu (the documentation project refutes that flm’s director). Te core production idea. African – and with regard team consists of 10 multidisciplinary to Stories Of Our Lives, Kenyan - creatives. LGBTIQ people originate, live, love and exist in the same spaces as all : It is refreshing to see other Africans and Kenyans. that Kenyans produced this flm – that it is We wanted to tell these stories of the about your own queer queer experience in Kenya that are Qcommunity with the fnancial seldom heard and routinely erased. backing of an African foundation, We were also aware that their collec- so many frsts… Tell us about the tion and telling by Africans, for Afri- politics of Kenyans representing cans, was essential. Afer archiving your own communities through over 250 individual accounts from this lens. Why now? Why this flm? cities and towns all over Kenya, the

36 | Issue 10, December 2014 development of scripts, and the production of sev- incredibly grateful to OSIEA, who supported the eral shorts, we had a flm. Afer a warmly successful original story collection and archiving, and UHAI- world premiere at the Toronto International Film EASHRI, who backed the production of the flm, Festival, we presented the flm for rating to formalise for believing in us and being such vital parts of this the process of screening in Kenya. Te national Film journey. Classifcation Board rated it “restricted”, efectively banning its public or private screening, sale or dis- : How did you choose which stories tribution in its current form within Kenyan borders. to include in the flm? How did that infuence your framing of the stories? Since then, queries on the limits imposed on citizen What was the editing process in freedom of expression and conscience have arisen, Qgeneral? especially as the mandate of the Board is to “safe- guard national norms and values”, but that of the Te stories that ended up in the feature were just Ministry for Sports, Culture and Arts is “to contri- amazingly, incredibly visual when they were told to bute to overall national development through pro- us, so their development into flm developed pretty motion and exploitation of Kenya’s diverse culture organically. We shot each flm when its script was for peaceful co-existence.” Tese two mandates ready, and we’d be in edits and post-production with appear to be at odds. Recently, the Department of some stories and in pre-production and shooting Film Services started legal proceedings against us with others. Because the writing and shooting were over the shooting of the flm without a licence. parallel, we were infuenced by current events relat- ing to the queer experience as we went along - such In the meantime, we are working on other creative as the developments in our neighboring countries products from this project – we collected a whole Uganda and in Nigeria. lot of amazing stories, and the 5 shorts that make up the flm are the retellings of just a few of them. We’re

Issue 10, December 2014 | 37 : Tis issue of the magazine aims to diferent worldviews, diferent identities and dreams talk about love as revolutionary - and for all these multiple identities to co-exist. We practice – what does the term revolu- made this flm because we believe strongly that the tionary love mean to you (if anything)? fght for the right to defne one’s self, the right to be Q complex and diferent and unique, should be fought Tat’s a beautiful theme for an issue! I guess for us for proudly and openly. revolutionary love is the get-up-of-your-ass-and- do-something kind of love. Te love that makes it : What’s next for Te NEST? a little easier to change our minds about the things that are holding us back. Te kind that makes us We’re currently working on “Visa”, braver and stronger and pushes us closer to truth. which is a research project exploring Te kind that makes us see that all people are equal- Qthe complex relationships Africans have with the ly valuable, underneath all the politics and noise. visa document, the things Africans are required to be, do and prove to obtain visas, and what diferent : What do you want people to take visas mean to diferent people. We’re super excited away from seeing the flm? about that! We are also commissioning design work and casting talent for a fashion flm. As the NEST Collective, we believe that QKenyans and Africans - like all human beings - have You can follow the Stories of Our Lives project multiple, complex identities, histories and aspira- online at www.storiesofourlives.org and learn more tions. We think it is important to represent these about Te NEST at www.becauseartislife.org. complexities to challenge the anti-intellectual, anti- minority, hyper-religious, simplistic, puritanical, revisionist and conformist movements that are sweeping our country and the continent.

So - for us - this flm is about fghting openly for the right of Africans to have diferent opinions,

38 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 39 Fiction THE VOICE IS THE Words by Alexis Teyie & Painting FIRST TO GO by Roseline Olang Odhiambo

er body reeked of hunger. I could smell it even when she laughed that precari- ous laugh of hers, like it was lurking behind her teeth and only fell out in Hplace of a howl. No one understood what drew me to the odd stranger who simply appeared one day at our local hangout. Maybe it was that lovely gap between her teeth, or the delicate ankle I leaped of an Eldoret Express to track. Or her eyes then, how they would crouch closer to her cheeks, fanned by featherless wings like the skeletons of twin cranes. Maybe it was the way she folded those legs beneath her when she sat, how her body was always in knots. How I lived to unravel her.

Some nights I wake up convinced I know: Bas! It’s her hair, I shout into the dark.

It was this that frst summoned me. It must have been. Tose impossible curls begging to be wound round curious fngers, how they always sprung back no matter how many times I tugged. Tat there is such a certain thing in the world, hai. Te little cabbage patch at the base of her skull, how she would We’d take a Tusker if we could only because it made quiver when I stroked it. Te matted feel of it against you look loaded and who knows? Do rich people my cheek during our borrowed mornings? Alham- things long enough…Anyways, I preferred the local dulillah. She wasn’t like the other women in those brews. Made me feel all warm inside and I thought days. Had no patience for weaves and extensions it comical, all of us sitting round some flthy jerry and Darling braids and such. Besides, they gave me can, drinking this nasty stuf, coughing and laugh- a rash. It’s funny, then, that we frst met in a salon. ing and thinking, life’s not so bad.

It was one of those vibanda with mabati roofs, and Maybe that’s why I hung out there so much, even walls stooping as if sucked in by the combined afer we were no longer in the same classes. Many of heat of 6 red China blow dryers. Mama Jemo’s Hot them quit; we all have our places, our reasons. Te Stylez, Salon and Kinyozi. Its skin was papered with boys wanted to get some money rolling in, aford campaign posters from the last election and on the some Tusker I guess. Te girls, they were rolled in insides, images of the various styles etched in char- alright, got pregnant, the usual story (too much coal. Some people thought it wasn’t all that hot but free Tusker I guess). I sat there, smoking anything Mama Jemo was cool you see, and let some of us I could bum of someone, chilling. I listened to all guys play pool next door even afer curfew. Some- their stories, nodded, eh-hhed when appropriate, times she slipped us the extra chang’aa from her held their stuf for them when I was sure the cops side hustle, and we were glad for any free alcohol. had received some dough for chai. It all made me

40 | Issue 10, December 2014 kachumbari that came with it. I squatted in the small space, pressed against the washbasin, nose flled with the smell of cooking hair. Tough I itched to get closer, I only watched surreptitiously as she ate: spear chip, examine, shake of excess oil, chew, swallow, repeat.

