Here are some Egypt kufiyas, that date from the events around Tahrir and the Cabinet offices, around the weekend of December 16-18, when Egyptian military and security forces killed 17 protesters and wounded over 500. I have lost track of where I originally found all these photos, but I've given the photographers, or at least the agency, where available.
Ahmed Ali/AP
I believe this kid was one of the youngsters arrested. If I can find more info about him I will post it later. I worry about what happened to him.
Associated Press
This is one of the better-known photos of the events around the Cabinet sit-in, a photo of one of the several women who were badly brutalized by the military police, who appear to love to wield their long batons in a sadistic manner.
Asmaa Waguih/Reuters
I love this photo. One of the protesters, with his improvised head protector, takes a moment to read the Qur'an.
Dia/Associated Press
One of the many wounded revolutionaries, helped by a kufiya-clad comrade.
Ali al-Malky
These are protesters saving documents from the library of L'institut d'Egypte, which burned to the ground. The source is al-Masry al-Youm, where you can read about this calamitous event.
Rana Khazbak
This is a photo Sheikh Emad Eddin Effat, secretary general of Dar al-Iftaa, the body that issues Islamic fatwas (edicts), and one of the most famous martyrs of the protests, killed by a bullet to the chest on December 16. According to al-Masry al-Youm, Effat was considered one of Al-Azhar's moderate and progressive sheikhs. Effat's final fatwa forbade voting for parliamentary candidates affiliated with the Mubarak regime and former members of the dissolved National Democratic Party, who are known colloquially as the feloul. Effat based his ruling on the fact that regime remnants aspire to subvert Egypt’s post-revolutionary future through bribery and patronage.
Thanks to Nazli for alerting me to this, and sending me these photos, taken off the huge screens at Times Square, just a few days ago. I assume the screens are from the "77kids NYC Style Lab" that occupies the entire lower level of the American Eagle Outfitters' Times Square flagship at 1551 Broadway, which opened on July 20.
Yep, kufiyas go kid fashion. Kufiyas at the center of US commercial/popular culture. Is American Eagle trying to feed off of the incredible energy of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring? Is American Eagle trying to co-opt and market street fashion affiliated with the top news stories of the year? You betcha. And will this stop activists around the world from wearing their kufiyas? Hardly.
Here is the ad for the 77kids line, that is up right now on the American Eagle 77kids website. Funnily enough, although the kufiya is featured in the ads, I can't find it for sale as an accessory, either for boys or for girls. Hmmm.
Happy holidays. I've been collecting items to post, including lots of kufiyas from recent events in Egypt, but have fallen behind. I hope to finish up before the 1st of the year, before I have to make a new set of New Years' resolutions. Meanwhile, here's one, the photo that accompanies a very fine analysis of the Egyptian elections, by Yasmine El Rashidi, from the New York Review of Books. The title, "Egypt on the Edge," suggests a lot of danger ahead, but El Rashidi's tone is not, in fact, overly alarmist. But it is sobering. A few good suggestions as to why the Salafist Al-Nour party has done so well to date. One: a miscalculation by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has often shifted its position from supporting the revolution to wanting to clear out Tahrir Square for the sake of winning elections. El Rashidi suggests that this lost the Brothers some support in popular quarters. The Salafists, by contrast, were seen as straight shooters. Another miscalculation was by the "liberals," and particularly by telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris and founder of the Free Egyptians Party, who tweeted a cartoon with a Minnie Mouse in face veil and a Micky Mouse in full beard, suggesting the dangers posed by an Islamist victory. This caused an uproar and a huge loss of customers and profit. And possibly a loss of votes for the FEP, the most important "liberal" party.
There's a lot more here, please read the entire piece.
You no doubt know that Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2011 is "The Protester." The protester who, for Time, set it all off, is of course Tunisia's Mohamed Bouazizi. Read about it here. And check out the photo essay, of protesters from around the world (and especially, of course, from the Arab world), by Peter Hapak. Three of the thirty-six items in the portfolio (some of which juxtapose two persons) feature protesters in kufiya. I reproduce them below:
El Teneen, a prominent Egyptian graffiti artist, wears a homemade gas mask.
