Stern Gang "Misirlou"

Over the past few years, and especially since Dick Dale's version of "Misirlou" appeared so memorably in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a number of accounts have pointed out the "Eastern" origins of this great tune. I've posted on the song previously, noting the fact that (a) it emerged originally out of the rebetika tradition, which originated in the great cosmopolitan city of Smyrna, and (b) that Dick Dale's version is inspired by the rhythms of Arabic music, which he learned chiefly from his uncle, a darbukkah player. You can find more on Dick Dale (born Richard Mansour) and the Arabic origins of surf music here, more on the Eastern origins of "Misirlou" here and here.

There are lots and lots of cool versions of "Misirlou" besides Dale's version. Here's one that is not so cool (Hebrew title: "Lil Razim," and I'm not sure how to translate.)

It was released in 1953 and recorded by Shulamit Livnat, an Israeli singer who was known as "the singer of the Etzel and the Lehi." That is, the singer of Lohamei Herut Israel (Israel Freedom Fighters) or Lehi, the paramilitary Zionist group founded by Avraham (Yair) Stern in 1940, a radical splinter from the Irgun (full title, Ha-Irgun Ha-Tzvai Ha-Leumi be-Eretz Yisrael or The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel), the Revisionist paramilitary group which was led by Menahem Begin from 1943. The Irgun was also known as Etzel, the acronym for the Hebrew initials.

Although the Stern Gang split from the Irgun, during 1948 the two groups collaborated in all kinds of mayhem and terror operations, including most notoriously the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin, which resulted in the killing of 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, 11 of them armed. It's been awhile since I have spent much time reading about Lehi and Etzel, but a classic account is J. Bowyer Bell's Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, Lehi, and the Palestine Underground, 1929–1949, 1977.

One of the songs that Shulamit Livnat was known for singing is the Lehi anthem, "Unknown Soldiers" (Hayalim Amonim) written by Stern in 1932. Here are the lyrics. An excerpt:

Our dream: to die for our people
we shall erect the homeland
with the tears of bereaved mothers
and the blood of unblemished babies.
Like with cement our bodies will bond into bricks

Here's Shulamit Livnat leading singing the anthem at a memorial service for Avraham Stern in 2012, on the 70th anniversary of Stern's death at the hands of British police in Tel Aviv. (Apparently of late there have been strong efforts to rehabilitate Stern's memory.)

Livnat is still alive (I believe) and as of 2005, had run the Rina Mor National College, the educational arm of the Jabotinsky Institute, for 20 years. In 2005 her daughter, Education Minister Limor Livnat, saw to it that her mother's salary was quadrupled. (Today Limor Livnat, a member of the Likud Party, is Minister of Culture and Sport; she is the only member of the Israeli Knesset not to have achieved a secondary school education.

As Education Minister, Limor Livnat was a member of the cabinet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who passed away today. (He went into coma in 2006.)

Only fitting that the daughter of the diva of Lehi would serve under Sharon, whose crimes against the Palestinians, over a period of 55+ years, completely overshadow those of the notorious Stern Gang, still remembered as a "terrorist" group. Meanwhile, the US will be sending VP Joseph Biden to Sharon's state funeral.

Kufiyas in "From Paris with Love," "The A-Team," and "Glee"

I have posted previously about the kufiya-wearing Charlie Wax character in the film, From Paris with Love, played by John Travolta. I have finally seen the film. It was agony. If not for the sake of research, I would have turned it off long before the end. It's a real turkey of a film, but the kufiya does play a prominent role. CIA agent Charlie Wax, who lays waste to multiple "bad guys" in the film--Chinese, Pakistanis, devious beautiful women, banlieusards--at the rate (his partner James Reese [Jonathan Rhys Meyers] estimates) of one an hour--wears a kufiya in almost every scene. Along with his bald pate, goatee, earring, and leather jacket, the kufiya seems to be essential to Wax's image as a kind of rogue secret agent who uses unconventional (i.e. bloody) methods to track down and get his prey. (He's also supposed to be funny, but the humor never really works.) The kufiya has nothing to do with any identification on the part of Wax with Arabs, who he at one time refers to as "ragheads." Rather it seems to involve a kind of sympathetic magic that, through mimesis, taps into the power of the Other (terrorist, raghead)--see Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, 1993. This seems key to the phenomenon of what I'm calling the "tough guy" kufiya. (After I re-read Taussig I will probably have more to say about this.)