Are you going to ask me my name ama you feed all the strangers in this entire slum?

Just the ones who think hair classifcation systems beat binomial nomenclature.

She laughed. Like really laughed. Teeth, eyelashes, nostrils and everything.

I looked at her braced between the hair dresser’s feel full, you know? Tere was a lot of life outside thighs, on one of those three-legged stools, neck the butchery and Mama Jemo’s place. I mean I got unnaturally bent as her hair was tamed into some invited to lots of harambees and such, raise funds acceptable confguration. I could barely breathe for a wedding, graduation, naming, new house etc. looking at a deep cut behind her ear, like an other- Mostly funerals though. worldly contraption so she could hear human frequencies and shit. I counted the number of gold Anyhow, that day I scraped together a few shillings bangles on her wrists, the number of times she for some lunch and half a cigarette. Figured I’d say clenched and unclenched her hands. hello to the tailor outside Mama Jemo’s salon. Heard her other kid got mowed down on some highway. I In all accounts of traumatic events, like the 1998 wasn’t too surprised she was back so fast afer bomb blast, people always talk about the littlest of sowing Boi in the ground; people have to eat eh. things: what colour underwear they had on that day, Still, few things are as soothing as that quiet hum- what song was playing in the matatu, how much ming Singers make, spitting out clothing from bits they paid for breakfast etc.: No underwear. Not in a of loose fabric. Also, I guess I liked to watch the matatu but in the bar across from the salon, women in the salon trying to fgure out their hair Boomba Train, E-sir. 30 bob for the chips, 20 for the numbers from the weirdly detailed list on the back 4 boiled eggs I gave the tailor, 50 cents for half a of some calendar from ‘91. cigarette. How to say to a woman whose name I didn’t know, you’re a winding track, and I’m a Ten I saw her. willing train wreck? How to say, me, this woman here, now she will follow you anywhere?--and that’s Loveliest dhira I’d ever seen on a woman, this wil- the only line I’ll ever feed anyone. lowy thing nearly drowning in batik fabric-- face all eye, eye all dark sparkle. She was baaaaad, jo. Te Before I could even part my lips, Mama Chips frst thing she said to me when I hesitated at the sa- popped her head in, We! Unataka sausage? Ni nya- lon’s opening--even though I’d hung out there since ma ya ng’ombe haki. Wallahi, me those donkeys I I turned 12-- was, Better than Linnaeus’ shit si ndio? leave for the drunkards next door. Ehe. So…? For your warria friend? I don’t have miraa lakini… Ati what? I turn at the way she says “friend”, Ati? Bring those chips inside we share.

stared, confused, until I remembered the greasy chips sweating away in newspaper wrapping and heating up my palms. Wordlessly, I walked I forward and handed her a toothpick and the Issue 10, December 2014 | 41 Poem FOR KIRABO AND GRACE Poem by Kampire Bahana & Photo by Darlyne Komukama

For Kirabo and Grace Farbeit from me To foresee A change in the wind’s direction Or a twinkle in the eye of an unknowable God Love will be our shelter, our mabati

Tey say people make plans And God laughs But I will love you like a sigiri in the rainy season Like a hot cup of tea Like the ancient Muvule tree Under which my grandfather First promised my kaaka Tat he would love her eternally.

Rivers that roared before our parent’s time Are now dammed to provide electricity Bulbs replace hurricane lamps And children grow up to forget their own tongues We live life with no guarantee. Few people in this world Can hold in their hands Something as certain and warm as the sun

Few people, my love, can look at their lives And dream of being as lucky.

1 Iron sheet roof 2 Charcoal stove

42 | Issue 10, December 2014 Q & A FEEL THE IMAGE A Q&A with Chloé aka GPhOZ, Photographer and Musician by Kalfou Danjé

KALFOU DANJÉ: WHAT BROUGHT particular link. Te relationship that might be YOU INTO PHOTOGRAPHY? noticeable to the trained eye is perceptible by taking the time to feel the image. Tat said, I still remain GPhOZ: I think I was always drawn to images. the guardian of the secrets those images hold. I Trough the scenes of daily lives, my eyes are remember every moment, every occasion, look and continually seeking details that usually go emotions that I feel through every shot. Tis is a unnoticed to others but that fascinate me. Te visual diary. subtle gesture of a person, the brightness of a light, a look, the shape of a body, etc. But ofen my drive KD: IS THERE A SPECIAL CONNEC- to capture all these images is prevented by a person’s TION THAT LINKS YOU TO YOUR right to his/her image. SUBJECTS?

KD: IS YOUR CAMERA YOUR EVERY- GPhOZ: Most of the images I captured so far are DAY COMPANION OR DO YOU from Martinique; from the time I was still living PURPOSEFULLY GO OUT TO TAKE there. I was inspired there ... I have trouble with the PHOTOS? light here (France). I have less time and it’s true that my dream would be to capture everything that catch- GPhOZ: It’s rare that I take pictures of live subjects. es my eye but here the law says that a person has the When this is the case, there is not necessarily a right to his/her images - and here it’s the body that

Issue 10, December 2014 | 43 44 | Issue 10, December 2014 I want photograph, unexpectedly – of course this is not legally possible. But I’m not giving up.

KD: WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND THE USE OF CLOSE-UPS IN YOUR WORK?

GPhOZ: I didn’t even pay attention to the fact that I was taking close-ups until you mentioned it (laughs)! I do not know what to say. Probably to delicately frame the image? To infuence viewers to arrive at what I was seeing? In fact, the close-ups show how my mind is trying to zoom in on a specifc detail.

KD: CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT SOME OF THE SELECTED PHOTOS?

GPhOZ: O580: Tis picture is from a series of self-portraits playing a mirror game ... Te inspiration came when I say my refection in a mirror, with my camera in my hands. I sized it as an opportunity to express schizophrenia, a reality I had to subject myself to when I was living with my parents, the struggles I was experiencing.