Syrian activists Abdul Hamid Sulaiman, Rami Jarrah and Mohamed Abazid all fled the country. "I was tortured for three days, and that’s when I became more active and started using a pseudonym," Jarrah says. Right, his damaged iPhone.
An Egyptian protester, left, holds a spent shell casing found after clashes in Tahrir Square. Right, protester Ahmed Aggour, a.k.a. Psypherize, an Egyptian activist, artist and blogger.
Thanks to Omar for telling me about these. Sander Reijgers is a Dutch artist/designer. He came up with a series of Nike jackets (I don't think they really have anything to do with Nike, officially) which use the kufiya. He calls this designer series the "Cultural Contrast of Symbolism." I find the project rather uninspiring and behind the times, given that so many designers have been doing so many things with kufiyas for the last 5 or 6 years or so, without any kind of "artistic" or "theoretical" pretension, but rather, simply for profit. I've documented many of these uses of the kufiya on this blog. I'm underwhelmed. But for the record, check it out. This blog shows you all the photos of the project. The source is here.
I guess it was inevitable that a kufiya would show up in such a context. Sofía Vergara is a Colombian model and actress, and currently, a star in the ABC series Modern Family.
Today, it was reported widely (in venues that deal in such items) that she went out yesterday in see-through leggings. And of course, someone caught it on camera. The reports that I read completely missed the fact that she was wearing a kufiya. Huffington Post (which one would imagine would know better) called it a "grey cape." I suppose they were concentrating entirely on the leggings.
Someone sent me notice of this ad three or four years ago. I just ran across the note.
It's a "viral" that seems to have been made to offend a lot of people and, perhaps, to embarrass a big corporation. A stereotypical Arab, wearing a camouflage jacket and a kufiya around his neck, gets into a Volkswagen Polo. He drives up to a sidewalk café, where a young woman sits holding her baby. The "Arab" pushes a button and blows up the bomb that is strapped around his midsection. There is a fireball inside the car, but it remains inside the vehicle, which remains intact, and there is no damage to anyone or anything outside it. The commercial ends with the statement that the Volkswagen Polo is "small but tough."
According to Snopes.com, it's not clear who is responsible for the ad.
Interesting, isn't it, that when this ad was created (2003?), the association between the kufiya and the suicide bomber was so fixed. It's come unglued since then, eh?
Many people have told me about this rap by Shadia Mansour, and the video, plus the more amateur ones that came out before this one. Thanks to all of you.
A new version of the vid came out in summer 2011, and here it is:
It's a powerful rap, a very well-made vid, and Shadia's delivery and her rhymes are compelling. The theme is: "they" are trying to take the kufiya, to make it into "fashion," in many colors, just like they have tried to steal our culture and our land and our dignity. But the kufiya remains Arab, and we hold on to it tenaciously. Please go here for the full lyrics, in Arabic and in English translation, courtesy, Revolutionary Arab Rap.
I am in general sympathy and solidarity with the message. But if you have been following this blog, you might guess that I have a somewhat different take on the international uses of the kufiya than Shadia.
First, the song and video to some degree undercut the message that the kufiya is Arab in some kind of essential way. Shadia raps,
هيك لبسنا الكوفية هويتنا الأساسية الكوفية كوفية عربية This is how we wore the kufiya (our fundamental identity), the kufiya, the Arab kufiya.
But doesn't the fact that one is rapping, i.e., using a global cultural form, to express the notion of a fundamental or essential identity, problematize the notion of an essential Arab cultural identity? And what about the fact that M-1 of the progressive US rap group Ded Prez is shown at Shadia's side throughout much of the vid, wearing a kufiya? Does his presence support the claim that the kufiya is simply "Arab"? Or does it suggest that wearing the kufiya is a sign of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, something that anyone, and not just Arabs, can wear to make such a statement?
Second, there is the problem of the "they" who have made the kufiya into "fashion" and who have "changed" its colors from red-and-white and black-and-white. As readers of this blog will know, I've looked at this issue quite carefully, and I have found no evidence to show that Israelis or Zionists are responsible for the fashionization and multi-colorization of the kufiya. I believe it is fair to criticize the turning of the kufiya into fashion (although I think the issue is not black or white), but it is not a Zionist plot. Yes, there were a couple cases where Israeli designers tried to take advantage of the fashion trend, but this is a very minor part of the story. There are many more instances of Zionists making a fuss about the proliferation of kufiyas via the world of fashion (for example, the flap over the Urban Outfitters kufiya and the kerfuffle over Rachel Ray) than of Zionists successfully turning the kufiya into "their" national dress.
