 Hello, and welcome. My name is Julie Pastor. I'm a curatorial assistant at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. And I was part of the team along with curator Susan Brown, who helped to realize exhibition contemporary Muslim fashions at Cooper Hewitt. It traveled to us from San Francisco art museums and opened in New York at the end of last February. For those of you who don't know contemporary Muslim fashions features approximately 80 ensembles drawn from established and emerging designers in high end fashion, street wear sportswear and couture, as well as approximately 40 photographs interviews and footage of designers at work in their studios introduced a new generation of designers to the general public 75% of the designers artists and influencers in the exhibition are Muslim women under the age of 40. And they highlight their focus on entrepreneurship, inclusion and sustainable and ethical practices. I'm delighted to share that the museum reopened its doors earlier this month after being closed since March 2020. We're so excited to welcome back visitors with free admission to see all of our exhibitions, including contemporary Muslim fashions which will be on view until July 11. If you're in New York, we hope that you'll come to see it. Our discussion today will address the politics of looking Arab or being presumed to be Arab and or Muslim in different locations in the West and around the world. The situation in Palestine and Israel is on our minds as we explore the role of style and appearance in the cultural life of the multi faith Arab and global population. Now let's keeping items before we begin. We welcome you to take part in the discussion by submitting a question for our panelists to ask a question. Please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. Close captioning is also available during this talk to turn on subtitles simply navigate to the bottom of your zoom screen and select the icon that says CC. I'm so honored to introduce Raina Lewis, Centenary Professor of Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion University of the Arts London and consulting curator of contemporary Muslim fashions. Welcome Raina. Thank you very much Julie, and welcome all. I love that the internet allows us to come together. Excuse me. We've come together in conversation from around the world. And I'm aware that I'm talking into the screen at a time when so many joining us today will have had very difficult experiences during the pandemic. Sometimes it feels hard to be so far apart. I'm also conscious that we meet in June 2021. When, as Julie was saying, we are aware that lives have been lost taken in Palestine and Israel. And our hearts go out to all those directly affected and also to the many more touched by the conflict. We also meet in the virtual space of an American museum just weeks after the terrible anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. And as we remember him and his family, as also the families of all those who've been killed in similar circumstances, we join in solidarity to challenge racism and discrimination in the fight for social justice. This exhibition contemporary Muslim fashions arose from a desire to build dialogue and connect communities through the medium of fashion. And it's my absolute honor to contribute to the public programming. I'm delighted today to be joined by my co convener Lena Aberifee and our other wonderful panelists Mona Hadar and Celine Simone. Before I introduce our esteemed speakers I'll do a little scene setting and then I'll hand over to Lena Mona and Celine for their opening remarks then we have some conversation between the panelists before we turn to your questions and contributions. So do please stop posing questions into the question box as soon as you like, and we'll take as many of them as we can a little later. But first I circle back to the scope and significance of this exhibition that provides the prompt for today's conversation. The impact of this show as a glorious fine art display of fashion and as a conduit for discussion was made possible by the fashion curation technologies of Jill de la Sandro the curator of costume and textile arts and Laura come a lingo the associate curator of costume and textiles at the San Francisco fine art museums where the show began. It was a privilege to work with them. The exhibition is indeed gorgeous and I hope that many of you will now have the opportunity to visit it in New York. The exhibition exhibition is indeed important as part of a dialogue about religious cultures and fashion cultures. The adaptations and additions as it has toured as seen in the excellent work of Susan Brown and Julie at the Cooper Hewitt demonstrate that the topic of contemporary Muslim fashion remains live and relevant, deserving of a place in public museums. Programming events to accompany exhibitions is always a wonderful way to extend the conversation and today's gathering allows us to focus on how fashion factors into Arab identities. Clearly not all Arabs and Muslim just as not all Muslims Arab, putting a dialogue about Arab fashion and identity into the frame of this exhibition, therefore allows us to think about the permeability of religious and cultural boundaries and the transnational transmission of style. We consider how appearance plays a role in the formation and expression of different forms of Arab identity. This allows us to attend to how the multiple faith and secular traditions of the global Arab population, feed into fashion past and present. Through diverse histories and experiences across Arab lands and diasporas, we consider how forms of attachment to dress in the dormant remain meaningful across generations, or and become newly significant in the lives of individuals as circumstances change. It is also that we have time to talk about the local and international impact of distinctive Arab beauty cultures. What role does gender play in attitudes to the grooming of the body from hair and makeup to plastic surgery. And to what extent our beauty norms also racialized. Global beauty brands belatedly wake up to the diverse needs and aesthetics of black and Asian consumers. Do Arabs find themselves included or overlooked Arabs want to be included. Just as the push to show more visible ethnic diversity on the catwalk is slowly changing the lineup of models. I'm interested to see what types of bodies will be able to register as Arab in public view. When it comes to religious identity, I'm interested to see if the complexity of religious affiliation can be incorporated. When Halima Aidan walked in a hijab in a headscarf, her religious affiliation was obvious. Unlike other models of Muslim heritage who maybe don't cover their hair, but might also want to place to pray for example how does the industry see and regard and respond to that. Inclusion industry, as also the cultural sector as also higher education where I work has to work hard to think about making inclusion possible and meaningful. Learning to recognize the manifold ways in which our intersectional identities are manifested is a key component of that process. This is one of the contexts in which our three speakers explore today, if and how modes of identification as Arab are formed through the dressing, styling and comportment of the body and to whom and where they are differently legible. I'd like to consider this, then our three wonderful speakers. Dr. Libina Abira Faye is a global women's right expert with decades of experience worldwide. For the last six years Lena has served as the executive director of the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University established in 1973 the Institute is both academic and activist. She covers the 22 Arab states, and was the first women's Institute in the Arab region and one of the first in the world. Lena is a specialist in gender based violence prevention and response, and has served in development and humanitarian work in contexts that include Afghanistan, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nepal. The PhD from the London School of Economics was about gender and international aid in Afghanistan, and Lena continues to write and speak on a range of gender issues. Recently she's been writing about the need for a feminist response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on Arab women and girls. For her public engagement work, including a popular TEDx talk, Lena was recently recognized with a vital voices fellowship for 2021 for outstanding women leaders. Mona Haydar joins us today as well Mona is a Syrian American Muslim activist, spoken word poet and musician. In 2016 she gained international press for the Ask a Muslim project that she set up with her husband in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks. This was a booth that invited dialogue and questions. Two years later in 2017 Mona broke into the hip hop scene with hijabi rap my hijab, whose video went viral and is we're delighted to say featured in the exhibition. In 2017, hailed this track as one of the top 10 feminist anthems of all time, alongside music by Beyonce and Christina Aguirre. Since then, Mona's music and visually stunning videos have continued to garner popular acclaim. And, as with her first EP, Barbarican in 2018, her work challenges patriarchy, Orientalism, racism and white supremacism. She performs her music and poetry in the United States and around the world, and is also active in community and