1322: I should take this hand.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 45 Opinion to experience as long as it is embellished with a sense of freedom , responsibility and honesty. Terefore, you never get to feel ashamed when LOVE experiencing a diferent relation or kind of love diferent from the common. And once you get to feel it , you cannot pretend not having felt it HAS NO and start to defend yourself and your right for more freedom . Love has always been linked to GENDER freedom, and freedom is a responsible fght for Words by Rania Bennaceur rights . But how do we fght for our rights ? & Photo by Oumeyma Miladi Writing about it , Dancing it, Filming it, he frst time you discover that hands Singing it, Negotiating it, Meeting, Exchanging are made to feel and be felt is the frst information, Demonstrating, Voicing it in a con- time you fall in love. When your whole formist milieu, Informing and Letting people existence gets disturbed by a touch, know who you really are, are all diferent kinds Twhen your whole body shivers when meet- or resistance against patriarchy, against misogy- ing that particular touch, when all your future ny, against censorship and diferent kinds of memories are built on a particular hand meeting religious oppression and governmental and yours, you know that that is Love. Regardless of social hegemony. skin color, regardless of music taste and all the jam we have on mind about the person we might Tus, Love is a natural link that needs to be get along with, and regardless of the gender, the defended for its almightiness and glory, for it is spoken regards and looks reveals it all . As a girl true and genuine, for it is the supreme feeling , I frst met this feeling when touching another that could link two humans regardless of their girl’s hands , when smelling her hair and perfume gender. Love, therefore, has no gender . , when her imperfect details looked like perfec- tion to me. And at that moment all I could think about is that all of this felt normal and comfortable, as comfortable and happy as any lovers could seem, as serene as a summer breeze. Feel- ing this natural with a girl made me believe that , afer all , Love has no gender. I’ve never thought it would happen until it happened , and when it happened it rose in me a sense of responsibility and awareness that human beings should never be condemned to feel whatever feeling they get

46 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 47 Photography LOVE ON THE STREETS By Jessica Horn “Walls are the publishers of the poor”- Eduardo Galeano

y inclination, by choice of vocation as a transitional feminist activist, or maybe even just by chance I have ended up a traveller. Life has blessed me with the chance to visit 48 countries so far, and to journey further into the lives, landscapes and geographies of our collective humanity. BWhen we started the OurSpaceisLove blog I began to take photographs of expressions of love on the streets as I moved through the world, in activist spaces and on the side of the road. When you train your eyes to focus on one thing you realise it is everywhere. Tat is certainly true for love. People express love wherever they fnd a place to inscribe their wish, desire and joy in being part of an ‘us’.

Te photographs here are from Tunis, Beirut, London, Nairobi, Istanbul, Fort Portal, Friesland and Paris.

One love.

48 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 49 50 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 51 Personal Story REFLECTIONS: I STILL REMEMBER… By Stéphane Ségara

still remember: I still have many memories of us, of our little family. But very few moments I still remember: we were like that kind of local of love remain within, moments of you and nuclear family rooted in traditional principles and me sharing such family-like caring and loving values. Te kind that revolve around birthright, each other before death would make us lose our absolute obedience to parents - and, of course, good I grades at school! reason. As soon as I delve into those memories from when I was about 10, it comes to be so hard to describe our family relationship. I still remember: we didn’t use to have many moments of interaction where we could share such

52 | Issue 10, December 2014 love between parents and children. We were not behaviour. We all ended up being distant from him allowed to express our feelings. By tacit agreement, and would merely engage with him to show him our we should not make them public. school grades. His attitude died down especially when mom became more and more sick and even- I still remember: mom, who was very shy and quite tually passed away. But in my opinion, by that time sensitive, tried to profess her love to us, but it was it was already too late for us, hadn’t had enough not enough. She had her own way of loving that we time to build up « our own kind of love ». ofen did not understand and found too distant. Trough the illness that that would later take her I still remember: during mom’s illness, I didn’t use away, I struggled to express my feelings of grief. I to spend much time with her in order to avoid pretended to be indiferent and not worried about feeling pity for her all the time. One day, while she her situation but only because I was afraid that was all alone lying on the couch in the living room, my feelings would be harshly suppressed. At times, she asked me to come and join her and to tell her when mom had her fainting spells, I would with- some jokes (that was, by the way, something I really draw behind the house and just cry on my own – enjoyed doing with my friends). My mom knew then I would go back in pretending I was all smiles me very well… but I felt so shy and pitied her as again and stop any sort of feeling from showing I watched her getting thinner and weaker. At one through. point I couldn’t even say a word, so I stayed there and simply stared at her. Tat was our last private I still remember: dad was strict; he was tough in his moment before she died a few weeks later. actions. He would not tolerate any deviating

Issue 10, December 2014 | 53 54 | Issue 10, December 2014 still remember: mom passed away and it was dad who told me. He would strongly condemn me when tears flled my eyes, because no one was supposed to see me cry. I had to be an Iexample of bravery for my sister. I never did cry publicly, nor did I show my pain in public even though all eyes were on me on the day of mom’s funeral. It was as if everyone was expecting to see those tears rolling down my face. I still remember...

I still remember: the day we celebrated the frst anniversary of mom’s death, dad had a ft and went completely out of his mind. He would never recover and died one week afer. Looking back, I now realise how much he was afected by mom’s death and had never made it through his own period of grieving. He let alcohol destroy him. He never showed what his feelings and never looked sad. He was “an example of bravery”. still remember: even though we spent so little time together, I can’t think of a single I still remember: following such custom of masking ‘deep feeling’ that was shown in the heart of our feelings, I didn’t cry at my dad’s funeral either. our family. I can’t even remember the fact that No one stopped me from doing so, but I stopped Iwe loved one another even though I felt we did. myself from giving vent to my emotions. He passed away when I was 12. I still remember: still today it’s hard for me to share my feelings. I feel ashamed for having feelings. I even feel ashamed of loving. It’s true that I’ve had the time to fx many things in me, but when it comes to feelings, this is something learnt at such an early age which follows us throughout our life. Tere’s no doubt.