My position is: once Palestinians encouraged non-Palestinians to wear the kufiya in solidarity (which people started doing as early as 1970 or 1971), the kufiya ceased simply to be "Arab" or "Palestinian."
Moreover, many people wear kufiyas of all sorts of colors to express their solidarity with Palestinians.
And Syrian businessmen have been producing kufiyas, in many colors, and quite beautiful ones, for some time. You can even purchase them at the Arab-American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Moreover, the kufiya has been embraced by many as a kind of global symbol of resistance, at Tahrir, in Libya, in the occupy movement, and so on. I've documented this extensively.
Finally, to call the kufiya "Arab" is somewhat chauvinist with regards to the Kurds, who have used it for decades as a symbol of identity and resistance. They call it the puşis. Here's one example. I've not done much on the Kurdish uses, but hope to in future.
I'm not sure what sort of song you would do to get at the issues I raise (but hey, I'm just a blogger, not a songwriter), but I do think that Shadia falls a bit short in terms of articulating the complexities of the kufiya's uses, and I believe she falls back on nationalist rhetoric in a somewhat unreflective way. But I still like the song.
And I like the way she refashions that celebrated line from Mahmoud Darwish's poem, "Identity Card": "Record! I'm an Arab," and how she claims that the kufiya is her "identity card" (hawiya).
سجّل انا شادية منصور والحطة هويتي Record it! I am Shadia Mansour and the kufiya is my identity.
Problem is, lots of us own those identity cards, and we wear them proudly.
More sha'abi techno from DJ Haha and DJ Figo, with rappers Alaa 50 Cent and Sadat, in concert. The sound levels make it almost unlistenable, but it gives you an idea of how good these dj's and rappers are, and of how cool the shaabi techno scene is. Thanks to Elliott for this.
"Haha" in Egyptian colloquial, by the way, means either "funny" or "disgust."
Check out this report from Al-Jazeera English on Syrian actress, star of TV, theater and cinema, Fedwa Suleiman, who has taken the side of the pro-democracy movement. She has been leading demonstrations in the city of Homs, the epicenter of the revolt. Of particular note is the fact that she is an Alawite, the heterodox Shi'ite sect, a minority in Syria, which forms the base of support for the Asad-led Ba'athi regime. Video clips of Suleiman, chanting on the microphone in Homs, typically show her wearing a purple kufiya. Purple kufiyas: no longer to be maligned as the insignia of the hipster or the empty-headed fauxhemian.
Here is a link to the full speech she delivered on November 11, together with an English translation. The Al-Jazeera report provides an excerpt. And here's a link to a BBC report on Suleiman's (or Sulayman) participation in the Homs demonstrations in early November. And a screen save, showing her with a black-and-white kufiya worn as a headscarf.
And here is a post from Razan Ghazzawi [see below], commenting approvingly of Fadwa Suleiman's speech of November 11, and noting how very dangerous it is for such a prominent Alawite to take a public anti-regime position.
Finally, here's another shot of Suleiman, leading chants in Homs, in the Khaldiya quarter, on December 9. Wearing a purple kufiya.
Screen grab from the above video:
Added December 14: I should note that Razan Ghazzawi, a Syrian-American, who blogged in support of Fadwa Suleiman last month and who I cite above, was arrested earlier this month and faces a 15-year prison sentence. Read about it here.
Noted Islamophobe Pam Geller, who blogs at AtlasShrugs.com, recently asserted that Butterball turkeys are now certified halal, confirming the rapidly creeping Islamization of the USA.
The hysteria is Pam Geller's. The kufiya-clad turkey is courtesy TPM, which reported on this gem.