interfaith work with a master's in theology, focusing on Christian ethics from Union Theological Seminary in New York. Mona leads writing and activism workshops and provides public speaking about art, Islam, feminism, hip hop theology and interfaith dialogue in churches, synagogues and conferences, speaking everywhere from Princeton University to the Parliament of World Religions. And our third speaker is Celine Simone, who is of Lebanese Canadian heritage, a researcher, designer, public speaker and entrepreneur. With a background in art, digital literacy and open data. She is the co-founder and executive director of Slow Factory Foundation, an education research advocacy and empowerment organization that promotes systemic change towards regenerative social and environmental systems. Celine's mission with Slow Factory is to support black, brown, indigenous and minority ethnic voices, change makers, organizations and brands in disrupting exploitative human rights and environmental practices. Celine has been working at the intersection of fashion politics and climate change since 2003 and continues to creatively envisage and design regenerative systems. As a regular writer, Celine contributes critical commentary to Elle, New York Magazine and Teen Vogue, and her work has been covered by the New York Times, Vogue, Women's Wear Daily and Harper's Bazaar, among others. We are honored also to have worked from Slow Factory in the exhibition. Now, in real life, this would be the point where there is a roar of applause as we welcome very warmly our three speakers. You are all indeed very welcome indeed. And I'm going to invite Lena to start us off, followed by Mona and then Celine. Lena, we're all yours. Thank you so much. What a wonderful and warm welcome. And I'm applauding wildly because I'm honored, excited, delighted. This has been a panel that is a long time in the making and is filled with stellar speakers. I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of it. So I've been tasked with setting the stage a little bit because we cannot divorce this conversation from what is happening personally and politically in the region to women on gender issues, etc. So, Rena, you gave the most beautiful intro. I feel like there's nothing I need to say about the Institute more than that, except for in our long and rich history over these almost 50 years. What we've realized is that unless we are doing work on the ground, unless we are impacting social change and policy change in everything that we do, all of the education and research and outreach and youth engagement, we are not valid. So I have, I come from an NGO and grassroots background and a work in humanitarian emergencies. So this field perspective, so to speak, has been critical for me in animating the Institute and making sure that we are not academic elitist ivory tower. So what we're really trying to do is merge academia and activism. And because the region has such a young population, a very sizable young population, it is all the more critical for us to engage those people engage young people. I say that wishing that I was still part of them to see what it is they need from us, what are the tools, what are the resources, what are the ways that we can take their movements, their energy, their inspiration, their anger, and push it forward. So what we've been able to do with the Institute is some innovative things. We decided that sermons by me are really not what is going to achieve gender equality in the region. We figured that unless we are reaching young people with more creative means. Interesting art for activism campaigns, we have an animated video and song we have loads of different really hands on ways to communicate with young people and to give them the information that they need to take the fight forward. So unless we're doing things in a kind of innovative way that meets the demands of the population we're trying to serve we're really we're just outdated. And in terms of the context I don't need to tell you all I think you're an informed audience I'd imagine so when we talk about the 22 Arab states the ones that we cover in the Institute. We are talking about layered crises and insecurities multiple protracted emergencies conflicts like what's happening in Palestine and Yemen and Syria and Iraq and the economic insecurities in Lebanon and all of this paints a very challenging picture. Now, nowhere in the world have we achieved gender equality this much we know the gender gap is going to take 100 years to close I don't know if anyone is going to be around see it happen I don't think I will, which is precisely why I'm so excited about galvanizing young people to get things going faster so I can see that change in my lifetime. But all of that to say the Arab region ranks the worst in terms of social indicators. The Arab region will take 150 years to close its gender gap. There are inequalities across the board in politics and public and political life and leadership and decision making this is extremely stark because women's invisibility is very obvious. So that's a massive problem in terms of the economy women are an underutilized economic force, not represented in in leadership in in decision making in companies only only able to access or mostly able to access overly feminized jobs, working in the informal labor sector, which with a disproportionate burden of care, and COVID has only exacerbated all these things. Things like violence against women continue. There is discrimination embedded in the law. Things like child marriage marital rape all of these things that we fight for sexual harassment. We also solve these problems and add the layered conflicts and insecurities that amplify all of these pre existing vulnerabilities, we are in a very difficult position. All of that to say it is not doom and doom entirely because what I see on the streets and in universities in schools. What I like is a movement of young people who are galvanized who are interested who are committed who are angry. And I think the power of anger is something we really need to channel in order to make change I mean if you're not angry you're really not paying attention to what is going on. People who are just intersectional in the way they approach issues they are not structured and rigid in the way maybe the old fashioned kind of movements have been they're not registered as NGOs and working with ministries they are really out there on the streets, taking up each other's issues in a way that that reflects the multi dimensional lives that we live. And when we talk about the link between this kind of conversation these movements and feminist activism. And social justice activism, the body has always been a political tool. So when we look at you know this kind of conversation, what is, what is the role of art, for instance, what is the role of fashion as a statement fashion as a tool. What are the the visual kind of messages or implications how can we make this political how are we conscious of the messages that we're sending. I think young people are paying more and more attention to that and I find it extremely encouraging. I'm going to leave it there for now but we'll add much more in the questions. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That was wonderful, Lena. And you've raised many valuable points that will be able to come back to shortly. And could I invite you Mona to go next please and I think you were also going to share your screen so go ahead. Hey, everyone. I'm coming to you live from northern New Mexico. I say peace to you all. My name is Mona Haydar. I am a Syrian Muslim woman, and Raina thank you for that introduction. I would just add that my work is an attempt for me to use all the tools at my disposal one of them being my light skin privilege as an Arab woman. In order to tell the important stories that I don't see being told in the world. In a way of integrity and honesty, pushing away the Orientalist racist sexist patriarchal misogynist male gaze and attempts, and I see that all as a perpetuation of the colonial agenda. The agenda which seeks to homogenize and erase difference. And I see indigenous culture as a, as a, as a celebration of differences, you know the way that in nature biodiversity is something that you know, you can't get away from. So I'll just share a little bit of my work. And I'm also here at that work. Can you all see this. There you go. Okay, so this first image. I worked with a friend, her name is Fida, I eat and I'm going to drop her website in the chat box in a second here. We together created. I reached out and I said hey this was actually before I got into music before I got into graduate school and I just said, Hey Fida like I just had a baby and I don't feel beautiful I don't feel like the world reflects what I am in this state of my body and of my identity as beauty and beautiful so let's create something together, which would reflect that to the world for my children, for my society for my community. And the next, the next image. Let's see. Here we go. We, we decided to take our traditional 11 teen dress she's a Lebanese American I'm a Syrian American. It's a very rare culture in that it was actually just the French who separated Syria from Lebanon we used to be kind of in Palestine as well we used to kind of be one people you know different tribal cultures different regions different dialects but one people with one major culture. And we took our traditional garb, and