With my sister there’s really nothing between us that would make us bottle up our feelings, but we are not that brave, we were just not taught such beautiful manners. I have then come to understand that loving is one thing, and expressing our love is something completely diferent…

Issue 10, December 2014 | 55 Personal Story

Words by A from Chouf IT’S A GIRL & Photo by Oumeyma Miladi can’t fgure out where to time it didn’t. I had an unstable begin… but I guess it’s best home and I was completely that I start with my earliest absorbed by my studies so I memories of being attrac- never questioned it… Ited to a girl. I come from an average conservative Tunisian As I said, that went on for years… family. My mother and sister are My second year in high school veiled and my brother is a reli- is when it all changed. Tat was gious man. Until that frst shiv- when I fnally understood what er I felt when my high school my body knew all along. Tat sweetheart held my waist, I had year I started noticing a group never considered that I could be of girls. Two of them defed my a lesbian. No-one had ever talk- every conception of what a girl ed to me about it. should look like. Tey were boy- ish and untidy but I found one her real name). I know it sounds I started dating when I was 13 of them to be extremely attrac- so typical, but from the moment or 14, not because I felt particu- tive. When I asked my friends I saw her, that girl wouldn’t leave larly attracted to someone but about them, they told me they my mind. At frst I couldn’t even because all my friends were were a group of lesbians. Te admit it to myself. But the more coupling up and I thought it was word didn’t ring any bells. I had I thought about it, the more I about time I followed suit. Tat only heard it vaguely before and realized that I helplessly wanted went on for a couple of years. I always as something dirty and to get close to her… Yet I was have no special memory of it, sinful. In my family, the word scared, and she seemed so una- nor of the boys I was with, ex- was never uttered. In my friends pproachable. I started listening cept the recollection of my frst circle at the time (who were al- to music that girls sang about kiss. Disappointed would be an most as conservative as my fam- girls. I started watching movies understatement. I was sick to ily), it was rarely brought up, about girls who loved girls and my stomach, and almost threw and if so, like any other taboo, sufered for it and I cried my up on the way home. Tings got it was vaguely talked about in an eyes out each time. I was literal- a little better afer that frst atmosphere of fearful guilt. I ly stepping into a new world but incident, but intimacy (with the was almost 16 at the time. But I I was making the journey alone. boys I was with) never seemed had lived all my previous years No-one else knew about it. I had particularly pleasurable for me. in a shell. Tat made me prude no-one I could talk to about it. My body just wouldn’t respond. and unadventurous. Anyway, But with time, I grew a bit more Now that I think about it, it back to her... For the purpose of courageous. I looked at her and seems strange to me how that protecting her identity, I’ll call smiled! I know it but at the time did not bother me. But at the her Sara (although that is not it was a huge step for me. And

56 | Issue 10, December 2014 Issue 10, December 2014 | 57 she smiled back. moved to the capital. My frst year in college She came up to me one day and started a conversa- was nothing like I expected. I still had difcul- tion. Before that moment I have never felt a confu- ty making friends and was afraid of opening sion so intense. I must have sounded like an idiot! up to them when I did. Trusting people gets But she talked to me again.. and again.. and I grew Imore and more difcult the older one gets. Maybe more comfortable and more confdent, and we grew it was because I had just moved to a place where I closer. knew no-one or because I had just gotten my heart broken by the only person I had ever loved or may- Tose were some of the happiest days of my life. But be I was getting used to my loneliness… Te thing also some of the most difcult. I laughed like a child is, I got depressed that year. I had suicidal thoughts when we were together. My heart almost leaped and barely managed to fght my way through them. from my chest when she said something sweet to me. Hope that things might get better was what got me It was also when I started experiencing the famous through. “sexual desire” I had always heard about but never felt towards any of my ex-boyfriends. She helped me I started a blog that summer. Tat helped me make bloom like a fower. Now that I look back, I can even new LGBT friends abroad who helped me through say she introduced me to myself. She was also the my depression. I also managed to go back to dating one to give me the courage to explore the wants and but I didn’t meet anyone really special. My second needs of my body. When she kissed me for the frst year in college I met the girl who would become, time, I felt butterfies in places I’ve never felt before. and still is, my best friend. Her nickname is Ray- And when we made love for the frst time (clumsy Ray. She’s the frst close friend I ever came out to. and teenage-like as it was) I felt like I was foating We were having a talk, and the topic of homoerotic on a cloud. love came up. Her laid-back and accepting attitude encouraged me to take a step forward. I told her and othing ever felt like being in her arms. my other friend, who also showed a similar attitude, She was my frst love… and as the that I was bi-curious (I was too scared to say I was a rumors around me started spread- lesbian) and they both took it well. It felt so good to ing and I lost most of my conservative fnally start talking about that deeply hidden part of Nfriends (nothing dramatic. Tey just stopped ask- me but I was still scared that they might start treat- ing me to spend time with them and I got the hint) ing me diferently. Te next time I had a date with she became my world. Tat’s when the double life a girl, I told them about it. Ray-Ray was so excited I’m still leading started. At home, I was still the for me and even helped me get ready for it! It made good daughter, the good sister. No-one suspected my day. I had never felt so accepted before. When I anything. And to keep that up, lying to my mom came back from my date that day I told her the truth had to become a second nature to me. My moth- (that I was a lesbian) and she smiled and said it was er is a traditional housewife in her ffies who got okay and that she loves me and will always be there a very modest education, got married early, and for me. She actually said those exact words (we’re has spent all of her life worshipping Allah. Know- both English Majors)! Tears of joy streamed down ing what had become of her daughter would shatter my face as I hugged her for what seemed an eternity. her world. And this is not an exaggeration. Trough Her support meant the world to me especially afer all these years, the thought of her fnding out was one everything I’ve been through, and that is why she’ll of my worst fears. I am 22 now, and it still scares me. always hold a special place in my heart.

