Islam

The term “Umbrella of Islam” is one of the most commonly used terms in Sudan to describe governmental actions. In Persepolis, we were given insight into the Islamic revolution in Iran . The book told stories of horrible actions committed by the new Islamic regime against it’s people. Sadly, this idea of an oppressive, Islamic government is not unique to Iran. It is very common in the Arab world. In Sudan, we witness atrocities being committed on a daily basis by our government falsely under the name of Islam. That is why I chose to paint an umbrella (with the word Islam written on it). The umbrella basically provides shade for and covers a rifle and grenade (to represent war), an unbalanced balance of justice (to represent injustice and the forgone rights of the people), a fat man wearing a “jalabiya” (traditional Sudanese dress) carrying a bag of money next to a skeleton (to represent theft by government officials from the sudanese citizens who are starving because they cannot afford to live) and the word “Shuhada’a” in Arabic (to represent the martyrs that die in pointless wars started by the government in the name of islam). Another aspect to this piece is the newspaper I painted it on. The news paper is written in English to represent western media that shows a biased view of Islam. Thus another interpretation of the piece is the idea that media negatively portrays these horrible things as being part of Islam.