we said this is something that here in America we don't see being. People walking around like this why because in a way we feel like this is this is old this is ancient this is backwards you know if you're not like I'll tell you a story in high school. I was actually working in an office it was one of my jobs. And, you know, I got credit for working in the in the office and I wore a jean jacket one day and I remember this woman said to me you know but doesn't that kind of go against your hijab. I thought that that was so interesting that she historicized my hijab my head covering, and my jean jacket to her was modern. You know and for me actually hijab is a in this world in this pornified world of toxic patriarchy, and I'll make a distinction here I'm actually not anti patriarchy and anti oppression. When we see a world that's full of oppression, and where women are subjugated and relegated to objects and we see this with the studies on porn. Where you know the brain is firing when people are watching porn where women are actually being seen as objects in the male brain. But that for me I want to challenge those ideas by saying you know, in that world my hijab is a political statement it is a social statement to say that, you know you will direct your questions your inquiries, and your interest in me beyond me just as a body. You will not have access to this hair and to this beauty and to this, this body beyond what I choose to share and show. And, and so I will share this next photo you know we just wanted to juxtapose different things like, you know the, what is called like historical this, you know with a typical East, East Coast American landscape, and then a dog in the background because we thought that was fun. It's my mother in law dog. But I'm, you know, later down the line I actually I was in Standing Rock, and a woman came to me and I had already recorded the song for which this still that you're seeing now exists. And a woman came to me when I arrived at Standing Rock, and I didn't know necessarily what I was going to be able to do there because I was five and a half months pregnant. But this Lakota woman came to me and she laid her hands on my belly and she said, you brought that good medicine. And here I was having recorded the out the song wrap my hijab. I'm starting to lose the baby weight in order to shoot the music video because I was like, you know you never seen a music video with the first of all you know it's rare that you see a woman who wears hijab in a music video so let me be the least like threatening I could be you know. And so I realized how colonial my thinking was and I sought to challenge myself and and when she said you brought that good medicine and she laid her hands on my belly. I realized I had to decolonize the way I was thinking about my own body, you know that I needed to be cute I needed to be thin. I required that of myself before I thought I could present myself to the world, and she totally changed the way I thought by by speaking to me in that way and calling my body at the time medicine. And you know, we I went to Detroit and this is the video that's actually done the best of all my work. You know, and my one of my later videos was called barbarian, and I realized during a post colonial liturgy class that you know there is an idea of this savage and barbarian class of people and I realized that I was contributing to that by seeing my own nose, my own face as not necessarily as beautiful as a, you know, as like a, I don't know what white Hollywood star has a perfect beautiful nose, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, I realized I was contributing to that by my own self hatred and so I sought to create a song that celebrated our barbarism and I start the song by saying if they're, if they're, if they're civilized I'd rather stay savage. Because for me the idea is that if dropping bombs and, you know, being a nuclear superpower and sub doing a society with police brutality, the murder of indigenous people and black people and enslavement of Africans. If that is civilized society then I'd rather stay savage. I'd rather celebrate my own heritage. So, you know, all of it is about challenging myself, this is another video I did with Fidairid, where we use fashion to talk about our different characters within the video you can check that one out it's called lifted. And this was for the cover shoot of my EP, where we use the keffiye, which, as you know has been mass produced now in China, and it has lost a lot of its meaning for because of mass production. And so we see textiles being co opted and losing some of their meaning when this is very. This is a very important class that the, the, the cloth the textile I'm using as a hijab, and the one over my shoulder. This is a heritage piece you know I remember pictures of my grandfather wrapping his head as he worked on his farm in the black and white keffiye you know it meant something to our people. And with that I'll just, I'll end my screen sharing and I'll just say, you know, for me. My work is largely about myself first and my community and speaking truth to domination and realizing that actually we the people are the power corporations you know we often say that we're speaking truth to power. And realizing that actually within us is the power and that, as I use my art, and my body, and any tool that I have at my disposal my fashion, my style, my voice, my talent to subvert things like white supremacy, sexism, classism, cast. And so that and when I speak to that directly to that I am taking my power back and sharing the message with anybody ready and willing to listen. So that's my hope in creating solidarity between communities that we are actually the power. I think you certainly are the power owner and thank you very much for that wonderful introduction. I'm going to hand over now to Celine to do the final presentation please Celine go ahead. Hello. Thank you so much, Rena. Thank you so much Mona. It's been an honor to be here I don't have a presentation to share with you, but I will tell you a little bit about what we do at the slow factory foundation and the slow factory. So the slow factory works at the intersection of climate justice and human rights. Personally, I have lived a war I'm a first generation war survivor I was born in Lebanon. And my family and I escaped the war and we were one of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to leave Lebanon Beirut sadly under the bombs and under the siege of Israel at the time to escape to Montreal Canada. And that's where I had, you know, the first part of my education, let's say, and going back to Lebanon when I was 13, when the war ended in 1995, I realized that I wasn't ready for what I was going to witness. I had lived pretty, pretty sheltered after the escape that after the refugee status that we've received in a place in Montreal where we were subjected to a lot of racism. My father was, you know, his business was vandalized repeatedly. So that's why he never felt like we were going to stay in North America. It was just temporary. So we left and returned back where we came from exactly what we were told to do. And so when we arrived in Beirut, I wasn't ready to witness like so far that part the racism North America was pretty sheltered to what I was going to relive basically in terms of reentering a place that has had been completely destroyed by the war. And an apocalyptic place basically, which was Beirut, Lebanon, the entire country. And at first I wasn't sure why my parents would do such a thing to bring us back here in that place. But later on in my life I realized how much of a blessing that was and that was my, the foundation of the work that I do, which is a work deeply deeply ingrained in decoloniality and the anti-colonial aspects, post-colonialism and the observation of colonial power in every single aspect of our lives from the education that we are receiving to the way we are interacting with climate to the way we are interacting to human rights and who gets to be in human rights and who gets to work in that space. And the witnessing the cost the war had on my country, on both the environmental aspect of it, on the human rights aspect of it, defined the way that we work at Slow Factory, not just me personally but all the collaborators that we bring together to shape the new narrative that we desperately need in this conversation regarding climate because it's one of the most important battles that we are facing collectively. It kind of is a way to bring us all together, although it isn't an equalizer. And also the conversation on human rights, racial justice, our right as Arabs, and this identity that is the Arab identity, what is this identity that we call being an Arab? Is it an ethnicity? Is it not? I know that from a white perspective or in European perspective, we can't call it an ethnicity but we have all the tools in front of us to name it like an ethnicity to define it as such. And so this conversation about being an ambiguous identity, an erased identity specifically because I am an Arab who isn't a Muslim and this misconception that the global North has on our identity and who we get to be and how we get to be orientalized or not. Of course, as Mona said earlier, I have had my share of misconceptions from a young age when I was a child being asked, why am I living in a tent? Am I living with a camel? Do we come from the sand and being called all sorts of