"Do You Love Me?", from the Bendaly Family عائلة بندلي
Shot in Kuwait, 1978.
UPDATE: As far as I can determine, from hunting around for more information, The Bendaly Family are Lebanese.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Is this the best video clip of Arabic music ever?
UPDATE: As far as I can determine, from hunting around for more information, The Bendaly Family are Lebanese.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
More on the kufiya from the Daily Star (Beirut)
It appears that a report in the New York Times two months ago triggered this Daily Star report, focusing on kufiya-as-fashion spottings in London and Beirut. The report claims that "the Jewish lobby" was responsible for Urban Outfitters' decision to pull the kufiya from its early spring catalogue. Unfortunate language, that errs on the side of anti-Semitism. More correct to say there was some Zionist-motivated pressures.
I've been informed by a couple of blog readers that one can still find the kufiyas in Urban Outfitters in New York and San Francisco. My student Chris wrote me in late March:
Joel meanwhile reports, in early April:
The sitings continue! (And once I finish the backlog of work that has piled up as the semester nears its end, I hope to resume more regular postings on hawgblawg.)
Here's the Daily Star report:
Kefiyyeh makes unlikely leap from symbol of struggle to fashion signature
By Nour Samaha
Saturday, April 14, 2007
LONDON/BEIRUT: The keffiyeh has had a long and varied history. But few could have imagined the traditional headdress worn by Arab men to protect them from the sun and sand would emerge in the spring of 2007 as a fashion accessory among urban teenagers and twentysomethings in New York and London.
The white cotton scarf in an all-over checkered pattern has been worn for decades by men across the Levant and the Gulf. It became a potent symbol of Palestinian nationalism from the 1930s onward. The keffiyeh was a key component of Yassir Arafat's trademark attire; he was never seen in public without one. At least since the days of the first intifada, people around the world have worn the keffiyeh in sympathy with the Palestinian cause.
In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, when all things Arab became suspect in the West, a young magazine editor in New York recalls that the keffiyeh he wore around his neck as a scarf for all seasons suddenly provoked anxiety. People would cross to the other side the street when they caught sight of his neckwear, assuming, stupidly, that he was a terrorist. How things have changed.
Fashion is nothing if not amnesiac and so the keffiyeh has somersaulted to a veritable hipster trend - minted as such with a recent story in The New York Times style section.
Weaving through the crowds of people bustling through London, one cannot help but notice the overwhelming number of passersby sporting the checkered scarf. Not satisfied with the original two options of red checks or black, market stalls and retail outlets have expanded the keffiyeh color range to include blue, purple, green, pink and yellow.
From Camden Market's stalls to high-street stores such as Top Shop and Urban Outfitters, the scarves are being sold seemingly everywhere.
In fact, the keffiyeh has been around Camden Market for years and has catered to customers "who support the Arab cause," says Helena, the owner of a market stall. "The last couple of months, however, have seen a huge surge in their sales," she says, "especially the colored ones, now that that they are being sold on the high street, too.
"They've lost their meaning completely now, though," she adds. "Before, people bought them for a reason. Now it is purely a fashion statement. They have no idea what the scarves signify. We have had a number of people come by and ask for 'those scarves that are being worn on TV' by celebrities." Helena says that for the past three months, she has been selling an average of 200 scarves per week.
Adam Faust, 25, is originally from Texas but is currently studying graphic design in London. He owns a yellow keffiyeh.
"To be perfectly honest," he says, "I only bought it because I liked it. I liked the style, and the look of it. It was a completely superficial decision. I did do a bit of research before I bought it, so I do know it has a Middle Eastern background. But that's not why I bought it."
Alicia Iveson, 22, is a student at Leeds University. She owns a keffiyeh of her own, but for variety, she often borrows others from her friends. She says the scarves are worn all over university campuses by people of all political persuasions, to the extent, she says, that the keffiyeh has "become a bit of a cliche."
"It's like anything that becomes fashionable," explains Iveson. "First the fashion-conscious people wear them to be different, and then everyone catches on to it, and eventually they go out of fashion."