As for my love story, problems started in my fnal he following year, we made new friends. year of high school just as I was getting ready for Together with 3 other girls, we became a my baccalaureate exam. It was such a difcult year. close group who threw rousing (and pro- I cried myself to sleep almost every night. When we hibited) parties at our dormitory with fought and broke up, I was completely alone. Most Tenough alcohol to knock out half a dozen men! One of my new friends were originally hers and so they night, we had all drunk a bit and were talking about sided with her although I was the one to get my ‘love, sex and magic’ (an aside, Ciara looked like heart broken. In my despair, I just wanted to fnish a Goddess in that music video!) when I said I was the year and move out of my hometown. And I did. spending the weekend with someone, one of the

58 | Issue 10, December 2014 girls cried out “just don’t forget a condom, okay?” and Ray-Ray (tipsy as she was) said “She won’t be needing one” So the girls started throwing around guesses as to why not. “He’s sterile!” one of them yelled out giggling. “She’s sterile!” the other teased. “Come on tell us!” and that’s when it happened. “It’s a girl!” Me- riam cried out and they all went dead silent. When I said yes, wild cheers almost deafened me. I had never imagined that the news of my sexual orientation would get a group of girls jumping around with excitement. Now I always get this goofy grin on my face whenever I remember it. One of the girls actually jumped on me screaming “You bitch! Why didn’t you tell us before?” It was a happy night for me! One of the happiest so far! I thought it feel blessed to have met them. I truly am. would get awkward afer that, but no. It’s been Even though my love life hasn’t picked more than a year and they’ve even met some up as I thought it would by this time, of the girls I went out with and they’ve always their friendship has helped me through been so loving and Imy breakups and the depression that usually supportive. follows. Tey’re always ready with a movie and a jar of Nutella waiting! I don’t know what would have become of me without them. Tey’re my anchor. When the darkness of living in the shadows becomes too stifing and the burden of secrecy becomes too heavy for a young girl like me, they are the ones who manage to guide me out of it. I can never forget their goodness to me, and I could not possibly be anymore grateful.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 59 Photography

PORTRAITS OF QUEER Words by Q-zine & photos NIGERIANS by Andrew Esiebo

60 | Issue 10, December 2014 Tis is an on-going portraits series of resilient Africans gays living despite the strong opposition by African cultures. Te series tends to challenge the stereotypical representation of LGBT in African cultures. As for many, being gay is considered to be an abnormal, to bewitch or abomination.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 61 Te series also explore their living spaces, in an attempt toinvestigate their social identities and what the spaces refect. Does their spaces refect fear, double identities, struggle, freedom or hope?

62 | Issue 10, December 2014 Te project hopes to give giving a better understanding of their lives and create a debate for the rights and future them in African society.

72 | Issue 10, December 2014 Poem To some people My love is somewhat alien; LOVE When he comes up, they start subject-changing, and In some states he’s seen as some contagion - AGAINST In those zones, he stays subterranean; Some love my love; they run parades for him: HOMOPHOBIA Liberal citizens lead the way for him: Poem by Musa Okwonga & Photo by But the same time as some countries are embracing him, Abbie Lucas of Creation Company Whole faiths and nations seem ashamed of him: Tey’ve tried banning him, God-damning him, Toe-tagging him, Praying that he stayed in the cabinet, But my love kicked in the panelling, and ran for it - He’s my love! Can’t be trapping him in labyrinths! - Maverick, my love is; he thwarts challenges; Te cleverest geneticists can’t fathom him, Priests can’t defeat him with venomous rhetoric; Tey’d better quit; my love’s too competitive: He’s still here, despite the Taliban, the Vatican, And rap, ragga in their anger and arrogance, Who call on my love with lit matches and parafn - Despite the fstfghts and midnight batterings - My love’s still here and fercely battling, Because my love comes through anything; My love comes through anything.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 73 Fiction BLANK Words & Paintings by Jessica Patricia Kichoncho Karuhanga

A With longing To weave through reeds I pulled kinks, your smallest spirals, from the lash to lash brink of my tongue as though they were lily pads Between the Fingers as bells C Swinging scents of black Recognized by black To all those who loved Ruby Dee,

B You see the water setting in the eavestrough. You inquire on commission. Te fear behind your I ofen pull down lids to the dust of the ground inquiry is not as heavy as my silence. Te well Because our lives never mattered. is now dry. We move on. Tere are only hints of incense in the cold. Te carpet burn on my But, next time I’ll try to return your gaze knees could fle bones. I recall a ceiling. Tere 74 | Issue 10, December 2014 was waving light on moist pavement. am shitting out your poison. I was minding the ditch. You were welcoming. You were talking sofly Impressions of your thumbs on my from a lowered window. Te window lower back. I dream you are a bee. I rolls on a tongue. Te rubber rolls on move to tell the doctor but even my moist pavement. You were stalking breath is silent. Tere are only hints me, warmly, home. You, slowing of incense in the cold. Te triggers are down, said, “Hello there. Don’t you waves chasing one another. When she remember me? We met before.” I did kisses me, the truths that answer “Yes” not remember this frst meeting but take form but I freeze. Te triggers the lie that answered “Yes” easily took are like echoes of mythic wars when form. I was minding the ditch when I father speaks in tongues as midnight fell into “Yes”. I was in your car. I was runs down the waterfall curtains of in your home. I was on a bed. I was in his room. I hear this through the base your car. You drove me home. creaks of closed doors. Te chattering bleeds through mouth-guards. n each instance I am out of a body. I disappear. I am seeking To my (one day) beloved, to be here with a hope that you might see me. I am desperate Our bodies are folding in and around Iwith a hope that your trembling is each other. In the love making and more than a refex or a collapse afer embraces we will always be boarders coming. I could be anything. You are to each other. But, I will still listen dense. You stare through images of to the ripples of your tossed stones. fesh. I can feel the digging of your Rest your ear on my back. In feeting feet in deserts. Later, I am in the park, brushes blood shall transfer between on a bench waiting, I see you with you and I. My lines transitioning into your family kicking a rolling ball. your lines. Your beloved, she, will always look at me severely. In her eyes I am the sting of drops. Te frustration is the same.

In the second instance I am out of a body. I violently rub the spots out. I

Issue 10, December 2014 | 75 Review UNDERGROUND CASABLANCA

Words & Photos by Joseph

Despite unexpected last-minute venue changes, Moroccan young ‘artivists’ celebrated the third anniversary of the Arab Spring uprisings in a victorious, special edition of the ‘Festival de Resistances et Alternatives’ (FRA) last February in Casablanca.

It had been one year afer the outbreak of social uprising in most major cities of morocco, in 2011. A bunch of young activists in their early twenties were arranging chairs on a chess-tiled foor for the frst event of the festival. A friend was setting up a photo exhibition on previous year’s protests - they had to try dozens of printing houses until they found one who agreed to print the pictures.

Tat night i got home feeling moved. We danced as if it was our frst chance to dance freely, shaking our heads to souad massi’s best hits as zaghrouta ululations and an intrepid clapping sounded all around.’

