IAMI

The picture of a veiled woman has always aroused emotions; a woman in a burka triggers contrasting images of curiosity and disapproval.

The fact that some women are forced to cover themselves for religious reasons, customs or traditions has triggered rivers of ink since people have begun to notice these differences.

However, we do not notice that every woman conceals her dearest secrets in her soul: a sort of protection from a world that is not always congenial to her.

A man’s glance can inflame or wound: women defend themselves from this with their attitude, but it is not always enough.

When we are surrounded by affection, or the environment where we live is protected by respect, we do not need to defend our identities in this way: everyone can set free the impulses of the soul without fear.

Today it is not like that.

The atmosphere of terror and anxiety that we encounter everywhere makes us lose our faith in our neighbours; we look suspiciously at whoever approaches and we no longer try to live life freely for fear of losing it altogether.

External conditioning is so extensive that we avoid meeting places, even museums and places of worship.

A preoccupied glance is mistaken for a threat, a hand in a pocket makes us think of imminent danger.

I created my “woman in a star-spangled burka” deliberately, to make people think.

America has always been viewed as an example of female emancipation, the place where everything is possible, even making impossible dreams come true.

Today it is not like that. But we only have one life: there is no point in discrediting ancestral rites and embracing equally extreme policies and conditions.

In my inner self I strive for recognition of the true human values which our highly evolved planet is rapidly casting off as if the individual were a confused entity in the mass where egoism reaps victims like a scythe in a wheat field. I.S.