While not ignorant of the keffiyeh's cultural roots - "I know it supports the Palestinians and their independence," she says - Iveson admits her reasons for buying and wearing the keffiyeh are completely apolitical. In her opinion very few people who wear the scarves are aware of their history.
"Personally, I just really like them. They're warm and practical in this weather. They look good, and from the right places they can be really cheap," she says. Hers cost $8.
Top Shop, one the UK's largest high-street fashion stores, has had the scarves on the shelves for the past month. According to a sales assistant who spoke on condition of anonymity, the scarves are "very trendy" and "worn everywhere, even in clubs."
"The people that tend to buy them the most are between 15 and 28, and like anything in fashion, now they are very popular, but they will have a limited shelf-life," he says. "I really don't think any of the population who buy them here actually knows what they represent, culturally."
Across the pond in the United States, however, the fashion statement made by the keffiyeh was quickly marred by politics. The Jewish lobby [sic: there is no "Jewish" lobby, there's a Zionist lobby, but it doesn't appear to have systematically weighed in.] in particular slammed the trend as an "endorsement of terrorism."
The style piece in the Times, published in February, noted that Urban Outfitters swiftly removed keffiyehs from stores after an onslaught of criticism. Urban Outfitters issued the following statement: "Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale. We apologize if we offended anyone. This was by no means our intention."
"I think it is ridiculous of the US to be so sensitive to an item of clothing," says Iveson. "This sort of behavior generates a feeling of hatred towards the area where the garment originally came from, and for no reason whatsoever."
Faust agrees.
"We are lucky that we live in a world where you can wear what you want, without anyone telling you otherwise," he says. "There is no reason why it should be taken off the shelves."
The sales assistant at Top Shop adds that banning an item for political reasons is not only ridiculous but also racist. "How can a scarf promote terrorism?" he asks.
Against expectations, the keffiyeh trend has simultaneously wangled its way back to the Middle East and into Beirut's trendy fashion boutiques.
Off the main street in Gemmayzeh lies Kitsch, a cafe and bakery that doubles as a store for a carefully handpicked selection of women's clothing. Among the resolutely chic styles of print dresses, thin leggings and vintage T-shirts, one finds a series of items by the label Essa that are embellished with the keffiyeh.
"The designer is based in Dubai," says Racil Chalhoub, the co-owner of Kitsch. "He wanted to design items that are linked back to tradition. They have been very successful," she adds, "probably because those who buy them consider them to be an original concept that cannot be found anywhere else.
"We haven't had any kind of negative feedback from people with regard to the use of the keffiyeh," adds Chalhoub. "Those that tend to buy the items are 'trend-forward' people who are looking for something new."
Politics, it appears, does not interfere with fashion, at least on the streets of Beirut.
I've been informed by a couple of blog readers that one can still find the kufiyas in Urban Outfitters in New York and San Francisco. My student Chris wrote me in late March:
The Urban Outfitters in downtown San Francisco sells the turquoise, yellow, and green kufiyas, errr, "anti-war protest scarves," including having some on their "this is what the cool kids are wearing these days" display table right as you walk in to the men's section. They seem to have passed off their stock of the black & white and red variations to some of the local boutique resellers (where I myself picked up one), while the less controversial colors are still kosher for keeping America's hipsters warm and cozy, or at least in protest in a socially respectable way.
Joel meanwhile reports, in early April:
I found kufiyas in Urban Outfitters on 6th Ave in the Village. They had brown (bunni) and olive green (jayshi), both made in India and for $20. Also red/white, very poor quality, made (I think) in China. Not displayed prominently, but not any less prominently than other similar shawl-like items....
The sitings continue! (And once I finish the backlog of work that has piled up as the semester nears its end, I hope to resume more regular postings on hawgblawg.)
Here's the Daily Star report:
Kefiyyeh makes unlikely leap from symbol of struggle to fashion signature
By Nour Samaha
Saturday, April 14, 2007
LONDON/BEIRUT: The keffiyeh has had a long and varied history. But few could have imagined the traditional headdress worn by Arab men to protect them from the sun and sand would emerge in the spring of 2007 as a fashion accessory among urban teenagers and twentysomethings in New York and London.
