koffee-yehs! take that, dunkin' donuts!

I love it. I only recently heard about this campaign, which involves photos from all over the country of people drinking (their last cup of) dunkin' donuts coffee in a kufiya, in protest over the Rachael Ray debacle. (Thanks, Nadia.) Check the blog out for more photos like this one, which is from New Orleans. The big easy!

See, kufiyas still have their uses. Take that, hipsters.

And here's the campaign video:

"Hate Couture": A Kufiya Slideshow from the Sidney Morning Herald

Despite the awful title, this is a pretty decent slide show about kufiya fashion, politics, and history, from an Australian perspective. (Thanks to Wayne, who alerted me to this over 10 days ago.) The report was inspired by the Rachael Ray/Dunkin' Donuts flap.

The report has good visuals (and if you look closely, you will notice that at least a couple are taken from previous postings on hawblawg). Nice soundtrack (Goldfrapp and Palestinian rap group DAM). Informed commentary from a Palestinian-Australian. And interviews with various young Australian kufiya wearers, who know...absolutely nothing about the history or political significance of the kufiya.











And in case you completists missed this one, here's German actress and former fashion model Diane Kruger decked out in her kufiya (I learned about this from the slideshow.)

Now that the New York Times has covered it, is the "jihadi chic latté" controversy over?

On Friday, the New York Times covered the Rachael Ray/Dunkin' Donuts/Kufiya thing.

What I find interesting about the report is that there was an internet backlash against the backlash spawned by Rachael Ray. As the Times puts it:

"From there, a backlash to the backlash started to take hold.

An item about the controversy had more than 2,300 votes and 830 comments on Digg, a news aggregation site. A YouTube video, “Rachael Ray Is a Terrorist,” poked fun at the situation, with the narrator saying, “Yes, because when I look at Rachael Ray I think 9/11.” That video drew more than 2,300 comments, and a related story on The Huffington Post had more than 1,200 comments."

For the record, The Huffington Post, to date, has FIVE posts dealing with the Dunkin' Donuts terrorist scarf. Here's a list:

1. "Wednesday night on 'Countdown,' Keith Olbermann [MSNBC] declared Dunkin' Donuts his "Worst Person in the World" for caving to the lunatic fringe..." Check out the video.

2. A post from Gershom Gorenberg: "[Daniel] Pipes, Michelle Malkin, [Pam] Geller et al should pay attention: The words alcohol , algebra and algorism are all really Arabic. They are proof of a nefarious Islamic plot to destroy Western society." When Gorenberg first read about the hullabaloo, he thought it was an item from The Onion.

3. From Daoud Kuttab: "Turning a centuries old symbol of a proud people into a claim of terrorism is unacceptable to the millions of people around the world who proudly wear the keffiya."

4. The original post with, to date, 1498 comments.

5. From Erin Kotecki Vest. She calls it Dunkin' Donuts' "Freedom Fries" moment.

Whew! Anyone else tired of this?

But wait, check out the comments on wayneandwax, to a post that linked to my post on Dunkin' Donuts and Grand Theft Auto, and in particular this one, from theantisuck:

"Back in high school, the only kids I knew rocking the keffiyeh were involved w/ or supported the US pro-palistine movement, the kind of kids who would wear similarly slightly controvercial military gear like army jackets and, yes, Che shirts. I knew a lot of radical youngins who wore them, some second generation arab kids and a bunch of white kids too.

Now I think its sort of a popularization of that MIA chic - graffiti/militant/bright colors etc I see it a lot in nyc in day-glo colors by a lot of hipsters & a TON of black youth - that not just fashion. I do think theres an interesting aesthetic and cultural link between gangster rapper and PLO chic glorification / perception of violence in america.

the keffiyeh, not worn across the middle east but very native to the gulf, the heartland, & it has been politicized, not first by westerners but by radicals themselves, why else would say, berber militants choose to wear it when its almost as foreign to see on heads in the streets in Casablanca as it is here. I pity the avereage gulf man who now gets a political association for wearing his normal clothing. But that association was not just made by americans, but mulsims across the world who see it everyday on aljazeera reporting in palistine.

soooo Quadir Habeeb vs. Rachael Ray? Ray’s use almost bothers me more b/c its just simple cultural appropriation. Habeeb’s use is more offensive but more interesting and politicaly engaging."

"Jihadi chic latté"?--courtesy wayneandwax.

More on Rachael Ray, Dunkin' Donuts, and Kufiyas

Now that Dunkin' Donuts has apologized and pulled the ad, this controversy is just about over for this news cycle. But in the interest of completeness (otherwise known as being hysterically obsessive about kufiyas), I'd like to call attention to a couple more reports on the item.

First, there is rightwing commentator Michelle Malkin's post (from GOPUSA.com) of May 28 (read the entire piece here).


"The keffiyeh, for the clueless," writes Michelle, "is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons."

"The scarves are staples at anti-Israel rallies in San Francisco and Berkeley."

She name-checks prominent kufiya wearers, some of whom who have been kufiyaspotted by hawgblawg: Ricky Martin, Hugo Chavez, Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Howard Dean, Colin Farrell, Sienna Miller, Kirsten Dunst, Kanye West and Meghan McCain. And she also mentions designers and fashion outlets, including Balenciaga, Topshop, and of course, Urban Outfitters, and goes into details about the recent flap over Urban Outfitters' "Victimized" t-shirt.

(Malkin has gone after some of these folks before--see her post on "hate couture" from 2006.)

Malkin takes partial credit for Dunkin' Donuts' decision to withdraw its ad, and praises the company for its "sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists." "Too many" US companies, she says, "bend over backward in the direction of anti-American political correctness."

Michelle concludes:

"It's just a scarf, the clueless keffiyeh-wearers scoff. Would they say the same of fashion designers who marketed modified Klan-style hoods in Burberry plaid as the next big thing?

Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence -- unintentionally or not -- they matter. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style."

Michelle articulates the familiar conflation of support for Palestinian rights with Islamic jihad, terrorism, beheadings of hostages, "anti-Israel" sentiments, anti-Americanism, leftists, and by extension, the KKK. Her rhetoric is not just characteristic of right-wing commentators, but of centrist and liberal thinking as well.

I agree with Michelle on one thing: fashion is significant. Folks, wear your kufiyas.

(I also note that Michelle weighed in against Fun'Da'Mental's All Is War and other so-called "jihad rap" back in June 2006--check out this video comment on Vent. I have numerous previous posts on this controversy.)

And now here is some more for the completists:

Celebs are People Too comments (thanks, Chris): "Note to Malkin: these types of scarves are available at Target. Get over yourself," and suggests "Readers, if you care about the state of this nation, you’ll send in your thoughts to Michelle Malkin and let her know America, similarly, has no use for her."

I'm all for criticizing Ms. Malkin, but why not do it on the basis of support for Palestinian rights, rather than resorting to Target? (I'm pretty sure it's not sold there, but the point of CAPT is of course rhetorical, i.e., that such scarves are entirely mainstream and harmless.)

And then there is a report from the New York Post, with a comment from Ahmed Rehab of CAIR:

"I think it's a mistake to demonize a single article of clothing," said Ahmed Rehab, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Yes, maybe some suicide bombers have worn it, but so have a million other non-suicide bombers. It'd be as ludicrous as decrying clothes because all 19 people involved in the Sept. 11 attacks wore clothes."

In the United States and Europe, the gray and white scarf is much more of a fashion statement than a political one, Rehab said.

"Yes, it has symbolized Palestinians, but it's also a yuppie fashion statement," Rehab joked. "I've seen young blond women wear it on the Tube in London and in Lincoln Park in Chicago. If it's become a political statement, I didn't get the memo on it."

Rehab--why bring up suicide bombers, and why deny that it's any kind of political statement?

Finally, another kufiyaspotting, from wayneandwax: a photo of a kufiya for sale at the great music store, Newbury Comics, in Cambridge, Mass. The item, wayne informs me, is from david & young: check here



and here--described as a "peace scarf"--the same designation Urban Outfitters originally used.