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 documented in film and books including
Yousef Chahine’s 1958 film Jamila the Algerian,
Gilles Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, 1966
and Zohra Drif 2016 book, Inside the Battle of Algiers:
Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter.
Bouhired and Drif were welcomed by Egyptian
president Gamal Abdel Nasser on the same trip.
(image lower right corner).
The following day
Djamilla Bouhired was photographed by the Egyptian press
laughng with Abdel Halim Hafez and friends.