My passport is ‘unlucky’
Why does that mean I have to be unlucky too?
We live in a divided world that’s been even further hacked up by arbitrary borders and walls.
Something as ephemeral as a piece of paper, a document or a passport can acquire the potency of a curse that feels like it cannot be broken. Struggling to claim basic rights like self-determination and freedom of movement, those afflicted come to experience the passport not as a symbol of identity and pride, but as a source of angst, a burden and a catalyst for desperation. Ultimately the passport becomes the tool of a system that enables and perpetuates racism.
Photography as an expressive and subjective media operates for me in a way that is similar to Anne Frank’s diary; it’s a special tool that allows me to make sense of the world around me. Photography allows me to share personal glimpses into the nightmarish conflict in Yemen—where I grew up and still call home—in which my documentary practice has been shaped. As a Yemeni, I have always wondered how such a small piece of paper like a passport can define a person? How does a legal document shape us? How does it control us? Why in some airports should I be held aside for another round of security screening just because my passport says Yemen?
I have to confess that my passport has become my worst nightmare.
I asked her if she was the one who wrote it and she replied yes. Then I asked her where her Papa was. Her response: “I don’t know. We left and he stayed.”
Henley & Partners’ Visa Restrictions Index ranks passports according to the number of countries to which their holders are afforded visa-free access. What does it mean if you come from Yemen, and your country is number 98 on that list? Out of 104 ranked countries, what does it mean if your passport comes from number 101, Syria? Or what if you come from the last ranked country, number 104, Afghanistan? What does it mean and what does it look like?
On 6 November, Yemen’s borders via land, air and sea were closed, imprisoning its people with no choice but to remain in the country and die slowly from starvation, cholera and many other things. Perhaps you can imagine what it looks like for Yemen to be 98 on the list at the moment.
Using the index as a point of departure, I attempted to address the struggle of those who come from the countries that occupy the bottom of this international list through ‘The Passport’, a project that explores the experiences of people hindered by their passports. It is about the people who are banned from entering countries; asylum seekers and stateless individuals who cross oceans and land masses to obtain a passport that will guarantee them a higher value in life. It is about me, and everyone who were not born within the “lucky” borders.
Calling on my own experience, this project reflects on freedom and the limitations placed on some people to come and go across jurisdictional spaces. It aims to visually articulate people’s struggle to leave countries where conditions of violence, war, and aggression are prevalent. It weaves imagery that seeks to depict the unpredictable and transitory nature of such restricted lives, with reflections on personal moments; hand-written testimonies that capture the hopes, fears, dreams, and struggle that belie the sense of ‘other’ fostered by restriction of movement.
‘The Passport’ project is a work in progress and there are still voices from different nationalities that need to be heard—people from Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and many others. The book will be available for sale by 2019 and can be ordered via www.thanafaroq.com.
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