76 | Issue 10, December 2014 population are eager to create spaces where they can share their ideas, exhibit their pieces of arts and relate to other people with common interests and mindsets.

ollowing two successful previous festivals, this event welcomed a number of visitors and participants and ofered varying cultural activities such as flm screenings, theatre workshops, political debates Fand concerts. Te organizers of the FRA wanted From February 20 to 23 2014, the third to build a citadel over the span of the festival – an edition of the festival of alternative arts and installation modeled on the idea of the ‘traditional culture was held in Morrocco. Originally planned to be held in one of Casablanca’s In the hope of bringing the aban- most emblematic sites, an ancient building “ complex formerly used as a slaughtering doned building back to life, the house that arts and cultural associations have citadel was designed with a school, been trying to turn into a hub for indepen- a hospital, a parliament, a spiritual dent artists, a crossroads of resistance move- space, a police station and a street ments and a venue for alternative events. market. In Morocco, arts entertainment relies heavily city’ and comprising all elements” that make up on state-sponsored mainstream culture. As the everyday lives of their citizens. In the hope of such, young ‘artivists’ and the overall youth bringing the abandoned building back to life, the

Issue 10, December 2014 | 77 citadel was designed with a school, a hospital, a ‘all the activities happened as planned with- parliament, a spiritual space, a police station out any censorship.’ and a street market. All of these elements would create the opportunity for participants ‘Te FRA’s audience is made up of mostly to collaborate in the building of a democratic, young people. I think the number of visitors ideal society and look critically and creatively at is becoming bigger and bigger afer each the current social challenges and institutional festival. More than 200 people attended the practices. festival this year, which was a new However, this idea quickly faded when, one experience for us.’ week prior to the festival, the organizers received a letter from the authorities forbid- Te festival’s program featured workshops ding the event unless ofcial authorization on theatre of the oppressed, independent was granted. radio broadcasting, debates on other revolutionary movements abroad and religious ‘One day before the festival would start, afer identity, democracy games, concerts, alter- one week we spent fghting, we knew that we native lessons on history, economy and com- would not have permission, so we moved on munication, screening of feature flms such to our plan B, which was to develop the pro- as ‘Te Land Between’ by Australian David gram in diferent places with the help of sev- Fedele, a documentary which looks into the eral organizations. In the end, we managed hidden lives of sub-Saharan migrants in the to carry on with our program despite threats mountains of northern from the Ministry of the Interior,’ explained a 22-year-old member of the organizing committee of the festival who is also a stage designer.

Te idea of organizing an ‘alternative festival’ came from social activists’ desire to celebrate the February 2011 uprisings when thousands of Moroccans rallied in the streets to demand social change. Tis was how the ‘February 20 movement’ was born.

Two years afer this movement was born, young activists have teamed up and formed cultural and artistic groups with the shared objective of promoting freedom of expression and fundamental human rights. Te feminist collective Woman Choufouch, the Moroccan Union of Students for a Change in the Education System, the independent flmmaking group Guerrilla Cinema, Vege- tarian Moroccans, as well as other independent artivists took part in this 4-day cultural arts festival that sought to be as ambitious and diverse as possible in its oferings.

Despite a last-minute venue change and several budget-related challenges,

78 | Issue 10, December 2014 Morocco. A selection of short movies were screened for the duration of the festival .

his year was by far the most diverse festival with independent contribu- Ttors from Germany, Palestine, was a proof that people need Spain, France and Australia a place to meet, share and who crossed borders to share express themselves’. their artistry and experience. A special discussion was led ‘All of the activities were suc- by LGBT members that dealt cessful, but what really im- with sexual and reproductive pressed me was that afer the health as well as gender issues two previous festivals we f- in general. nally managed to organize a real concert, I mean, with a ‘We had results in terms of proper stage and real light- the program being rich and ing!’ varied. Also the participation of people increased, which Aside from this passionate, young stage designer, many others - flm editors, graphic designers, cultural managers or musicians – did their bit to make this event a success, which proves that there is ‘a new Morocco’ marching to the beat of its own drums!

Issue 10, December 2014 | 79 Photography MIDNIGHT Words & Photos HOUR by Siphiwe Nkosi

80 | Issue 10, December 2014 was involved in documenting sex workers in relation to how the industry is infuenced by the society we live in. I built relationships with several of the women who work as sex workers and came to realize, as with all of us, that they also have dreams and aspirations. Whatever circumstances MIDNIGHT Ihave led these women to practice sex work, criminalization, stigmatization, Words & Photos and violence are problem the sex workers face in their daily lives. Teir work by Siphiwe Nkosi can be very dangerous and many women have to protect themselves from HOUR clients and even the police. (Lef Image) Waiting is the part of the game, Melissa from Ghana hoping to make enough money on the weekend. Mid-week business is slow.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 81 57 Bok street Joubert park is the place to be when you are looking for some kinkiness.

82 | Issue 10, December 2014 Come and Get it Big Boy! Fikzo comes to Joburg seeking for a livelihood to feed for her young children. “A girl has got to do what a girl has got to do, iJob iJob s’bali”, she says.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 83 “It’s been a long night... excite me Big Boy,” Tamara getting a client in downtown Johannesburg.

Cover your face!: Crystal and Fikzo in preparation for a strip show doing what is considered taboo, all hell will brake loose if their families fnds out what, they get up to at work. 84 | Issue 10, December 2014 Mpho and Funeka haven’t made money during the day, they have been out running errands buying a few things, the night is still young they are waiting to make money to pay for their accommodation for the night.

On the fast lane: Down to business! Where sleep is a cousin of death. Get out of my way! Brenda rushing for a client before some one else gets to him frst. She has to make enough money for her next hairdo and to send money home to Mozambique.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 85 A deal has been struck going up to the room to indulge into some happiness.

86 | Issue 10, December 2014 Sexy Blues: Crystal* from Harare came to the land of opportunities aroused with excitement and hopes for a better life. Jozi is a harsh concrete juggle especially for ladies in sex trade operations. Life goes on for Crystal who prepares for a strip tease competition in downtown Joburg.

