Alia Magda

Nov. 2011

زنی هستم مبارز من در این میدان و پهنه

سراپا پر ز فریادم که میآیم به صحنه

چو با هر ذره از جانم به جویم حق زنها

کجا شرم است مرا ایندم که میگردم برهنه

اهلی

گر مرا بینی برهنه ، نیست از دلدادگی

چونکه دلداری ندارم من به جز آزادگی

گر مر بینی برهنه ، نیست از دلمردگی

زندگی خواهم و جویم با همه دلبستگی

اهلی

Alia Magda Elmahdy, a 20 year old student from Cairo, posted a photo of herself online. In the full-length black and white image she appears naked apart from a pair of stockings. Her shoes and a bow in her hair are highlighted in red.In the context of the internet, a medium notoriously replete with naked female flesh, there's nothing especially remarkable about the image, even allowing for her nationality. But Elmahdy chose to display her body as an avowedly political gesture. She has described her action as a protest against sexism in Egyptian society and a demand for artistic and sexual freedom. Here's what she wrote on the blog:

Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression.