Tunis, like all great cities with a swelling population of disenchanted, creative youths, loves a bit of graffiti. The wall just outside my house, proudly displays a number of tags and a dis-proportioned head smoking, hardly artistic, but certainly making some kind of statement - something like, "I never learn to draw".
But the Beyond Walls 2013 murals are different. They are a series of beautiful, carefully designed and executioned paintings of hope, unity, freedom, friendship and comradery that are in downtown Tunis, very close to my office. They were painted over the summer and I had been wanting to photograph them for ages.
Designed by a group of Tunisian students, working together with international artists, the murals hope to begin a context for cross-cultural sharing and dialogue.
Personally, they just make me smile.
This is my favourite. Tolerance is written in English from left to right in red and in Arabic in black from right to left > تسامح
"Tolerance" is a word discussed a great deal when considering cross-cultural relationships. Many people don't like it as it implies a deep down resentment or lack of acceptance for the acts, beliefs or nature of others and the idea of having to "tolerate" them is seen as an insufficient level of acceptance. In an idea world, I agree. But real cultural clashes are difficult to rationalise, especially if the causes lay deep-seated in religion or histories of fractions, or pride. In this case, even tolerance can seem like an achievement. We can hope in the future for respect and acceptance and love, but let's keep tolerance as a good place to start.
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