slurs? And all the way to going back to Lebanon and being called a white person and being called like you are a traitor because you left and you can't speak well Arabic and you cannot read and write it pretty well. So you are a traitor, you assimilated and being aware of these places, of these geographies of belonging, not belonging, being an outsider and trying desperately to understand what is it that we've missed, what is it that I've missed and what is it that I haven't been taught at school? What is it that we never will teach you, whether it's here in America or over in the Middle East? What is the Middle East? Is the Middle East the correct terminology to describe where we come from? As we've seen probably on social media, it's the middle and east of nowhere at all. It is a colonial depiction of where we come from. Is it Southwest Asia, North Africa? The correct terminology, and why are we defining it in geography? Isn't it also Southwest of something else? Anyway, so all of these topics are the topics that we explore at the Slow Factory as an independent institution, a guerrilla institution and an institution that belongs as itself on its own, funded by the public, funded by partners. We are redefining the new narratives and through education and open education, which is free online education for all to attend to, but mainly centering and led by black, brown, indigenous people of color from all over the world from the global majority that basically creates this global movement of liberation. And the things that we question that we ask that we research are these common narratives that we can have with each other, because as the global majority, we've never really was invited to talk to each other, to build with each other, to communicate to one another, to heal with each other. And so building this common narrative is what we work on at the Slow Factory, and of course, elevating and highlighting the work of indigenous people from here in America and from all over the world in our relationship to the land, in the loss of our indigeneity, the loss of our connection to the land. We have actually a research program at the Slow Factory where we fund researchers who are interested in looking at these topics and we have a researcher currently, Charles Al Hayek, who is a historian, a Lebanese historian who is studying the loss of our indigeneity from before the war. In fact, during the Ottoman Empire and prior to that, in fact, and the influence of European colonizers here and there in small pockets of time and places, and their influence in our identity or loss of identity in our relationship to what we consider modern, what is modern and modernity. So we have this program. We also study microplastics and the rise of microplastics in our environment from the beauty industry to the fashion industry. And we also have a lab at the Slow Factory that is funding a research that is now ready to go into market on a new leather alternative that is a nanocellulose leather that is growing out of food waste and that is being fed food waste. It's a completely circular food waste to resource model that we are launching in the next year or so. So the Slow Factory is an independent cultural and institutional research lab and school, and we are curious. We don't necessarily have all the answers, but we are definitely in the work of questioning things and better understanding who we are on this planet. Thank you so much, Celine, and thank you for sharing some of your experiences about the poisonous and painful impact of different boundary disputes, whether it's racism in Canada, and then other experiences of competing claims to purity of identity. In the context of the ever mobile and always politicized forms of categorization, whether it's the imaginary geography of the Middle East, or the ways in which ethnicity is defined. We're going to take some questions now for the panel. You've been sending in questions. Please send in more. I'm going to post some questions to the panel for a moment now to start off with, and please do carry on sending in your questions and comments. And I'm going to start with a question for you, Mona, that follows on from some of those rich visuals that you showed us in your presentation. One of the things you wanted to do with the contemporary Muslim fashion exhibition was indicate the breadth and variety of Muslim fashion to spotlight. Some of the many different aesthetics that inspire and are familiar to Muslim designers and consumers around the world, and I reviewed your videos when I was preparing for this and I was struck by the variety of clothing and style on display. In rap my hijab, the range of ways of rapping, which was itself, of course, a deeply significant intervention into conservative orthodoxies. And I also loved in barbarian, how you tell a visual narrative about religious and ethnic diversity through the dress body. We see women in that video of visible ethnic diversity and of different ages and different sizes, wearing a significant range of clothing styles in which you mix up garments and textiles associated with so called ethnic fashion, along with contemporary hip hop styling and mainstream fashion trends. And the entire setting as with all your work is visually rich and aesthetically layered, drawing on Arab fashion and material cultures, as well as many others and I know and you've just mentioned that you work with the stylist and I'd like if you could talk us through some of the backstage work on the styling processes for your films and how you use this to further the creative and political vision for your works it seems to me it's very much also enacted through the visuals as well as the lyrics and the sound. Take us backstage. Yeah, thanks for that question. You know, we have all these opportunities at our disposal as artists, you know, and one of the things that we really saw as an opportunity to showcase who we really are was through our style and our styling in these videos and in working with different stylists, one of them being fed aid. We really took it to a level, which had only been seen internationally before in places like Indonesia and Malaysia. And where Muslim women are being, you know, like I wasn't styled by non Muslim women, I was styled by a Muslim woman who understood the culture who came from a similar background. And for me that meant everything because it comes from a place of truly being seen, rather than a thing of putting, you know, putting something on top of what already exists, which is, which is what colonialism is. You know, so I was, I was really intentional about working with Muslim women specifically women of color. One of the things which you know with rap my hijab that we tried to do was subvert the gaze of white supremacy and specifically anti black racism because when you talk about Muslims in America, often you're not talking about the black community, which is a huge contingency of Muslims in America. And I wish we had a black sister on the stage with us to talk more about this. But one of the one of the real problems within the colonial model is that it is about divide and conquer. And so what we're doing to subvert that is to unite and build solidarity with one another and that it can be represented through our clothing that no matter where a Muslim woman comes from. She has the option to wear hijab or not to wear hijab, you know, and and she has the option to rap according to her own indigenous culture, and it might look different than the way that I wrap my hijab, but it will always represent the beauty of the Muslim society, you know, regardless of whether she chooses to rap or not. And so in the song wrap my hijab I actually say, cover it up or not don't ever take us for granted. You know, and, and, and in the song, I, I, I set out to do this thing of, you know, subverting colorism within our community, you know, I have this light skin privilege. And so I have to use it as a sort of currency investing it into the beautiful, the more beautiful world that I know is possible, and that I see ourselves building together as artists as creatives as, you know, people on the front lines of creating the revolution and building a sustainable world for our for the future. You know, we're using our clothing, we're using our voices, we're using our writing, we're using our art, we're using whatever we have access to, you know, whether, like I said, okay so here's one last example and then I'll be done answering this. But for instance in my video Good Body. If you check that video out on YouTube you'll see in the beginning of that video I'm wearing a white frilly shirt, and it has ruffles all up and down the front. And that was an intentional styling decision where we were talking we were wearing we were all wearing white on top and mine was a ruffled front, and then we were all wearing jeans. Okay, and then a transformation happens in the video where we arrive at our true selves, and you see the variety and the diversity of what people who feel comfortable, bringing their true light to the world what they would wear. And that was my prompt for everybody coming to be in this video. And the frilly shirt was a was a marker and was a symbol of the colonial masters, and then our transformation from that frilly shirt. That's colonizer shirt into the liberation into the immense beauty of diversity like we don't, we don't strive for uniformity, we strive for unity, and they're very different, they're very