The white cotton scarf in an all-over checkered pattern has been worn for decades by men across the Levant and the Gulf. It became a potent symbol of Palestinian nationalism from the 1930s onward. The keffiyeh was a key component of Yassir Arafat's trademark attire; he was never seen in public without one. At least since the days of the first intifada, people around the world have worn the keffiyeh in sympathy with the Palestinian cause.
In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, when all things Arab became suspect in the West, a young magazine editor in New York recalls that the keffiyeh he wore around his neck as a scarf for all seasons suddenly provoked anxiety. People would cross to the other side the street when they caught sight of his neckwear, assuming, stupidly, that he was a terrorist. How things have changed.
Fashion is nothing if not amnesiac and so the keffiyeh has somersaulted to a veritable hipster trend - minted as such with a recent story in The New York Times style section.
Weaving through the crowds of people bustling through London, one cannot help but notice the overwhelming number of passersby sporting the checkered scarf. Not satisfied with the original two options of red checks or black, market stalls and retail outlets have expanded the keffiyeh color range to include blue, purple, green, pink and yellow.
From Camden Market's stalls to high-street stores such as Top Shop and Urban Outfitters, the scarves are being sold seemingly everywhere.
In fact, the keffiyeh has been around Camden Market for years and has catered to customers "who support the Arab cause," says Helena, the owner of a market stall. "The last couple of months, however, have seen a huge surge in their sales," she says, "especially the colored ones, now that that they are being sold on the high street, too.
"They've lost their meaning completely now, though," she adds. "Before, people bought them for a reason. Now it is purely a fashion statement. They have no idea what the scarves signify. We have had a number of people come by and ask for 'those scarves that are being worn on TV' by celebrities." Helena says that for the past three months, she has been selling an average of 200 scarves per week.
Adam Faust, 25, is originally from Texas but is currently studying graphic design in London. He owns a yellow keffiyeh.
"To be perfectly honest," he says, "I only bought it because I liked it. I liked the style, and the look of it. It was a completely superficial decision. I did do a bit of research before I bought it, so I do know it has a Middle Eastern background. But that's not why I bought it."
Alicia Iveson, 22, is a student at Leeds University. She owns a keffiyeh of her own, but for variety, she often borrows others from her friends. She says the scarves are worn all over university campuses by people of all political persuasions, to the extent, she says, that the keffiyeh has "become a bit of a cliche."
"It's like anything that becomes fashionable," explains Iveson. "First the fashion-conscious people wear them to be different, and then everyone catches on to it, and eventually they go out of fashion."
While not ignorant of the keffiyeh's cultural roots - "I know it supports the Palestinians and their independence," she says - Iveson admits her reasons for buying and wearing the keffiyeh are completely apolitical. In her opinion very few people who wear the scarves are aware of their history.
"Personally, I just really like them. They're warm and practical in this weather. They look good, and from the right places they can be really cheap," she says. Hers cost $8.
Top Shop, one the UK's largest high-street fashion stores, has had the scarves on the shelves for the past month. According to a sales assistant who spoke on condition of anonymity, the scarves are "very trendy" and "worn everywhere, even in clubs."
"The people that tend to buy them the most are between 15 and 28, and like anything in fashion, now they are very popular, but they will have a limited shelf-life," he says. "I really don't think any of the population who buy them here actually knows what they represent, culturally."
Across the pond in the United States, however, the fashion statement made by the keffiyeh was quickly marred by politics. The Jewish lobby [sic: there is no "Jewish" lobby, there's a Zionist lobby, but it doesn't appear to have systematically weighed in.] in particular slammed the trend as an "endorsement of terrorism."
The style piece in the Times, published in February, noted that Urban Outfitters swiftly removed keffiyehs from stores after an onslaught of criticism. Urban Outfitters issued the following statement: "Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale. We apologize if we offended anyone. This was by no means our intention."
