When I was in high school in Belgium, the list of required classes included the study of ancient Greek and Latin and reading in these ancient languages about the wars and the challenges of warriors who defended their land and families from the invasions of enemies near and far, has left me with a passion for the history, languages and the cultures of the world. For a young Flemish girl of 13, reading the words of the Roman general Julius Caesar, that the tribe of the Belgae were the strongest of all the Gaelic tribes, was an interesting way to see the world and convinced me that inner strength is as important as physical power. Apparently, the huge Roman armies had a quite a bit of difficulty controlling my people they were determined to rule. The photograph of Lotfi Bouslah of Lolo Pics of August 1st, 2018 of a bleeding sky, of a sky that appears to have been stabbed with a huge knife, has made me think of the courage of the Algerian people in the face of a history of foreign invasions both in the distant and also recent past. The moment of the Algerian independence, the year 1962, should have indicated that Europe by then was making an effort towards moral decency, in view of the unimaginable cruelty of which the heart of Western civilization had proven itself capable of with Nazism. This makes the atrocities and barbarism towards the Algerian people in the Independence War from 1954 to 1962 on the part of the French colonizers difficult to forget and comprehend, just like the refusal and denial so long maintained when it comes to the horrifying truth of this shameful chapter in France's history. The photograph with its blood red sky and burning fire sunset has a power that touches a prophetic sensibility when it comes to the importance to understand the past, to incorporate it so as to not repeat its mistakes and horrors. There is quite a bit of pessimism in the world at the moment, and a great part of that pessimism is caused by the incredible cruelty and ignorance when it comes to the subject of identity, race and culture. It is an impressive experience to have the opportunity to observe the dignity and courage with which Berber cultures have maintained their identity. It is a source of inspiration and also an admonition in the face of the tragedy of indifference and selfishness that threatens humanity again, in a way that has not been seen since the spectre of fanaticism would lead to World War II and the loss of more than 60 million lives. To risk once more such a monstrous conflict because there is a movement towards a deadly fanaticism on the part of ideologies obsessed by political power and by the arrogance of a superiority complex regarding certain races and classes, is of a stunning perplexity.
The passionate tableau created by nature photographer Lotfi Bouslah of a sky of which the light of the progressing night evokes the image of a giant bleeding wound and the sun as a ball of fire that resists like a dragon the evil that risks to drown the world, is very moving. Art is a way to conquer evil, to resist it, by the way it confronts us with the absurdity that is the goal of evil, which is the loss of our humanity for the total control of those we do not approve of, because every system of dictatorship, whether it be on the right or the left, has at its base the pathological need to control the other from which we feel separated by a sens of perverse and twisted superiority, whether it was the fascism of the Spanish Civil War, of the Nazi death machine, or the tragedy of Stalinism, the genocides the Native American tribes suffered at the hands of the English and Spanish colonials, the hundreds of millions of victims of slavery, and of recent civil wars, such as the victims of the Black Decade in Algeria of the 1990 years, and the continuation of the tragic civil war in Syria and the suffering and misery in Palestine. All are the result of the same malevolent obsession : orders to kill the person in front of me because I cannot tolerate the audacity this other has to be different from me, and the audacity this other has to think differently than my government allows and its ideologies allow and that I obey because I do not have the will or knowledge to resist. The tragedy of contempt towards the other has never been explained better or has never been defined and expressed with more crystal clarity than in the revolutionary book of the Algerian journalist and novelist Kamel Daoud, the 2013 " Meursault, Centre - Enquete " a brilliant work that turned the literary world on its head.
In times of extreme danger such as world conflicts, artistic sensibility becomes more clearly defined, more intuitive as well. I notice this capacity in the nature photography of Djamil Diboune, Katia Djabri, in the rebellious spirit of nature photographer Chamy Tout Court, and I notice it also in the sublime tension in the photos of Lotfi Bouslah of Lolo Pics. Lotfi Bouslah has a style that celebrates his cerebral vision of beauty with a white hot passion, infuses beauty with a meditative sensuality, that is profound and irresistible. There is a hypnotizing silence that permeates this unsettling image of this mortal wound that the sky seems to have endured, which share the intuitive anxiety of the photographer concerning the future of his country and the future of the planet. The photograph is taken on the beach of Aokas, Bejaia. The beach is beautiful, enchanting, and also calm in spite of the deeply troubled sky, which gives the spectator the chance to meditate on the courage of which the independent Berber spirit has need that defends with determination and confidence its traditions and convictions. An example that merits our admiration and attention, because the day is probably not far where this example will be an inspiration for the cultures of the world that are at risk of being marginalized again, like the Native American cultures here, and in the Amazon regions, who endure a resurgence of racism and violation of their traditions and their lands, justified by avarice that we see itself parading around on our planet. The photograph of the red sky of Lotfi Bouslah has surprised me with the flood of emotions and reflections it has made surface. Its beauty is unquestionable, and is only one of its complex artistic layers.
Trudi Ralston
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