©ANSA What is life like under a veil for a young Muslim girl whose parents were immigrants? Takoua Ben Mohamed tells her story in a graphic novel with a heavy dose of irony, recounting daily travails, problems, misunderstandings, and criticism from her Italian peers and ultra-conservative Muslims. The book, "Sotto il Velo" [under the veil], published by Becco Giallo, has become a bestseller.
Takoua Ben Mohamed, a young designer and writer, comes from a very religious family. Her father is the imam of one of the most popular mosques in Rome in the working class neighborhood of Centocelle. The graphic novel narrates her daily life, from serious problems regarding work to incidents that are border on the humorous.
She narrates an incident where the director of human resources of a company does not even look at her CV and instead asks, perplexed, ''You wouldn't actually want to come to the office with that thing on your head?'' On another occasion, shopkeepers are surprised when a girl wearing a headscarf enters a lingerie shop and asks to see the sexiest pieces. At the hairdresser's, she's asked whether she actually has hair.
'I will dress as I want'
In the graphic novel, which she has illustrated herself, Takoua does not hide problems with her fellow Muslims. While Italian peers criticize her about wearing a veil, saying she ''dresses as if she were in the Middle Ages,'' the most conservative elderly Muslims protest at her tight jeans, heels and makeup.
"Shut up, males. I will dress as I want,'' the protagonist yells at one point, fed up with constantly being criticized by all sides.
The mirage of citizenship
Ever since she was a child, Takoua Ben Mohamed loved drawing and her father encouraged her to put her stories online. At the age of 14, she founded Fumetto Intercultura, a project for dialogue between different cultures. Takoua says she feels like a ''Tunisian from Rome," but Italian citizenship is still a mirage for her.
"Half of my family has an Italian passport, but the other half does not," she told ANSA. Bureaucracy, Tunisian documents - which ''never arrive by the deadline" - and Italian documents are all problematic. And the cost of filing every request - about 300 euros - is a major issue for a family, which has nine members. She also needs to prove she has a "high income level," something especially difficult for the young.
The importance of accurate information
For these reasons, the young artist's main desire is that Italy reform its law on citizenship. Second, she wants "more accurate information from the media about migrant communities and more in general about the Muslim world."
"Information is at the basis of everything and can be used to create alarmism and stereotypes, and like in the case of women's headscarves, sparks divisions, populism and xenophobia," Takoua said.
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