different, you know we don't strive for monoculture, we strive for diversity. So what I want to ask you is then when you have, you work with different stylists and then when the women who are in your different videos, are they coming with that outfit, or is that coming through a collaboration with the stylist so are you getting input then from everyone that's on screen. Yeah, so each video has been different so for instance for my very first video, the, the women you see reflected in the video are the women who wanted to be represented in that video. I didn't have a following at the time but I had a community in Detroit Flint, you know, and our bird Dearborn area in Michigan and I just put out a call and I said hey spread the word. I'm shooting a music video, and I want people to be in it and I want it to represent our community beautifully. And so who you see in that video and I just shared a few styling tips I said I want monochrome. So come dressed, you know, monochromatically, but I also want you to feel comfortable so feel comfortable in what you're wearing because we're going to be on set. And I said represent yourself the way that you feel you will be honored and represented 10 years down the line 20 years down the line. And then later on, when you're working with a stylist and so on because it's very interesting in terms of, as your career develops and how you know the complexity of the imagery so just before we move on to tell us then with later on is there still a collaboration or are you dressing people as they arrive. So later down the line. For instance in the, the barbarian video for died was the stylist on set at the time, but we, we asked people we said you know we don't have budgets. I'm not signed to a record label. So if you would come and bring what you feel represents you and your people beautifully, and then we'll help tweak it for camera because we know what will look good on film, and the way that people will feel good you know so we actually had a makeup artists. We had a stylist on set, just to make sure people felt 100% comfortable showing up on camera. But we didn't change what they were wearing we just amplified it we just enhanced it slightly you know we put powder on people's because camera does things. You know lighting situations and you know feta has incredible ethnic jewelry from all over the world and she used that for people and and and our makeup artists did you know different face tattooing for people who who have that in their ethnic background. So we just sort of amplify and enhance, but we definitely didn't say okay you're going to wear this and you're going to wear this and you're going to do this. It really is about allowing people to feel truly represented and being comfortable in how they're being shown on film, which is not you know we don't get people's consent you know I've, I've, I've been in many ads I've been in. You know, and they've treated me very well but they've never asked me like what would you like to wear. You know it's always been like somebody pulling out a scarf and I'm just like yeah actually I can't wear that you know like that's. It's about this wide and it's not going to fit over my head, you know like I wish you had brought in somebody who knew something about a scarf who knew about styling a hijab for instance. And that's a very interesting point as well in terms of the sort of mixture of collaboration but also professional expertise that you need in order to produce the content for the video that's going to work. But also, as I'm often saying about with the fashion industry. So in terms of summarizing more generally you have to have diversity of experience and expertise behind the camera whether it's about makeup for different skin tones or, you know when Maria address he was in that first H&M advert those years ago, and had to sew together two of the scarves they gave her I think in order to make the wrap the way she wanted you know. So it's very interesting thank you so much for sharing that and I'm going to go to Celine now to think more about fashion and political and social interventions because Celine in your work. You use the form of fashion garments to bring political interventions into the public eye. You did have the exhibition slow factory the flight jacket you did with the first amendment of the US Constitution printed in Arabic, and also the scarf band that refers to the list of Muslim countries, banned under the Trump presidency and now I think largely revoked by the Biden administration, which makes it a different type of historical artifact it's entirely fascinating. From the fashion historian point of view sorry. I get excited about that produced in collaboration with the ACLU. These are fantastic attention grabbing fashion acts. And on the other hand you move beyond garments to create projects and educational content for slow factories mission of social and planetary quality, you talked a bit in your, your presentation your opening about your experience and your learned experience of the complexity of Arab identifications and movable boundaries of ethnicity and nationality. Does this help you then when you're brokering alliances for the slow factory. You work with so many different individuals and organizations to do with climate justice and human rights activism does that help you in, you know sometimes brokering those relationships can be very delicate. I didn't understand the question what would help me to broker these relationships to be an Arab. Well, you are an expert but your experience of how Arab identity can be misunderstood under a razor disputed disallowed. Does that experience help you when you're trying to build alliances with different groups and organizations. I don't know how to answer this question because I'm, I feel like maybe to go back a little bit to what I was saying earlier, being someone who has lived both in the East and the West I find myself as a translator and I'm not the only designer who identifies as such. Two weeks ago we had a open education class with Cital Solanki who is a bio designer and she also defined herself as a translator someone who translates even though she is a designer and she's also someone who works with biomaterials and so the idea is the idea here is to say that being a translator someone who has to translate both East and West has always been a difficult task because we are in the middle of all of this so we understand, you know, certain criteria for example certain institutions may have and maybe I could pass because I am able to enter this room. My name is Celine it's not an Arab name my mom was very conscious in naming me this way. She was, she grew up under a colonial mandate the French colonial mandate that where her her own mother language wasn't forbidden. She was not allowed to speak her language, my dad as well. She was forced to, you know, adopt another language and so basically the fact that my name is Celine already gets me into the door. But then as soon as I open my mouth about Palestine about Arab identity about Lebanon about our struggle our constant struggle in just achieving basic human rights and to really talking about the region, not as in terms of series of conflicts because that differentiates all of the work that we are doing and the the sensitizes the, the global north into having any form of compassion for what we are going through. I wouldn't say I have any advantage because in fact the work that I do is a constant form of education and a constant form of advocacy, and that's how I ended up being in that space is just naturally advocating for things that I was seeing that in a way that continued the oppressive agenda continued the erasure continued the misunderstanding and being like well we just don't understand it. And so I think that in instead of seeing it as an advantage because I never was given that advantage I was I had always to kick the door open, keep my foot in the door and push the door so that other people could get in. I see I see my work, and myself, I've always identified as a professional troublemaker up until this day, I am considered someone who is difficult, someone who is radical, someone who isn't going to bend into the rules and say yes yes yes, someone who challenges the status quo at any given time. So when we are working with brands or when we are working with organizations. It's never an easy thing, I would not say that we have any advantage, but we are grateful. Whenever we get to work with organizations, I think organizations that work with the slow factory are on the right track are progressive organizations are organizations that are asking themselves the right questions, and the ones that are partnering with us are courageous organizations that have put their money where their mouth is in terms of foundationally finding a way, foundationally finding a solutions from the ground up by decentralizing their own selves and their own power and their own wealth essentially to be like here you go, what would you do, because in terms of like the past 10,000 years of human existence 5000 of them were surviving an oppressive agenda, whether in Lebanon or here in this, in this, I mean not 5000 years here in this land in the United States and but 5000 years in my land and where I come from so in terms of being an artist or expressing ourselves, we have, we are, you know, institutions are indebted to us to give us the mic and to allow us to create and to build and to