As if to reinforce the fact that Wax is tapping into the strength and energy of the bad guys, the ragheads, one of the banlieusards who is a member of Rashid's gang that deals in cocaine and other crime wears a kufiya. Rashid is on the right. (The fact that Wax and Reese at first get held up by a gun-yielding 10-year old gang member works in the film to show how pathological these gangsters are. To deal with such criminals, whose drug ventures are linked to the Pakistani terrorist suicide bombers, the final targets of Wax and Reese, of course requires "unconventional," i.e., lethal methods.)

Wax's guns are almost as ubiquitous as his kufiya.

Here's a different look, with a baseball cap. (I never could figure out why Reese was carrying around the vase with cocaine.)

This is one of the film's "humorous" scenes, which I suppose is intended to lend Wax, who is otherwise preoccupied with killing bad guys non-stop, a human and likable side. Wax is on his way to take out the Pakistani terrorist who is driving Reese's erstwhile girlfriend Caroline on a mission to bomb a summit meeting. Wax gets the driver to play a bit of pop fluff on the radio, and, as he pops his fingers, he tells the driver not to tell anyone that he ever listens to such "soft" music.

I learned today, courtesy a photo in the New York Times, that a kufiya also appears in the new film, The A-Team. Another "tough guy" kufiya.

Here's a photo. That's Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck on the left, and Liam Neeson as Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith on the right.

I suppose I will also need to see that film as well--and I dread that it will be even worse than From Paris with Love. I also plan to see The Book of Eli soon but I have higher hopes for it.

A couple friends have told me that the character of Mercedes wears a kufiya in the TV show Glee. I have not seen the show, and have been unable to track down an image of Mercedes in kufiya. If anyone has any ideas about how I might do so, please, do tell.

Kufiyas as (desired) signifiers of danger for soldiers and other tough guys

Lately I've run across a spate of kufiyas that are quite distinct from the hipster, the solidarity or the designer kufiyas. Kufiyas worn by military (Modern Warfare 2) or counter-terrorist ops (From Paris With Love). By a visionary tough-guy post-apocalyptic wanderer (The Book of Eli). And by the leader of a group of soldier dragon-hunting volunteers--also post-apocalypse (Reign of Fire).

I wish I had the time and money to play the video game Modern Warfare 2, it looks like a really incredible game. Yes, it's all shoot-em-up, but just check it out if you doubt that it would be a hoot to play. The case for the game features a picture of a US military guy whose neck and face are wrapped with a kufiya. I didn't see much kufiya action when I looked at the game previews, but the case seems to indicate it is a significant clothing item for some of the principals. Or at least a marketing mechanism.

I've been told that the kufiya is standard wear for US Marines operating in Iraq. (As of today, they are out.) I hope to have a bit more data on current Marine usage soon. The kufiya was also adopted by US soldiers during the first Gulf War. Recall the character of Chief, played by Ice Cube, in the film The Three Kings--still the best film dealing with the 1990-91 war. (Photo source here.)

The kufiya is of course a handy item to have in the desert and sun, useful for shading oneself, keeping out the dust, achieving anonymity, etc. And it's handy in the cold evenings as well. No surprise then that the British military have used them since at least the Second World War--using the name shemagh.

But besides the utility of the kufiya, there is also the fact that, by wearing an item iconically associated with the "bad guys," the "hajjis," US soldiers may hope to capture and mobilize some of the danger associated with the enemy and his ability to plant IEDs, as well as perhaps to tame it.

That seems to be what is going on with the military contractor team leader in the film The Hurt Locker, played by Ralph Fiennes. His wildness and recklessness seems to be signalled by the fact that he, and the rest of his crew, are garbed in kufiyas. In fact, when the EOD unit led by Sergeant James first sights the contractors, they think they are "hajjis" (i.e., Iraqi insurgents). This is entirely due to the fact the kufiyas wrapped around their faces. (My earlier remarks on The Hurt Locker are here and here.)

The upcoming film, From Paris with Love, which opens on February 5, stars John Travolta as FBI agent Charlie Wax, whose mission it is to stop a threatened terrorist attack on Paris. From the trailer, it's clear that Agent Wax is another one of those cops or intelligent agents or soldiers so typical of Hollywood action movies, one who must use "unorthodox" methods--involving massive violence, machismo, over-the-top stunts, and borderline-insane schemes--to defeat the bad guys. Wax's signature shaved head, leather jacket, goatee and kufiya are all essential stylistic elements that combine to signal that he is Dirty Harry for the twenty-tens. Looking through the various trailers and publicity photos for the film, I found it hard to find a scene where Travolta/Wax wasn't in kufiya.