Naomi from Malawi is doing whatever it takes to get clients at her Hotel in order to send some money home. Her parents think she is doing well in South Africa.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 87 Personal Story GIVING UP ON LOVE By Affa Aza “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For Love is sufcient unto love....

hen you love you should not say, experienced a period of disillusioned experiments. “God is in my heart”, but rather, “I My desire was to rekindle some kind of love wher- am in the heart of God.” And think ever there was attraction. For the most part it went not you can direct the course of love, badly. A number of sexual encounters, probably the Wfor love, if it fnds you worthy, directs your course. most adventurous of my 20 something years. Tink- Love has no other desire but to fulfl itself. But if you ing about this makes me think about my parents. love and most needs have desires, let these be your Teir story of love intrigues me. desires...” My parents have been husband and wife living in Khalil Gibran the same house before I knew myself. I am so horri- ble with details so I couldn’t tell you how many years One of the most painful times in my life was when that is. the relationship with my partner from high school ended. It was miserable. I lost weight. Tere is My father is a man of little excitement and simple nothing I could have done to make them stay. I routine. He lef for work by 7:00 and was home by

88 | Issue 10, December 2014 loved. 5:00. Monday to Friday. On Saturdays we went to church and Sundays he would sleep, read the have had several intense experiences with love. Gleaner and eat Sunday dinner. Tis is what I I think perhaps one of the things I fear the remember most about my father he would always most about being in love is the day my partner come home. He would open the door and say says, “Tis isn’t working out”. So I try my best “Good evening” and if mummy was at the table she Ito be a good partner, hoping it will always be worth would say “Good evening” back. We were supposed it and it will always work out. to say “Good evening” too. My grandmother would say loud loud “Evening Missa Harris”. Shortly afer Recently I came to understand that people were not he came out of his work clothes he would go to the the only things you could fall in love with. About back room to iron his clothes for the next work day. three years ago I had started to pursue a dream of By the time he was fnished he would have a shower mine called the SO((U))L HQ. It started with two and then it would be 7:00pm time for the nightly ideas. One, the idea that ‘the product is the place’ news. It was predictable, it made me feel safe. I felt and second, a deep desire to recreate the feeling of a like he would always protect us because he was place in Jamaica that was as stimulating friendly and always there. He loved us in an unexciting routine fun as the artistic/creative scene I had experienced way. My father is a strange man. He isn’t roman- in London when I’d visited several years before. tic (at least not to my knowledge) and seeing him and my mother together makes you wonder how I imagined the SO((U))L HQ as a place that I she keeps loving him or why she stays with him. It wanted to ‘be’ in, and where I wanted people to ‘be’ makes me think that she must really love him. with me. It was Georgia who frst came up with the name ‘Sounds of Life’ (my original dj’ing gig), and I I remember telling my sister once that the reason decided to call it SO((U))L. Te HQ was the place I was in love with my second partner was because that Georgia and I worked together building ideas they reminded me of daddy. I respected the way he

Issue 10, December 2014 | 89 for and about our community. Te HQ was the Garvey (and their love), and have enough educa- place where I felt passion, purpose, honesty and tion to understand ‘Globalization,’ ‘Dependency fatigue. I was in love with that place, well the Teory,’ ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,’ thing, the idea, and the work. I loved that place ‘World Systems Teory’; you ofen ask about the with all the love I had, and I opened it up to oth- past, the time before you were born when these ers with love. people who thought these things, and believed these things about the world and really wanted t wasn’t really until two months ago when to make it diferent - lived. I fnd myself ofen Georgia and I were struggling to pay rent puzzled by their absence in the present. I always for the HQ and I was preparing to have a look to them to help me put the pieces together, much-dreaded conversation with my land- to fgure out the here and now. Tere are maybe Ilord about having to give up the HQ that I real- two questions I always fnd myself wanting to ized how much I loved it.. Te thought of losing ask: ‘Why?’ and ‘What happened?’ I would want the HQ, the pains I felt in my chest and in my to ask them if they had ever given up on love. head made me realize that I was deeply in love Did they ever stop loving their work? with the HQ. I believe that ‘to love’ is to never give up on Tat was the moment that I forced myself out of love….never give up on people, never give up on bed and went online to create a crowdfunding all the things that can make life beautiful even campaign to keep the HQ and our other space when times change. (Di Institute for Social Leadership-ISL) open. I realized then that my love for these spaces meant I am writing this as I am about to lose something I would do anything to keel them alive. I think of I love. I have lost many things that I have loved. these spaces as my life’s work and I realize now I still can’t fnd the ring I bought from the Zim- that you have to love your work. Not just ‘love as babwean artist at Camden Market in London. work’ but ‘love as more.’ You have to love what it What I am about to lose, my space, is something is you believe in. Was Audre Lorde in love? Was very important to me. Last week I asked my Walter Rodney in love? Was Marcus Garvey in friends on Facebook if we knew how many times love? Marcus Garvey might have cried? I am losing something that I love but I am not giving up on zI am 33 years old. When you are 33 and believe love. in Audre Lorde and Walter Rodney and Marcus

90 | Issue 10, December 2014 Personal Story

Words by Mariane Amara OUR STRUGGLE & Photo by Mariam Armisen

Is “to love and be loved” a banal statement? Not at a guy”; I am neither a “mvoye “ nor a “koujeu.” I all. It’s frst the unconscious dream of any child, then thus should ft somewhere that gives my life a sense the ambition of any adult (with a beating heart, a and be assigned a label that sufocates me. Everyone desiring soul and a active body). It’s my own dream would like my life to be all either white or black, and ambition towards which my eforts move and, because ambiguity is disruptive. Maybe they are unfortunately, my concerns too. It’s a desire born right, and wrong at the same time, because I’m a girl out of the junction of diferences, two desiring AND I like girls. bodies that seek and fnd each other, two lives allied to one destiny. In my case, that’s not as simple as Love in time of persecution means going beyond it sounds. For me, love is a militant act, a cry that oneself, taking the risk to be disturbing, committing targets the “average” people, since I’m a woman who to a struggle for a share in the pie of happiness. It’s loves women. taking the risk of harming those who are dear to me because they do not understand me – my father, my We live in difcult times, hit by economic crises and mother, my brothers and my friends… quietly disorientation. Howls of hungry hyenas against a homophobes. All those who think, “Homosexuality, minority herd thirsty to exist. Our traditional cul- still, is no good...”. Tey say they love me, but hate tures failed, unable to meet our deepest aspirations. who I am. Tey say they love me, but they wage a Te (European) modern way of life, sought but not war against me, because I must change and become granted yet, leaves us in this broad and vague mar- “normal”. In the name of “friendship”, they say: “why gin between the two; between two worlds that I love don’t you even have a baby? “. As for me, I want and I cannot reach, between two lives that I have them to be there when I need them and no longer to take to survive. In the eyes of my family, I’m an see me as an object needing repairing. To love my indecisive, imprecise girl - not fxed-up yet. To my life means to accept the risk of hurting and disap- friends in the gay community, I wear long hair but I pointing those that I love, because I am a woman make decisions, I dress “like a girl” and behave “like who loves women.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 91 y struggle is a bitter struggle to be myself. To jut out from the fow of dogmas and beliefs those beset me and force me to vanish in order to Mbecome the right girl. Dogmas and beliefs that compel me to deny myself, to become a good girl, for the Christian church. My struggle is to love beyond beliefs, beyond the social ego that oppresses me, to love as my own self so as to drive those who love me to accept me, the REAL me – and not the bowdlerized image they made of “girls” – and those who deny “girls who like girls.”