Madu and Wa'il 'Amr (of Taxi Band) sing ("'Aalu magnoun", "They all said he's crazy") for the latest round of Egypt's revolution. I love that these guys are smiling so sweetly, at a time (last week) when a full-scale war was raging, around Tahrir. I love the kufiya (predictable). And I love the lyrics to the song. One great line among many: "'aalou magnoun illi yahlim, masr tib'a ahsan, min ghayr ma yiruh 'a tahrir" (they all said, he's crazy who dreams that Egypt can be better without going to Tahrir).
The song is a take-off on this ad, featuring major stars, for the Egyptian mobile phone company Itisalat. It starts off with the actress Yosra (who I adore, but who turned out to be one of Egypt's stars who sided with the Mubarak regime.) Mohamed Mounir, who has supported the revolution consistently, is shown bumping fists with Yosra at the end.
Here's a spoof they did of the ad before the revolution.
And another version, done during the revolution. "Everyone thought we were crazy, but here we are, millions in Tahrir."
Thanks to Nermeen for all this info.
I think Robin is correct, that the Itisalat ad is borrowed from this song by Fred Astaire, called, "They All Laughed." "They all laughed when Christopher Columbus said the world was round." Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald: many have covered it. Wonderful to see it get to Egypt Revolution 2.0.
I got behind in my posting, due to Thanksgiving, and the misery of watching the University of Arkansas football team get "manhandled" by LSU. I'm now going to try to catch up.
Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
This is from the New York Times, Saturday, November 26. It shows a protester, injured in clashes with security forces, being carried away for medical care.
This photo, by Ali Garboussi, is from Al-Akhbar English. I love the way this gentleman has used the kufiya, and other scarves, to create a turban. This is from Tahrir, Friday, November 25.
This photo is also by Ali Garboussi, from Al-Akhbar English. Praying at Tahrir, Friday, November 25.
This photo, and the one below, are from an amazing photo album showing various ways that the fighters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street were protecting themselves. The photographer(s) is/are not credited.
From Maggie Osama's Photo Blog of Day 6 of the battle for Mohamed Mahmoud.
Mohammed Abu Zaid/Associated Press
This is a vendor on Tahrir, Thursday, November 24, selling gas masks to protesters. From the Brazilian newspaper, Folha.
Goran Tomasevic, Reuters
And from a photo album courtesy The Atlantic, showing a member of the security forces firing a shotgun at protesters, on either November 22 or 23. What's he doing in a kufiya?
AFP/Getty Images
Protester using kufiya to protect himself from teargas fumes. Tuesday, November 22.
From BBC Mundo.
Bahraini human rights activist Maryam Alkhawaja was on Tahrir Square in solidarity with the Egyptian democracy struggle on Saturday, November 26, and she tweeted this photo.
I found this amazing photo via twitter on Thursday. It was posted by Rehab El-Bakry (@Rehab_Elbakry). She writes: "Don't know who this guy is but he was at front lines. Who says heroes need a cap?"
The original source appears to be Albaraa -- but I can't figure out, at this moment, what that is.
I recommend these two items, from the very New York-based fine outfit ArteEast, doing its best to bring Middle Eastern culture to the metropole.
The Umm Kulthum brooch, for $130 cheap. Order it here.
Or the Art Papercups, which feature images of Um Kulthum (shown above), and, according to the website, Taheyya Kariokka. Essential for all your upcoming holiday festivities. Only $20. Order here.
Ashraf Khalil, in a fine commentary in Foreign Policy ("The Second Republic of Tahrir") writes: "unlike January, this isn't a festival; it's a fight. That old revolutionary spirit may be burning bright in Tahrir again, but nobody there would think of holding a concert right now."
I've heard or seen nothing that would contradict this. No youtube vids of anyone singing or anyone broadcasting songs. But let me know if I'm wrong.
On the other hand, the blog Revolutionary Arab Rap informs us that at least two Egyptian rappers saw what was coming.
To wit, Ramy Donjewan, in "Message to Tantawi" (I posted about him previously):
The blood of my brothers is so expensive, so precious, O Tantawi.
And we will NOT be threatened.
And what happened before can happen again
if our demands are not implemented.
And Ahmed Rock, in a video released on November 16, just 3 days before round two started, called "No to military rule" (Yasqut hukm al-'askar):
They seem to have forgotten who we are! They think that we're still scared!
We saw death in front of us and we stood there smiling!