And then there is The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington as Eli, a wanderer through a post-apocalypse United States, who carries the Bible and is the master of all weapons. Although he is not always shown with a kufiya around his, he does wear it at many times, and so in this film too the kufiya functions as a sign of Eli's toughness.

I'm told that there is a key scene involving the exchange of a kufiya for water. (The US has been turned into a parched wasteland.) The film has received quite mixed reviews, but for the sake of research, I do intend to see it.

You can view the trailer for the film here, at the official website.

And here's another shot of the kufiya-garbed Eli:

And another image, from the cover of The Book of Eli comic book:

Finally, there is the 2002 film Reign of Fire, and the character of Denton Van Zan played by Matthew McConaughey. The year is 2020. Dragons have been brought to life, out of hibernation. They multiply and burn much of the earth. Humans respond with nukes, and the planet is virtually wiped out.

A band of heavily-armed volunteers from the US, led by Van Zan, arrives in England to aid a small group of survivors, headed by Quinn (Christian Bale). Van Zan is super-tough and battle-hardened, a true warrior. He has the attitude and demeanor of a Marine officer. He is bald, fully bearded, and his body is loaded with tattoos. And he is frequently seen wearing kufiya. Like the bald pate and the tattoos, the kufiya is key to Van Zan's fierce, uncompromising, wild-man persona.

Below we see Van Zan in conversation with Alex (played by Izabella Scorupco), who is part of his military team.

Van Zan, true to his image, dies after the explosive charge he shoots at the dragon with his crossbow fails to kill the beast. Van Zan jumps off the high tower he is on, in a vain attempt to slay the dragon with a battle axe. He is bare-chested, showing off all his tattoos, having thrown off his sleeveless jacket and kufiya. His wild, suicidal yet noble gesture leads to his death. Alex and Quinn kill off the dragon and survive to re-establish human civilization.

Like all such wild men who break taboos and regulations and the rules of civilized behavior (the Geneva Conventions, for instance) to defend "us" against the terroristic enemy, Van Zan is not able to be domesticated. In such cases, the kufiya seems to function not just as a kind of talisman of the opponent, that lends potency to the action hero by a kind of sympathetic magic, but it seems to signify as well that he cannot be really assimilated comfortably into the society which he defends. Like Van Zan, the military contractor of The Hurt Locker played by Ralph Fiennes is killed, by the Iraqi insurgents. The character of Sgt. James, who also wears kufiya in the film--although it's a khaki one, and hence more subdued kufiya than the contractor's hajji-looking black-and-white checked shemagh. Nonetheless, at the end of the film, James is unable to re-enter civilian life. It's just too dull and lacking in adrenaline rushes. He re-ups for another tour of "explosive ordinance disposal."

I hope I'm not giving anything away when I tell you that Eli dies at the end of The Book of Eli. [P.S., May 15, 2011: Elyse just informed me that Eli wears a white galabiyya in the last scene. I didn't remember that. He dies as a kind of devout Muslim???] And we can guess, based on our experience with all the Dirty Harrys and the John McClanes (Die Hard series) and the Martin Riggs' (Lethal Weapon series), that Agent Wax does not get happily married and go off to live peacefully in the suburbs, at the end of From Paris with Love.

The stylish kufiya in "Iron Man"

I finally got around to watching this thoroughly enjoyable film last night, and even though its liberal political turns are somewhat hokey and predictable, I appreciated (a) Tony Stark's "moral" decision to turn away from war profiteering and (b) that the film represented the Afghani "bad guys" as being in cahoots with US weapons producers. I suppose the latter represents a kind of backhanded acknowledgment of the CIA's role in helping create and strengthen those "bad guys" during the struggle of the Afghani mujahideen against the Soviet occupation.


But here's one thing I didn't like, seriously. The real "bad guy" of the film, Raza (played by Faran Tahir), who leads the terrorist group, wears a kufiya around his neck. And not only does he wear it in the manner of the Western hipster--more typically in Afghanistan it would be worn it as a turban--but the colors are straight out of...Urban Outfitters. It's tan. But it should (if verismilitude is the aim) be black-and-white, or maybe red-and-white.

So, Iron Man manages not only to associate just kufiyas with terrorists, but hipster kufiyas as well.

The semiotic war continues....