figure out what is it that we are and how do we define ourselves and what is identity to us in this climate of identity politics because in the Middle East and in at least in Lebanon, that's not something that we are invited to question and to talk about. We are living in a post war climate where we are wondering if identity in fact is useful. And so these conversations are different. Your point about being a translator of languages of culture is very well made and it's also clear that you're translating the same conversation or different versions of the same conversation differently for different contexts as you've just said. And I was thinking in terms of the work that slow factory does about environmental and planetary sustainability. Is that given that the fashion industry is to a certain extent alert now to questions of sustainable and ethical fashion and certainly our students at London College fashion and very much. You know, this is a hot button story is integral to the way that they work and they study. Do you think that's the conversation where now more people are speaking the language, or are they speaking a different version of that language if I construct your metaphor. Are more doors open for that now in terms of sustainability. I mean to a point all the time I get asked, you know, what is sustainable fashion and I always answer what are we trying to sustain because right now what they are trying to sustain is their own systems and their own systems of oppression and so my entry point in the fashion industry was in mapping colonial routes for both resources and for human labor and in mapping these routes I created this map and this map maps identically to the colonial routes so nothing has changed. We are continuing to exploit resources human resources and labor in the same models that you know basically built this land America the UK the cotton empire. If we trace it back and open education is a wonderful resource and digging deeper into that we have the history of cotton where we continue exploring that cotton in indigenous languages. There's over 10,000 ways to say cotton in an indigenous language all over the world in indigenous languages, but be in cotton existed long before the white man had discovered it. And now, sadly, the way that the fashion industry is being built, it's not being built anymore on cotton it's being built on petrol on oil, because 70% of our clothes and our hanging in our closet are made with polyester and polyester is oil. And that is why it's completely related to the situation in the Middle East, to the situation in Southwest Asia, North Africa in the constant, basically the constant destabilization politically of that land is for access to oil, not only for our cars, but also for the goods that we buy and that we create, it's a toothbrush, or a packaging for a shampoo, or for your clothes, it all comes from that same source now there has been efforts in creating recycled plastic recycled poly with basically the used plastic that is floating in our ocean. But we're taking a visible item from the ocean, we're turning it into a soft good, and we're washing that soft good eventually, throwing that soft good because it's still the culture of disposability. And we're returning it to the earth as poison, as something that cannot get recycled again because we have not cracked the code of recycling textile in that capacity. So there's a lot of conversation happening in the fashion industry, and a lot of it has to be centering non white voices voices from the global majority, because the problem that we are experiencing now is a problem created by white supremacy. It's a problem designed by colonialism. If we look at all of the systems that are designed around these products, and around manufacturing these products, and the culture of disposability around these products, they are intertwined with the culture of how we judge something as successful, or as beautiful, or as fashionable, or as of status, what is status even mean in this context when we're discussing sustainability. That's why this intersection between climate justice and human rights is key in cracking the code of how do we create sustainable systems, regenerative systems that are good for the earth and good for the people. And that's what we do. I'm thinking then also ways about in whose interest this is happening and what do we have to do to see where the power is lying in these different different contexts. Thank you very much. Celine and Lena I'm going to come to you to think again about women's political participation and economic opportunity in the Arab world. And also the work that you do with with the Institute. I know you and I've talked before about the relationship of fashion to the formation and expression of Arab identities. Does women's appearance play a particular role in women's opportunity in achieving or in the conversation in inhibiting success. Does appearance matter. Well, let me start by answering the first part about economic and political participation. So when we talk about things like you know women being underrepresented in the political and economic sphere. We want to, at very least level the playing field recognize a historic ages old imbalance and inequality and blatant discrimination across the board. But at the same time when we advocate for for quotas and and positive discriminations that are going to hopefully correct this imbalance. The idea is not, you know, is it sufficient to have women's bodies in these seats. The idea is about power really what's important is can they exert power in the spaces that they occupy. Can they espouse feminist principles can men do that too of course they can. What are the ways that we are building conversations for all of us in political life and economic life in all aspects of public life actually for conversations around social justice around diversity around feminist principles and what might that look like it's like reinventing a whole new structures especially for the Arab region. So what is what is interesting is very often people see this as a tick box kind of thing and say well if we just put 25% women in this space or women CEOs or whatever that we've solved the problem. And in fact, presence is one thing and like I said power is another. And how we use that and I'm going to go back to what I said at the beginning about how I see the young generation taking charge of those things in ways that are non negotiable. For me, I think that's extremely encouraging of one story I want to share. And I probably digress but I did promise that I would do this is as part of our conversations at the Institute. We talk a lot about what it means to be feminist, and how that word manifests and how that word is translated and how that word is perceived interpreted and so on. And what we decided to do to enable the conversation we like to kind of poke and provoke as much as we can within our setting is we approached to Lebanese women designers and we asked them to create a shirt for us that I'm wearing now I'm going to show you. I'm just holding my phone out so it says feminist in Arabic, and the idea was to just get people talking about it I mean yes you can wear your politics and you know as long as you're doing it in a way that is is ethical and aware and I mean I think that's it's wonderful that this was done by women in Lebanon and has been worn by young people all over the place. It's a men's version obviously as well. And the idea is, let's please talk about the things that sometimes make people uncomfortable. And the concept of feminism is not one that is imported and imposed it exists everywhere I've worked in over 20 countries and I've seen indigenous feminist movements everywhere all the time there are women who are active there are people who are active for social justice in every cultural space I've ever been in. And I think that's an important point that this isn't just something that has that is part of a Western cultural agenda or some kind of a, you know, colonial project, this is something we are fighting for equality for rights for space for diversity for justice for dignity for respect within our own societies, nobody needed to teach us those kinds of things. So in whatever space you occupy, you can, you can make it feminist you know I really appreciate my fellow panelists speaking about their own identities and the politicalization of their own identities and for me. It's been interesting navigating the space because I come from different countries, different religions raised in places that are not my home countries at all. In my way of detail I will tell you I'm the product of a Lebanese, who is also both born and raised in Senegal, and a Palestinian and on both sides, different religions, neither which are necessarily recognized in each other spaces, both had to fight in order to get married so I come from some revolutionary stock, and then was raised between Saudi Arabia and Washington DC so in choosing to take on a feminist agenda, I mean, I was born fighting and trying to figure it out. And born trying to negotiate all of the hyphens that form my identity, am I Lebanese Palestinian, Druze Greek Orthodox Arab American what am I and what do I want to fight for and how can I juggle all of those things and how do I express my politics. That may or may not answer your question, but you know it's bringing all the passion and anger and chaos. I never was able to take any of that for granted