Model Baraka Merzaia: the face of a new Algeria

ALGIERS: Baraka Merzaia is a true force of nature. Beautiful, intelligent and multi-talented, the young Algerian rising star is attracting praise and attention from across the world for a wide variety of reasons. If you don’t yet know her name, you soon will.

Merzaia was born in Adrar, in the south of Algeria, but is now based in Algiers. Her talent was first noticed aged 16, when she joined a choir to learn to improve her already impressive vocal skills.

Like many young people of her generation in Algeria, Merzaia is a polyglot, which has helped her gain fans across borders. In India, four years ago, when the country celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gandhi, Merzaia was praised by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for her “memorable” rendition of “Vaishnava Jana To,” a hugely popular Hindu hymn “whose lyrics are imbued with empathy” that Merzaia hopes is contagious.

In 2019, Merzaia was named Miss Talent in her homeland, and has since landed several modelling contracts, and aspires to hit the international catwalks soon, inspired particularly by the career of Somali-American model Halima Aden — who famously sported the hijab on a Vogue cover and was the first model to wear a burkini in Sports Illustrated magazine. Like Aden, Merzaia aims to remain true to her faith and smash stereotypes in the fashion industry.

She tells Arab News France that she has already turned down offers of partnerships with brands who have asked her to remove her headscarf for photo shoots.

“Many consider my (headscarf) to be a fashion accessory,” she says. “That is far from the case, and I am convinced that I can carry out my projects without compromising my integrity.”

Another major inspiration, she tells Arab News, is her mother — a PhD holder whose thirst for knowledge has inspired Merzaia to pursue higher education, in addition to her artistic projects.

The singer, model, and actress has built up a following of more than half a million over various social-media platforms, on which she documents her daily life and her artistic projects, with a strong emphasis on Algerian culture and heritage.

One example is a video shot during a visit to her hometown of Ain Salah. “When I posted a video showing how we make kesra — a semolina pancake baked in sand — I was inundated with messages from curious people across the country asking me to share this type of content more frequently,” she says.

Her kesra video was widely shared online — including by NWE, a media that highlights African culture in all its diversity — and helped to highlight a little-known facet of Algerian culture.

Merzaia explains that she sees social media as an opportunity to introduce people to the south of Algeria, which is under-represented across mainstream media, and, at the same time, to disabuse people of stereotypes concerning Saharan inhabitants.

In 2006, a census estimated that the Black community in Algeria represented around 5 percent of the population, the lowest ratio in the Maghreb.

While Baraka is not overtly political, her claiming of — and ability to reconcile — her Algerian and African heritage, and her faith, demonstrates that these aspects of Algerian identity complement each other, when popular wisdom might suggest that they are incompatible.

At a time when many young people in North Africa tend to look to the West for cultural inspiration, Merzaia demonstrates that Algerian culture, in addition to being plural and rich, “has a lot to offer and deserves to be discovered,” as she puts it.

“I don’t consider myself to be an influencer,” she says. “Nevertheless, I do want to shed light on my culture, by sharing with my followers my faith and culture, (and this balance) between modernism and tradition.”