"I think it is ridiculous of the US to be so sensitive to an item of clothing," says Iveson. "This sort of behavior generates a feeling of hatred towards the area where the garment originally came from, and for no reason whatsoever."
Faust agrees.
"We are lucky that we live in a world where you can wear what you want, without anyone telling you otherwise," he says. "There is no reason why it should be taken off the shelves."
The sales assistant at Top Shop adds that banning an item for political reasons is not only ridiculous but also racist. "How can a scarf promote terrorism?" he asks.
Against expectations, the keffiyeh trend has simultaneously wangled its way back to the Middle East and into Beirut's trendy fashion boutiques.
Off the main street in Gemmayzeh lies Kitsch, a cafe and bakery that doubles as a store for a carefully handpicked selection of women's clothing. Among the resolutely chic styles of print dresses, thin leggings and vintage T-shirts, one finds a series of items by the label Essa that are embellished with the keffiyeh.
"The designer is based in Dubai," says Racil Chalhoub, the co-owner of Kitsch. "He wanted to design items that are linked back to tradition. They have been very successful," she adds, "probably because those who buy them consider them to be an original concept that cannot be found anywhere else.
"We haven't had any kind of negative feedback from people with regard to the use of the keffiyeh," adds Chalhoub. "Those that tend to buy the items are 'trend-forward' people who are looking for something new."
Politics, it appears, does not interfere with fashion, at least on the streets of Beirut.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order: Middle East Report Online
A new MERO. I quote from the announcement:
The Egyptian regime is cracking down on all manner of dissenters -- from
Muslim Brothers in Parliament to the well-known Kifaya movement to bloggers and journalists. But another form of opposition has been scoring victories: a wave of wildcat strikes that, like the Kifaya protests, began in late 2004. The collective action of Egyptian workers is currently the most broad-based kind of resistance to the regime. It represents a possible threat to the "stability" President Husni Mubarak needs to pass his office on to his son, as most Egyptians are convinced he seeks to do.
Joel Beinin and Hossam el-Hamalawy tell the story of the most militant and politically important strike to date in "Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order," now available in Middle East Report Online.
Here's an excerpt I particularly liked:
Then, on December 7, thousands of workers from the morning shift started assembling in Mahalla’s Tal‘at Harb Square, facing the entrance to the mill. The pace of factory work was already slowing, but production ground to a halt when around 3,000 female garment workers left their stations, and marched over to the spinning and weaving sections, where their male colleagues had not yet stopped their machines. The female workers stormed in chanting: “Where are the men? Here are the women!” Ashamed, the men joined the strike.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Denny Crain learns that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic
Did anyone catch Boston Legal on Tuesday? In it Denny Crain (played with panache by William Shatner) learns (well, he's such a buffoon and a curmudgeon) that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic. Bethany Horowitz (the very short lawyer) explains this to him--it's a very small country, surrounded by millions of Arabs, etc. Denny still doesn't really get it, and so, at the end of the show, as usual, he and his friend Alan Shore (James Spader) are out on the balcony drinking brandy and smoking cigars, and the subject comes up again. Denny asks Alan, didn't you think that Israel over-reacted when it attacked Lebanon last summer? Alan says, yes, but procedes to explain to Denny again why you shouldn't criticize Israel, and why Jews don't like it. (I can't remember the logic.) Since Alan is the "liberal" on the show, of course he is presented as more sensitive on this matter than Denny, the loveable conservative Neanderthal.
For daily ripostes to this line of reasoning, check out the irreplaceable MuzzleWatch, a blog from Jewish Voice for Peace that "track[s] efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Kufiyaspotting #15: Nine Inch Nails' "Survivalism"
A new video from Nine Inch Nails, featuring lead singer Trent Reznor sporting a kufiya scarf. A verse from the song:
Hypnotic sound of sirens
Echoing through the street
The cocking of the rifles
The marching of the feet
You see your world on fire
Don't try to act surprised
We did just what you told us
Lost our faith along the way and found ourselves believing your lies
Interesting vid, showing a heavily armed military/police unit entering a building (it looks at first like it could be Iraq)--and what apartment are they targeting? The gay couple's? The Asian woman dressing in front of the mirror? The (Hispanic?) couple on the couch? The older black man? Or the band?