you know and I think that's been a really interesting part of my upbringing that I had to really be conscious of what choices I made and why I made them and what I was going to believe in, because there's a there's a lot going on there and I think the more that we are aware of our identities and how we express them, and what they mean in public space and in political space the more powerful we are and that's what it's really about it's about reclaiming the power claiming the power that has long been stripped of us in so many ways. Thank you and I think, and thank you for sharing some of your personal story Lena I think you know when Mona talked about using her lighter skinned privilege if I'm paraphrasing correctly to you know to open doors and to amplify the stories I think it's so important when we're talking about you know diversity and inclusion or whichever words are being used in you know the university or the museum setting. To also think about forms of embodied presence, which are coded decoded and understood in certain ways not necessarily accurate, and those which need to be verbalized and explained in some context because otherwise people aren't seeing them. And the complexity of how those things are seen so both the possibility of the privilege that might crew from the passing glance, and then also what it means to be disregarded and not seen in a way that takes us to the question about our fashion and identity and I think. I'm just going to open for any observations that any of us because once shared you didn't share already before we go to audience contributions and questions, which is how your identification is as Arab. Is this something that is consistent across your lives or and is also impacted by where you are. And how others see and I should say for our international guests today for international audiences that I think still to this date in the US census. Other people of Middle Eastern North African heritage are still classified as white, which isn't necessarily the same in other northern context, for example. And that's to do with the particular histories of racism and racial classification in the United States and I bring that in because it's important that we think about the historical context in which different forms of ethnicity or identity or nationality or indigeneity become visible so is there anything anybody wanted to add at this point about continuity and change in your sense of Arab identification and how it's legible to others or not. I'll just speak a second, you know, it's just such an interesting conversation around the census and why not, you know, it's, it's, there's a cop out when we talk about Arab identity and we say it's so complicated the same way we talk about Palestine, you know, the, the, the cliche statement is it's too complicated it's so complicated, it's complex you know we're not going to figure it out right now, when it's a clear cut case of settler settler colonialism, you know an empire using a strong arm against people against people indigenous people. So, one of the things that Celine talked about that it was so important to highlight specifically in this conversation is the erasure of Arab identity in the American context you know something happened with Armenians I forget what year where they were racialized as white it was a legal case that they won. And that kind of set this the tone for Arab. The census that what happened with the census right. But one thing that is often ignored is that Arabs, there are Afro Arabs, you know, we have Arabs who are Sudanese Arabs who, you know, all over West Africa people speak Arabic. And in our culture if you speak Arabic you are an Arab. I guess that that's something that is not understood in Western society because in empire. There are citizens and there are non citizens that's where the word barbarian come came from. If you look at the etymology etymology of the word barbarian. It actually meant foreigner non citizen. It had nothing to do with a specific people it had to do with those who were colonizable those were conquerable. And in their art, funny enough, we're talking about clothing. Those people in Greco Roman art are depicted as naked and nude in their sculpture. So when you would enter a Roman hall, you would see the female form nude, and you would know that that was actually a depiction of a symbol of a colonized conquerable people. And isn't it interesting that the female nude form was the symbol for a conquered people. That's, that's to talk about sexual violence. It's to talk about, you know, so really this is, this is an ancient conversation of erasure. This is an ancient conversation of colonization of the conqueror. What power they have to say who is what who is a citizen of empire and who is not, who is conquerable, who is who is not permitted to have agency over their own body, and their own identity. So there are, especially with matters like a census, there are different views about how people want to be counted in order to be able to then lobby for rights and representation. So for example, in the UK, we now have a question about religious identity, which has been really just communities lobbied hard for because they wanted the data to be able to support claims to write some representations. It's all about funds, it's all about funding who gets money and where does it come from and how is it used. If the Arab community isn't permitted to check the air box we don't get funding. So that's, you know, that's ultimately what it's about economic disparity. So there's a real way of thinking about the mutability of these forms of identity and how they are inevitably historically contingent and constrained. I'm going to go to questions from the audience. Do continue writing in and Mona, I'm going to stay with you. I'm going to put together two different questions that have come in. And Smith saying, Mona, you said you're not anti patriarchy but rather anti oppression and she says it's not patriarchy the oldest form of oppression and arguably the most widespread and damaging and wrapping into that from someone who hasn't left a name. I'm agreeing about the failures and ills of Western society but surely are you saying there's no misogyny in Syrian or Arab culture and a concern that requirements of dress in some cases for women and not men seems to defy claims of equality in those societies what am I not understanding. So first we'll talk to clarify what you meant by being not anti patriarchy but rather anti oppression. Yeah, I mean if patriarchy were where a system in which men took power in order to dole out justice and equity, I would be fine with that system. You know, and so that is to say that I am not anti men, I am not anti male. I am pro justice and equity. And that's to make my language very clear because people will come in and say oh you're just a man hater, you're just anti you know why or whatever. And I try to be very concise with my language so that I'm never misunderstood. I love men I appreciate men I think we need healthy men in our societies to have a very, we need healthy men in our societies to build the better you know as possible. And I actually think one interesting biological truth is that, you know, people with uteruses, we are connected to moon cycle so whether we like it or not. We, you know, we ovulate and we bleed according to the cycles of the moon, and that connects us. It connects us the celestial and it connects us to the, the terrestrial and ways that are not completely you know science can definitely certainly understand parts of it but it's not. There is some mystery to that. And one thing that men don't have is that they, they don't have that, you know that that deep rooted connection to the earth and so a return to the earth is what is required, you know, a return to indigenous ways of being with the planet in a gentle tender equitable way rather than just an extractionist. Just that, you know I studied Christian ethics because of dominion theology, this Christian ethic that said that because we, you know because Christians are Christian, they have the right to do whatever they will with the earth. And I am completely against this mentality this ethic where it is actually anti sustainability it is anti future, it is anti everybody and every creature on the on the planet for us to believe in that way because it's creating a harmony discord and destruction wherever we are whether it's fashion, whether it's racial equity or economic equity. And finally for the last piece, you know around is there not misogyny misogyny is a global problem. It doesn't matter if you're in Iceland, or in the global south, or if you're in Sweden, violence against women is a is a global problem. And it's not a problem of, it's not a sexual deviance problem. It is a rapist problem. It is, it is a problem with rape and not with sex. Okay, we need to start defining our terms more properly so that we can talk about things. Violence against women it's a passive conversation. Who is perpetuating violence against women. What are the structures that enable that to happen. We need to talk about it in the active tense, it is male violence perpetrated against women. We need to phrase it that way in that language so that we can eradicate it from our society. This is a global issue, no matter where you are in the world. And the numbers are, are tragic, they are absolutely tragic one in three women globally is affected by this male perpetrated