My struggle is to love thee, you, my lover, my love, and take you beyond yourself. Tou, that I call “my friend” before my folks and “my sister” before my friends. You are my lover, my love, but also the one e must transform the Earth to tell who says day afer day, “traditions do not allow...”. the world who we are, because You love me in the silence of the night, in the dark otherwise they will never know and the shadow. You tell me: “Don’t ...”. “You should us. Our mission is to go beyond not hurt your mother, your son, your friends. You Wourselves towards a double love: to love ourselves should not disrupt people... “. But you ofen cry and to love those who hate us. It’s about taking you because they do not understand you. And I have to love me beyond who you are and let me love you no words to comfort you because, in the end, I do beyond who I am. To love to each other not understand ourselves. before them as we love each other in the dark. So our struggle will not be to live together, but to let them know that “we belong together”. So your brothers will no longer have the right to love me, nor my folks the right to cuddle you, because they will know that you’re not only my friend, but my lover, my love. Our struggle is to be able to hold hands and walk together in times of sufering. Faced with boos and bangs, we shall let the world see us they way we are, allow the world the time to get to know us. Ten we shall build a new world where thou shalt be YOU, and I shall be ME, and others shall also be OTHERS. We shall be US and YOU – all equal, but diferent.

92 | Issue 10, December 2014 this city makes me skittish side profles, looking too Akan. THIS i have shrunk too much like the ancestors. i have gone into myself jawline full. CITY, here, not graceful. i have faced demons head on. head squarish. THIS i have been lonely. sometimes i have sat in the dark facing myself. this body apologizes BODY picked at toenails too much Poem by Rita not showered for days. for what Goddess gave as gif. Nketiah & not cooked for weeks for what Nature made sacred Drawing by touched myself whole and holy Xonanji on the inside parts And Janelle sings in the background: hufed and pufed to be victorious, Poem balled fsts in tear-flled corners you must fnd glory in the little things. raised fsts hiding rouge-coloured nails twerked azonto’d separated parts of me to piece them back together whole and holy sound asleep in bed for 18 straight hours lived there for twice that length in a town, country, world like this, brown girls cover up ears, pointy.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 93 VERSE You’ve got rules Telling me what to do But is there anybody checkin’ up on you Well, I’m no fool I do what I’ve got to do Many have died for a freedom of mind, for the freedom of truth Could you be guilty for being a little bit diferent from the rest Come on, come on, come on now people Put yourself to the test

CHORUS Every minority has a priority We want to be equally free Love me or hate me, discriminate me But you can’t change the way I feel Who is the one to judge telling me who to love, telling me how to live, telling me what life is Oh, how you’re mistreating me

VERSE What you say MINORITY Is that I’m not supposed to be Lyric by Shishani Vranckx & Photos by Walking this earth, that I don’t deserve Christie Keulder & Paolo Schneider To live a free life Well, I know I’ve got so much to give to you Music I feel no shame, despite your blame cause my love is real Could you be guilty for being a little bit diferent from the rest Come on, come on, come on now people Put yourself to the test

CHORUS Every minority has a priority We want to be equally free Love me or hate me, discriminate me

94 | Issue 10, December 2014 But you can’t change the way I feel Who is the one to judge telling me who to love, telling me how to live, telling me what life is Oh, how you’re mistreating me

BREAK We need a black sheep to distract us from reality Point your fnger at me I bet that makes it easy We need to realize where the true trouble lies It ain’t who you are But the size of your mind Can you see with your heart And look past preconceptions Can you see my soul Past the labeling section Tis is who I am I’m gonna stand up proud Won’t let no one bring me down

Issue 10, December 2014 | 95 Poem POETIC JUST-US Poem by Tatenda Muranda & Photo by GPhOZ

96 | Issue 10, December 2014 Here we are bubbling beings, In this small space we call home. Te corrugated iron and newspaper we have fashioned into comfort, Comforts us with our privacy, And fashions a place where we make sense. Out there, in the world, there is no room for this girl and boy But here you are my king-queen and I am your squire. *** In the present past they would have called you Modjadji. And I would have called you mine. Every night. Mine with devotion. In this present people stare as we walk past. *** You are brave by being you, Criminally you create the spaces you navigate, Stealthily you dismiss those malevolent stares, You are stealing time for us and I know it. *** Your bandages bind you together with Your chest, A space ravaged by the wounds of a body not-quite-right And a person not-quite-clear on how to be more clear. *** I would hide you to save you, Cloak you and refuse to say sthandwa sami, I would deny you, to my grave and from yours. But that would already be death. *** In your arms I would remember the legends. Stories of the women who had wives and the men who could bear children, But in these nows there are no tales for us. *** As you lay there, still and silently cold Your rough hands and butter skin plead for my bravery, While my tears and mouthed goodbyes plead for the past. We cannot talk anymore, my devotion cannot reach across time, nor can my longing restore you. *** I am lef with images as memories, Love smells and smiles, Searing stares and sneers, An empty heart in my broken home And the word “isitabane” reminding me Tat this sorrowful song, ends in death without justice. And that our poetry was poetic when it was just us.

Issue 10, December 2014 | 97 www.q-zine.org www.issuu.com/q-zine

98 | Issue 10, December 2014