Kufiyas spotted at Urban Outfitters in Westwood
Thanks to a comment on my Urban Outfitters post, I learned of a great blog, KABOBfest. A post there by Maytha reports that even though, due to protests, Urban Outfitters took the kufiya (marketed as an "anti-war scarf") off its early spring catalogue, one can still find the item at the Urban Outfitters at Westwood (near UCLA campus). It's not really clear why. Maybe the fashionistas in LA haven't got the word from the East Coast that the kufiya is passé? (Photo by Maytha.)
Here's my guess: Urban Outfitters bought a lot of kufiya stock before it announced the early spring catalogue. UO has got to sell that stock...so it does so, without fanfare.
UPDATE: See the comments--Urban Outfitters in downtown Toronto is also selling multi-colored kufiyas, under the name 'shemagh'. (Thanks, Nashwa.) This is another Arabic name for the kufiya (known in Palestine more commonly as a hatta. British soldiers in the Middle East since before WWII used the shemagh rather extensively, and that's the name they used exclusively. Check out how the British Special Air Service used shemaghs in North Africa during WWII.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Fayetteville rally: US out of Iraq
A belated post: on March 11, about 200+ marched in Fayetteville against the US occupation of Iraq. The march marked the fourth anniversary of the US invasion, which was launched on March 17 2003. (Most rallies are this weekend, but not here--we marched a little early due to spring break.) About twice as many showed up last year--not sure why, but nonetheless, it was a spirited event.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Michael Franti in Fayettville: What's the Use of Political Music?
Michael Franti & Spearhed played at George's Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, AR on March 6, and I manage to catch the show. I first hear of Franti back in the early nineties, when he led Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, who are best known for their song, "Television: Drug of the Nation." I saw him perform with Spearhead in Seattle, I think it was back in 1996. I've not followed him so closely of late, but I still consider him one of the most important political artists around.
The concert was sold out, just jammed with a crowd of 2-300 that could loosely be termed "hippies." The crowd was very appreciative, very familiar with the music. Franti seemed quite surprised at the enthusiastic reception he received in his first-ever concert in Arkansas--and the crowd was of course very glad to hear themselves praised by the likes of Franti.
But all during the concert--which I enjoyed immensely--I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that this Sunday, March 11, the Omni Center for Peace and Equality is organizing anti-war, anti-occupation demonstration, on the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
There were flyers advertising the march spread around in the club, and due to the efforts of a couple of my younger friends, the flyer managed to end up in Franti's hand at the conclusion of the concert and he read it out. I'm pretty certain, however, that despite Franti's endorsement, and despite the fact that Franti's music is consistently progressive and political (and the politics is expressed very clearly), that very few of those at the concert will come out to the march. Twenty at most, I imagine, and I will know most of them. The march (if the weather holds up) will probably include several hundred people, if the last march is any guide, but it won't be the hippies who attended the Franti/Spearhead concert. They're sympathetic with Franti's message, but they'd pay $20 and show up to dance and drink beer (and smoke some Chronic--a lot of that in the air) than participate in a demo. Our demo on March 11 will include people of all age groups (with a lot of middle aged folks like me), but it will be very short on young folks of the "alternative" or hippy variety.So is Franti's music, so infused with radical politics, of any political use in a place like this? I discussed this with my friend Dave, and he suggested that probably, in a place like San Francisco, there would be more of a convergence between the audience at a Franti concert and marchers at an anti-war rally. I think that's probably true. And I'm not sure why all the good-hearted pot-smoking longhaired young people here are so unlikely to show up at a rally. I have no answers, only a feeling of depression...
Monday, March 05, 2007
Radical Islam: Destroying Europe from Within?
Last month I started reading Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within (Doubleday, 2006). Before I finished I learned it had been nominated in the criticism category for the National Book Critics Circle Award. On February 8, the The New York Times reported that Elliott Weinberger, previous finalist for the award, denounced Bawer, accusing him of "racism as criticism." Meanwhile, the president of the Circle's board, John Freeman, wrote on the organization's blog, "I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer's 'While Europe Slept'...It's [sic] hyperventilated rethoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia."