violence against women, one in three women. So, you know, it's not to say that Syria doesn't have that problem of course it does it's it's this is a global, I would say pandemic. And we need to be systemic about the way that we're approaching it globally because it's it's affecting all of us everywhere. And we need to take our arms and do that work of liberating ourselves from empire because empire is what and Dominion theology is what has given permission for this to, to really take hold. Thank you very much, and I'm going to. I'm going to leave some comments coming in that I'm going to wrap in but we're not going to respond to right now in terms of men stepping up and taking responsibility somebody says doesn't necessarily have to be patriarchal. It could be more of an equitable share patriarchy tends to imply not an equitable share because otherwise you might say well I'm pro matriarchy for the alternative, rather than a more equitable sharing of power between all the genders. A question that I'd like to pose to all of you which is, there's been a renewed attention to questions of cultural appropriation particularly in fashion the use of textiles or garments or visual traditions, often by global brands without giving recognition or recompense to the communities from which they may initially derive and this is something that back in the day Lina and I will remember was a big story and then it sort of went off the boil and now I'm so delighted to see. This is something that people are attentive to and agitated about against in terms of the global buried Arab population. Is this something in terms of wearing and using textiles from different Arab cultures that needs to be considered as well, or is the splendor of global and historical Arab style, a sort of smorgasbord mood board that everybody of Arab heritage is equally at liberty to use. So there's something she wouldn't use wouldn't wear because it's not your particular heritage, or does it having having connection to Arab textile heritage fashion heritage cover everything Celine go in. Yes, I was like, it's my unmute button. I just want to say that as we are studying more and more this is a very western view of the of the situation I would have to say that by prefacing that this is looking at the situation from a wide gaze let's say let's call it what it is, and to basically policing what we are allowed to use not to use and redefining cultural appropriation from the perspective of someone who isn't who is orientalizing, for instance, our culture and who isn't part of the culture. As we study what's, what's the intricacies of our culture under Ottoman Empire under the French occupation in Lebanon for example, or the English in Palestine. We are seeing that one of the main thing that we've observed as just from a historical point of view and that is the research from Charlotte Hayek who is working with us and his at on Instagram if you are interested is heritage and he speaks often in Arabic but he translates in English is that under Ottoman Empire. Drew's Muslims Christians Sophie, no matter what the religion was, it was very hard to differentiate who was what Muslim women were the veil and Christian women were the veil and Drew's women were the veil in different ways. If you women were the veil and the Muslim men were the Sherwal the Christian men were the Sherwal, we all were the same thing. And it was very hard to differentiate who is what from which religion our religion was not the issue, it was not even a differentiator. Again, we come from one of the cradle of civilization, the one of the oldest civilizations in the world, and therefore our religion fluctuated and changed a Christian man would convert to Islamic Islam. A person would convert to Drew's like we were the Jewish person the Jewish women were also the veil, I forgot to mention, and the Jewish men were also the Sherwal because they are Arab Jews and Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and you know that means we spoke Arabic it was the language that we spoke under the Ottoman Empire, when the Europeans would come to the land because specifically in Lebanon we are looking at Lebanon because Lebanon is a port city, specifically Beirut, everybody entered through Lebanon to go through the region. Okay, so it was a port, any European that came through that land couldn't differentiate from the Christian to the Muslim to the etc to the Jewish person to the Jews etc. So to ask us to differentiate ourselves now is something that is anachronistic like it just doesn't work that way if I want to wear a veil on my hair, and I am Christian. Historically, that's how we wore it and also when I enter my church in Lebanon, I cover myself, because that is just how we are culturally. So that is one thing that I do not wish to be policed and I have been policed by American media, but to what I wear what I not wear why am I wearing a short skirt, why am I not wearing a longer skirt. So that is something that I just want to profess that it's not part of our culture to having to being different from one another. And so as we study the region, and we try to articulate it to the general public. This differentiation came from the European colonizer that wanted to separate us as specifically once they decided to adopt the Christian religion that did not come from them to begin with that first of all was a religion that was persecuted for hundreds of years by the colonial, the European colonizers that were the Romans, the Greeks, and then eventually the French and the English. And then eventually as they adopted the religion and just want to finish right there is that that's where the separation and the division began in all those are Christians. You should look like us you should modernize because now we are together. And so that's where the problems lie. I'm been given the five minutes sign so I'm going to go quickly to Lena if you want to add anything in on this having thank you Selene and I would love to talk about the Ottoman with you for a very long time but we might better do that later. Um, Lena did you want to come in on that before we close. Well I want to build on the conversation on on male violence against females which I appreciate so much because yes I believe that we need to be accurate in terms of language we need to name the perpetrator we need to know what we're doing what we're fighting against. Part of the challenge that I face having done this in all over the place is that this is by and large a problem that is male perpetrated and yet it is women who are working to correct the problem that that they did not cause. So you know you look at the people who are working on women's rights who are the so called gender advisors or whatever it is you know the the names that we give ourselves in the field. And it is it is always our responsibility to remedy this problem and that for me is is a problem. I do want to see men and boys step up I don't believe that all men and boys are perpetrators absolutely not I think there's a lot of room to raise their voices to do a lot more in terms of of advocating for rights it's about dignity it's about bodily autonomy it's about respect these are very basic things to me it's absolutely a no brainer. And when these things happen it is about power and it is about abuse of power and therein lies the problem and so when I talk to women and girls. I say claim your power take up your space do that in any way that that you like make sure that you are present and you raise your voice and you feel like you can access choices and opportunities. Do that but at the same time I would call on men and boys to also create the space to pass the mic as you say to to give some room because unless we've got some male allies who are louder in terms of support we're going to be continuing to fight these things you know it's the echo chamber. I keep saying I don't even understand when I was working on sexual violence and humanitarian emergencies. I don't even understand why this is a career and not common sense. You know why is it that I have had to dedicate my life to ending sexual violence, when this should be obvious to everybody and a given for all of us, my body, my space, my choice, it's simple. I think we need to start seeing things that way and when we talk about the full range of diversity and equity and inclusion these are very obvious things and so that's really what I'd like to say. And I hope that I live to see it happen. So do we all. On that note, it's going to fall to me sadly to bring this conversation to a close because I think we're opening up a whole lot of points that we would we would like to discuss further. There will be opportunities for future conversation thank you to all of you who sent in questions and observations that we didn't have time to get to. We will look forward to reconvening again on some other occasion to further this conversation. I would like to thank everyone at the Smithsonian Design Museum who's worked to put this event together, especially Susan Brown Basilica Giannopoulos, and the tireless Megan Megan Mahaffee, and everyone who's been working behind the scenes to get the technicalities to go smoothly. I thank you for joining us today and being such a wonderfully engaged audience. And I also thank our three wonderful speakers for their generous participation. Today, Mona Hader and Celine Simone. Thank you also very much and have a very good rest of day evening, all of you. Bye bye.