We'll remind them, if they forget, that we're the generation of revolutionaries!
No matter how much the oppression against us increases, we'll break down all jail cells!
(Chapeau to Revolutionary Arab Rap. Keep the translations coming!)
It turns out the three American exchange students at AUC who were arrested at Tahrir on Tuesday were wearing kufiyas, and gas masks, when apprehended. They were accused of throwing molotovs at the security forces. Here's the report on them from Egyptian State Television. And a report from CBS.
And here's another good shot from yesterday, by Mohamed Hossam Eddin, via Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Latest count that I've seen, 33 dead Egyptian civilians at Tahrir Square since the start of the fighting, on Saturday November 19. The revolutionaries refuse to retreat. Kufiyas are there too.
This photo is from Sarah Carr, posted today on Facebook. Here's her blog.
Photo by Tara Todras-Whitehill (AP), grabbed from here. This is from the 20th of November. The scene was much the same today, lots of people had to rest from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of tear gas that Egypt's security forces possess and are using very freely.
Sheikh Imam (1918-1995) was a leftist Egyptian singer, whose songs galvanized the progressive movement in Egypt, especially in the late 60s and the 70s, and particularly during the reign of President Anwar Sadat. He formed a duo with the great colloquial poet Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm (also written Ahmad Fouad Negm), who composed his lyrics. Sheikh Imam's songs (and Nigm's lyrics) were great favorites among the crowds at Tahrir during the insurrectionary days of January and February of this year. One of the songs that Ramy Essam was well-known for singing was "The Donkey and the Foal," with lyrics by Nigm. (I blogged about it here.)
One of his famous songs is "The ballad of beans [ful] and meat" (sometimes translated as, on the subject of beans and meat). It is in response to Sadat's economic policies, which involved an "opening" to the West and an attack on government supports for the poor, which had been a mainstay of Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser's policies. Today we would call Sadat's policies neo-liberalism. Sadat's officials urged the poor and working working classes to tighten their belts. Apparently at one time this involved arguing that they didn't need to eat so much meat, and that the staple diet of the poor, ful (fava beans) was perfectly adequate. (It reminds one of the efforts by the Reagan administration to classify ketchup as a vegetable -- to economize on school lunches -- and recent efforts by the Republicans in Congress to similarly classify pizza as a vegetable.) Sheikh Imam and Nigm saw this for what it was, and pushed back.
This video, usefully, comes with an English translation. A couple weeks ago I attended a talk on Arabic colloquial poetry by Prof. Clive Holes of Oxford, and one of the three poems he discussed was this one, by Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm. So below the vid, I've included his translation. (I hope he doesn't mind.)
Some big-wig in the government
Declared the other day
(Some "Dr. Muhsin" backed him up
In what he had to say.)
That scientists have proved it true,
Broad beans will do you good -
"Eat beans," they say, "and yet more beans,
For your health's sake you should!
Egyptian beans, especially,
Are bursting with protein,
No beans can touch these beans of ours,
There's fat in them, and lean!
Eat beans and beans! You'll feel as if
You've scoffed a joint of meat!
Beans make you sound in wind and limb
They'll fatten you a treat!
They're kind of, sort of, "vege-meat"
(Kebabs are so passé!)
So eat your beans, dear citizens,
Get high on beans today!"
"And add to that," said Dr. M
The medical concerns -
It's proven meat's a poison that
Brings on dyspeptic turns.
And even worse, research has shown
Meat eating causes crime,
Creates light-fingered layabouts
Who don't clock-in on time!
So summing up, Id have to say:
Meat eaters, one and all,
You're heading for a sticky end
In Satan's fiery thrall!"
But wait a mo', dear Dr. M
You well-fed hypocrite,
Your statements made 'officially'
Are just official shit!
They say the world needs brains like yours --
Well, give us your best shot -
If some madman like me blurts out
"Eat meat and die!" - then what?
You lot can eat your beans and live,
That's fair, don't you agree?
Don't try to pull the wool my friend.
Shove off and let us be!
Today was the second day of fighting between the pro-democracy forces and the Egyptian security forces, supporting the hated SCAF. Here is a great summary of what has been happening, from Jack Shenker of The Guardian.