Having now finished reading it, I must agree with Freeman's sentiments about While Europe Slept. If Bawer does win in the "criticism" category when awards are announced on March 8, it will bring shame upon the Circle.
Writer and critic Bawer is gay, an avowed liberal who moved from New York to Amsterdam in 1998 because of its more tolerant atmosphere. He now lives in Oslo. While Europe Slept is a full-out critique of what Bawer considers Europe's complacency with regard to the radical Islamist threat, by comparison with the vigorous and resolute response taken by the US since 9/11. But while Bawer is critical of Europe, his views with regard to Islam are in fact symptomatic of a widespread, and growing, European tendency. Whereas hostility and racism toward Muslim immigrants were previously the property of the extreme right, such views have become increasingly mainstream. For instance, take the fulminations of Oriana Fallaci in books like The Force of Reason, or Polly Toynbee's columns in the Guardian. Whereas in the US, Islamophobic rhetoric tends to be the province of right-wing commentators and, especially, conservative evangelists, in Europe Islamophobia is more frequently articulated from within the terms of liberal discourse.
Bawer rehearses a number of the alarms about the threats posed by Muslims in Europe that are common currency on the right. First, the demographic threat, the nightmare that Muslims are about to swamp Europe. Bawer quotes British historian Niall Ferguson, who wrote in 2004, "a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize a senescent Europe to the north and west." Now, Bawer claims, nearly the whole of Europe is within their [the Islamists'] grasp" (231). Second, the failure of Muslims to integrate into European society, their insistence on separation, rejection, ghettoization and inter-marriage (20, 209). Third, the threat of violence and crime posed by young Muslims resident in Europe. Bawer cites the example of the city of Malmö in Sweden, whose population is 40 percent "non-Swedish" (meaning non-white Swedish), where the incidence of rape is five or six times that of nearby Copenhagen, child rapes have doubled in a decade, and teenagers were torching schools (205). Brawer piles on example after example, such as the June 2005 incidents, where 500 Muslim teenagers were involved in mass muggings on strand of beach near Lisbon (211). Fourth, Muslims in Europe are resistant to adopting "European values." Even those who might oppose the terroristic methods of radical Islam are "hamstrung by the belief that loyalty to the umma...overrode any civic obligations to their kaffir (infidel) neighbors," and so they are loathe to criticize extremist Islamists (3, 229). Moreover, "many" immigrant communities are "led by fundamentalist Muslims who looked forward to the establishment in Europe of a caliphate government according to sharia law (3)." Fifth, the immigrants bring their "tribal customs" with them, such as FGM (female genital mutilation), honor killings, payment of blood money and so on (18, 22, 211).
Let me address these scare-mongering arguments briefly. (1) The notion that the eleven or so million Muslims in Europe, who constitute 3 percent of the EU's population, are likely to become the majority any time soon is ludicrous. (2) Muslim failure to integrate and Muslim ghettoization are in large part the consequence of policies of the state and local governments, as well as fear of racist attacks, rather than active decisions of Muslim communities and individuals. "Ghettoization" is more imposed than freely chosen. (3) The violence and crime that are endemic in lower-class, "immigrant" ghettos, are the products of poor education and infrastructure, lack of opportunity and high unemployment. Bawer objects to such explanations, and cites as evidence Theodore Dalrymple's claim that young Muslims in the French cités are not poor but typically have cell phones and cars (Bawer adds that young Muslims all over Europe drive BMW convertibles) (110). Cell phones, yes, but it is well-known that France's banlieusard rioters of November 2005 torched some 9,000 cars -- because they can't afford them. Bawer elsewhere does acknowledge that "in Europe, generally speaking, only the most undesirable employment is available for people with foreign-sounding names of foreign-looking faces (72)." As for the mass muggings near Lisbon, I've seen no evidence that the bands of muggers were composed entirely, or even mainly, of Muslims. (4) As for refusal of "European values," Jocelyne Cesari's book When Islam and Democracy Meet (2004) argues persuasively that Muslims in Europe have, among other things, adopted the very "secular" notion of religion as individual choice. Many European Muslims have criticized Muslim extremism, such as the Islamic Commission of Spain, which issued a fatwa declaring Usama Bin Laden an apostate. No Muslim community in Europe is led by fundamentalists who want to reestablish the caliphate -- this position is held by a small minority, not by community leaders. (5) Most Muslims in Europe originate from countries where FGM ("female cutting" is a less incendiary term) is not practiced. Reports do suggest a rise in the rate of honor killings in the last few years, but this Boston Globe report sees this as an effect of Muslim Europeans' feelings of embattlement and isolation rather than as an imported "tribal custom."
