Were Kufiyas Used to Incite Fear of Attica Uprising, September 1971?

I meant to post something on the Attica massacre on the 40th anniversary of the event. I was living in New York City, and participated in a demonstration on the day that it happened, Monday, September 13. The demo got rather wild, we were marching in the street without a permit, people were very mad, and there was a bit of "trashing." There was also a big demonstration on the weekend, probably Saturday, September 18, that I attended as well. During that week, with 3 other friends, I also participated in a "tagging" of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our tag: "Pig Rockefeller, Attica Murderer." The New York Times published a photo of our tag a few days later. I have a note to myself to find a copy on microfilm and reproduce it. All this by way of saying that the Attica events were something that I and thousands of other US progressives felt very intensely about.

I was pleased to see that the New York Times published an excellent article on Attica, by Sam Roberts, on its 40th anniversary. I was also, again, incensed by what had happened, and felt that our description of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller as a pig murderer, was absolutely spot on. The complaints of the prisoners, who demanded better living conditions, were very justified. 29 inmates and 10 prison-guard hostages were shot in the course of the assault ordered by Rockefeller, all killed by New York State troopers. Prisoners were tortured and harassed without mercy after the prison was retaken. Roberts reports, based on recently published logs of phone conversations, that Rockefeller told President Richard Nixon that it was a "beautiful operation." Nixon, with his typical bluster, told Rockefeller “The courage you showed and the judgment in not granting amnesty, it was right, and I don’t care what the hell the papers or anybody else says."

Perhaps these photos, widely printed in newspapers at the time, played a part in the attempt to orchestrate mainstream sentiment against the inmates at Attica, mostly African-American, who had taken hostages.

This iconic photo featured pictures of those seen as representing the main actors, published in a round-up on the events in Attica on Sunday, September 19, 1971, in The New York Times.

It's cropped from this photo, also a widespread image at the time.

As was this one.

It's telling, don't you think, that, out of the 1,000 or so prisoners at Attica who participated in the uprising (the institution housed about 2,200 at the time), African-Americans in what looked like Arab headdresses were made so iconic?

We can speculate about what this was about. Progressive African-Americans had long felt a sense of solidarity with the Palestinians, particularly during the late sixties and early seventies, at the high point of guerilla activity by the Palestinian resistance movement. On the other hand, given that it was very hot in Attica, and that prisoners were in the yard in full sun during the days, it would have made sense to fashion head coverings to protect against the sun. (I remember that reports at the time said that, towards the end, the prisoners were short of water and very thirsty, and hence very tense.)

Another piece of the story may have to do with the fact that prison officials believed, or at least claimed to believe, that Muslim prisoners were responsible for organizing the uprising and for threats to the prisoners. There were, of course, considerable numbers of Nation of Islam adherents at Attica Prison, as well as members of the Moorish Science Temple, and the Nation of Gods and Earths (Five Percenters), as in all prisons with substantial African-American populations at the time. Members of each of these groups were active in the uprising. Non-recognition of their religious rights was an important motivation for their participation in the prison movement. Muslim prisoners were not permitted to hold religious services at Attica, and "any assembly in the prison yard of more than three Muslims was punishable by solitary confinement." One of the negotiators brought in, at the request of the prisoners, was Nation of Islam representative Louis Farrakhan. Of the five man committee negotiating on behalf of the prisoners, one (Carl X. Blyden) was a member of the Nation of Islam and two (Carl Jones-El and Donald Noble) were members of the Moorish Science Temple. When the prison was retaken, the Muslim prisoners (but accounts that I've seen don't distinguish between the NOI, Moorish Scientists and Five Percenters) were singled out for special retaliation on the part of the guards. It turned out that, in fact, the Muslim inmates (again, which "Muslims" is not clear) played a major role in protecting the hostages from other inmates.

Are the iconic Attica prisoners in the photos wearing what look like makeshift kufiyas in fact Muslims (of the Five Percent, Moorish Science or Nation of Islam persuasion)? Who knows? Did these photos play a role in inciting mainstream fears of the dangers that "radical" Black Muslims posed in the Attica uprising? Likely.

Back on the tarbush/fez tip: Shafiq Husayn (plus Edward Said and a kufiya)

Thanks to Omar for turning me on to the video of Shafiq Husayn's "The U.N. Plan," from his album Shafiq En A-Freek-A.

I've mostly paid attention to the video and the general sound, so I'm turning to this account of the lyrics, courtesy The Quietus.

'The U.N. Plan' is about being stuck in a rut, "living in circles". A tight, delicious groove and surging drums accompany vocals about remembering to be a star. They duel with reflections in reverb, saying things like "her name was boo and she left me all alone to expand", as if a consciousness were struggling to put positive light on a situation.

As for the video, there are a number of intriguing elements. Shafiq appears in it in five guises: as a kind of Lonnie Liston Smith in red turban and camo fatigues; as a kind of Rasta-ish boho wearing a knit hat with Ethiopian colors; a somewhat similar look to the former, but with a red hat (you can see this guise in the frame of the embedded video above); in dark glasses and red beret; and finally, and most remarkably, as an old-school Afrocentric intellectual, complete with Malcolm-style glasses and a fez (tarbush).

The provenance of Shafiq's very intello look here is given in an earlier frame, with the titles for the video, when we see this title page, from a text by the Moorish Science Temple, founded by Noble Drew Ali. The fez was part of the outfit worn by adherents of Moorish Science. And in fact, in the photo above, not only does Shafiq recall Malcolm X, but also Noble Drew Ali (see the photo from this previous fez post.)

With these images Shafiq is conjuring with the racialist theories of Moorish Science, which proposes that African-Americans are of Moorish origin. But he also conjures up the image of post-Mecca Malcolm, who abandoned the racialist doctrines of Elijah Muhammad and advocated progressive alliances with peoples of all races. The gentleman sitting at the table with Shafiq-in-fez could be Arab or Hispanic or South Asian. The video also shows images of the Buddha and a text about Tibet.

And then the Shafiq-in-beret is shown with a woman wearing what may be an Islamic headscarf (worn pretty loosely). In one scene the two of them are shown in front of a mural that depicts a woman in red kufiya, who appears to be depicted with "African" features. (The woman also appears with Shafiq-in-red-hat.)

We see a shot of another page of a book toward the end of the video, another text that the Shafiq-in-fez is presumably reading.

Look closely, and you will see that it is the top of page 175 of Edward Said's Orientalism, from Chapter Two, "Orientalist Structures and Restructures." The passage is about Chateaubriand's visit to Egypt.

How cool is that, Edward Said in a music video? Of course, it would be a video from an artist who belongs to the afro-futurist ensemble Sa-Ra Creative Partners, a group that evokes the name, sensibilities, and mythologies of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A group responsible for production on Erykah Badu's incredible New Amerykah: Part One.

There is no doubt more to say about how expansive and complex is Shafiq Husayn's "U.N. Plan," but I'll leave it there for now.