And here are a couple photos, courtesy a photo gallery published today in The Guardian.
Khaled Elfiqi/EPA
Here, demonstrators are fleeing from the attack of the security forces. They retreated, but later, they were back, occupying the scare. Notice all the kufiyas.
AhmedAli/AP
Here are the security forces, the CSF, on the attack. Notice the guy on the right side of the photo, who has accessorized his uniform with a kufiya. Did he grab it off of a protester, I wonder?
Long live the extraordinarily brave people of Egypt. Down with the SCAF.
Two friends kufiyaspotted for me today, and I found some of my own. Here's the round-up.
1. Amidst all the turmoil today on Tahrir Square, as the security forces attacked a few hundred camper-occupiers of the square, and in response, tens of thousands poured into the square to rescue it, to protest against the junta and its efforts to hijack the revolution and prevent the forward movement of democracy, and as battles erupted between the democracy forces and the thugs of the regime...
An enterprising salesman showed up in the evening to market his wares. It's autumn in Cairo, scarves are needed in the evenings, and especially, kufiyas, one of the insignias of the revolt, ever since January 25. (Here's the source.)
And there were plenty of photos from today of demonstrators in their kufiyas. Such as this one, courtesy The Guardian.
Khalil Hamra/AP
2. Then there is this, on p. 17, of the Sunday New York Times', The Winter 2011 Travel Issue of the Times Style Magazine. (A thousand thanks to Carolina for this.)
Interesting, no? Three designers (from Israel, Palestine, and the USSR), called threeAsfour, offering up designs from each of their respective traditions. Gabi Asfour (left, Palestinian) wears the Israeli design (based on the tiles of the floor of the Tel Aviv mayor's house), Adi Gil (center, Israeli) wears the Palestinian kufiya design, and Ange Donhauser (right, Russian, I guess) wears the Russian design. Although if you look closely you'll notice some kufiya patterns in the Israeli and that the Russian is wearing kufiya leggings. The line is called inSALLAm inSHALOm (pun on salaam and shalom and inshallah), and all the stuff is very, very, very expensive. (You can get a better view if you go to the link.)
Here is the website for threeAsfour, well worth checking out, and here is the very interesting video of their runway show, presenting the inSALLAm inSHALOm line at New York Fashion Week, September 2011. (They thank Sean Lennon at the end, so I suppose he had something to do with the soundtrack.)
This use of the kufiya in fashion has to be about the most interesting one that I've seen. It's telling that a Palestinian designer was involved. (And this, after I'd thought that the kufiya as high fashion phase had been over for at least a couple years. Is this the Tahrir effect?)
Notice that this uses the hand of Fatima, the khamsa (a symbol significant both for Muslims and Jews), and note the body suit and its kufiya pattern.
Note the blue evil eye symbols used cleverly here. And that under the sheer white dress the model is wearing, I guess, kufiya-patterned tights.
Kufiya patterned tights and hands of Fatima.
Red kufiya patterned dress over a kufiya patterned body suit on left. On right, more discrete black-and-white kufiya motif.
Here's a view from the back of that kufiya-patterned body suit.
Finally, the threeAsfour designers, after the show.
Finally, here's a piece from New York magazine on the emergence of threeAsfour from As Four (they lost the Tajik fourth awhile back). You learn that Angie once got into a fistfight with Cat Power (Chan Marshall). Nothing revealing about Gabi Asfour's Palestinian background, of course.
3. I've posted before about #Occupy kufiyas. Here's one from a demo I was at on November 17, to mark the 2 month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, and in DC, to focus on the lack of funding for infrastructure, by marching from McPherson Square (site of Occupy DC) to Key Bridge, which links Georgetown to Roslyn, VA, and which needs fixing up. There were several kufiya wearers out that day (including me). This is my best photo of one.
4. Finally, Andie sent me this one. It's a new add for Sheets Energy Strips. On the left is NY Nicks B-ball star Amar'e Stoudemire, on the right (in yellow kufiya), Celia, a graphic designer. I haven't found the actual ad, just this. If someone can help me source this better, please let me know.
Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas. Author of Memories of Revolt: The 1936-39 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Co-editor of Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Popular Culture and of Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity.