Overall, Bawer's argument proceeds through distortion of fact, selective use of evidence, taking minority trends as representative of the whole community, and blaming the victim. While Europe Slept presents a picture of (white) Europeans intimidated and bloodied by violent Muslim youth, when in fact it is European Muslims who are most at risk, from racist attacks by extreme-right militants and the police, and increased racial profilings and community repression since 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings.
Where Bawer's argument connects with "liberal" discourse is in its concern with women's and gay rights. Bawer asserts that "some estimates suggest that 90 percent of European Muslim wives are physically abused" (59), and he is concerned that non-Muslim European are threatened by Muslim violence, particularly rape (55). But it is Muslim homophobia that really exercises him, as someone who left the US because of Christian fundamentalist intolerance for gays, only to find conditions were worse in Europe. "I wasn't fond of the hypocritical conservative-Christian line about hating the sin and loving the sinner," Bawer writes, "but it was preferable to the forthright fundamentalist Muslim view that homosexuals merited death" (33). And he quotes approvingly the statements of Pim Fortuyn, Holland's charismatic anti-immigrant and populist politician, assassinated in 2002: "What...would happen to same-sex marriage when fundamentalist Muslims gained enough power to eradicate it? Islamic countries not only prohibit gay marriage: they execute people for sodomy" (164-165). Bawer concludes the book by stating that Muslim intolerance is making life more dangerous for gays in Holland, and that this is prompting a desire among many Dutch to emigrate.
Certainly, women's and gay rights must be defended. What I want to underscore here, however, is the ways in which Bawer deploys stereotypes of Muslim intolerance of women's and gay rights to argue for a crackdown on Muslim immigrants (and citizens) and immigration writ large. Western discourse about defending women from sexist Muslim men, of course, has a long history, whereas the defense of gay rights against fundamentalist Muslims represents the embrace of a relatively new Western "tolerant" value. According to a report in the New York Times last October, "So strong is the fear that Dutch values of tolerance are under siege that the government last winter introduced a primer on those values for prospective newcomers to Dutch life: A DVD briefly showing topless women and two men kissing."
Increasingly, centrists and liberals across Europe are embracing the view that Muslim religious and cultural values are simply too conservative and fundamentalist, that they are incompatible with the "tolerant" European values that have taken hold since the 1960s and 1970s. Immigration, therefore, should be strictly limited or cut off altogether, and Muslims in Europe should be forced to "integrate."
Let's hope that the National Book Critics Circle has the good sense not to honor a book that propagates such arguments.
Having now finished reading it, I must agree with Freeman's sentiments about While Europe Slept. If Bawer does win in the "criticism" category when awards are announced on March 8, it will bring shame upon the Circle.
Writer and critic Bawer is gay, an avowed liberal who moved from New York to Amsterdam in 1998 because of its more tolerant atmosphere. He now lives in Oslo. While Europe Slept is a full-out critique of what Bawer considers Europe's complacency with regard to the radical Islamist threat, by comparison with the vigorous and resolute response taken by the US since 9/11. But while Bawer is critical of Europe, his views with regard to Islam are in fact symptomatic of a widespread, and growing, European tendency. Whereas hostility and racism toward Muslim immigrants were previously the property of the extreme right, such views have become increasingly mainstream. For instance, take the fulminations of Oriana Fallaci in books like The Force of Reason, or Polly Toynbee's columns in the Guardian. Whereas in the US, Islamophobic rhetoric tends to be the province of right-wing commentators and, especially, conservative evangelists, in Europe Islamophobia is more frequently articulated from within the terms of liberal discourse.
