The Gamayat el Mara, Pan African Asian Women’s Organization,
Egyptian delegation, Cairo 1961. This meeting honored
Algerian Revolutionaries Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif,
and was organized by Rania Lee Khalil’s maternal grandmother,
Aida Hamdi.
Aida Hamdi stands behind Bouhired and Drif
(both seated, center right, holding flowers)- though dressed in clothes
of mourning, she is pictured smiling, in a black dress.
Djamila Bourhired and Zohra Drif played significant roles
in the armed resistance that ended one hundred and twenty two
years of French settler colonization in Algeria.
Their roles are well documented, including within
Yousef Chahine’s 1958 film Jamila the Algerian
and Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, 1966.
In the same clothes as they are wearing in this photo,
Bouhired and Drif would be welcomed by Egyptian
president Gamal Abdel Nasser
(image lower right corner).
The following day
Bouhired would be photographed laughng with Egyptian
singer Abdel Halim Hafez.