Samim Abedi
Sunday, December 3rd, 2006Who I Am
My parents were born in Afghanistan, but the rest of my ancestry goes back to Uzbekistan and I am ultimately of Turkic/Mongolian ancestry. However, I do not try to associate myself with a certain nationality, but more with my religion, Islam. I began my collage with the Afghani flag in the background with different pieces of fabric that my mother had lying around. She worked for a sewing company for years so she is always making something. Although I do not hold Afghanistan extremely important in my history, I am still an Afghan-American. Then, I pasted many different articles about controversies that currently surround my people and my religion. The convenient, yet sad, thing is that I did not have to look in many newspapers to find these articles; wherever I looked, there they were.
I believe surrounding the Afghani flag with articles displays the fact these issues literally surround Afghanistan and Muslims. Also, covering most of the Afghan flag highlights the fact that although I am Afghan-American, it is not the most important thing to me. I was able to find certain words in newspapers and magazines that expressed my opinion on certain issues. Words like “cold cash,†“business,†“enough,†and “race issues†address many underlying causes of certain conflicts such as the Afghan War and the conflict in Israel.
Lastly, I put an Islamic symbol that reads, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his Messenger.†This proclamation, when recited with sincerity, makes a person Muslim. I surrounded this symbol for Islam with sunshine and rays that shine over the articles around the page, delivering a message that true Islam, not the kind portrayed by the media, is the Light in life and all worldly matters are trivial next to it.