Bawer rehearses a number of the alarms about the threats posed by Muslims in Europe that are common currency on the right. First, the demographic threat, the nightmare that Muslims are about to swamp Europe. Bawer quotes British historian Niall Ferguson, who wrote in 2004, "a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize a senescent Europe to the north and west." Now, Bawer claims, nearly the whole of Europe is within their [the Islamists'] grasp" (231). Second, the failure of Muslims to integrate into European society, their insistence on separation, rejection, ghettoization and inter-marriage (20, 209). Third, the threat of violence and crime posed by young Muslims resident in Europe. Bawer cites the example of the city of Malmö in Sweden, whose population is 40 percent "non-Swedish" (meaning non-white Swedish), where the incidence of rape is five or six times that of nearby Copenhagen, child rapes have doubled in a decade, and teenagers were torching schools (205). Brawer piles on example after example, such as the June 2005 incidents, where 500 Muslim teenagers were involved in mass muggings on strand of beach near Lisbon (211). Fourth, Muslims in Europe are resistant to adopting "European values." Even those who might oppose the terroristic methods of radical Islam are "hamstrung by the belief that loyalty to the umma...overrode any civic obligations to their kaffir (infidel) neighbors," and so they are loathe to criticize extremist Islamists (3, 229). Moreover, "many" immigrant communities are "led by fundamentalist Muslims who looked forward to the establishment in Europe of a caliphate government according to sharia law (3)." Fifth, the immigrants bring their "tribal customs" with them, such as FGM (female genital mutilation), honor killings, payment of blood money and so on (18, 22, 211).
Let me address these scare-mongering arguments briefly. (1) The notion that the eleven or so million Muslims in Europe, who constitute 3 percent of the EU's population, are likely to become the majority any time soon is ludicrous. (2) Muslim failure to integrate and Muslim ghettoization are in large part the consequence of policies of the state and local governments, as well as fear of racist attacks, rather than active decisions of Muslim communities and individuals. "Ghettoization" is more imposed than freely chosen. (3) The violence and crime that are endemic in lower-class, "immigrant" ghettos, are the products of poor education and infrastructure, lack of opportunity and high unemployment. Bawer objects to such explanations, and cites as evidence Theodore Dalrymple's claim that young Muslims in the French cités are not poor but typically have cell phones and cars (Bawer adds that young Muslims all over Europe drive BMW convertibles) (110). Cell phones, yes, but it is well-known that France's banlieusard rioters of November 2005 torched some 9,000 cars -- because they can't afford them. Bawer elsewhere does acknowledge that "in Europe, generally speaking, only the most undesirable employment is available for people with foreign-sounding names of foreign-looking faces (72)." As for the mass muggings near Lisbon, I've seen no evidence that the bands of muggers were composed entirely, or even mainly, of Muslims. (4) As for refusal of "European values," Jocelyne Cesari's book When Islam and Democracy Meet (2004) argues persuasively that Muslims in Europe have, among other things, adopted the very "secular" notion of religion as individual choice. Many European Muslims have criticized Muslim extremism, such as the Islamic Commission of Spain, which issued a fatwa declaring Usama Bin Laden an apostate. No Muslim community in Europe is led by fundamentalists who want to reestablish the caliphate -- this position is held by a small minority, not by community leaders. (5) Most Muslims in Europe originate from countries where FGM ("female cutting" is a less incendiary term) is not practiced. Reports do suggest a rise in the rate of honor killings in the last few years, but this Boston Globe report sees this as an effect of Muslim Europeans' feelings of embattlement and isolation rather than as an imported "tribal custom."
Overall, Bawer's argument proceeds through distortion of fact, selective use of evidence, taking minority trends as representative of the whole community, and blaming the victim. While Europe Slept presents a picture of (white) Europeans intimidated and bloodied by violent Muslim youth, when in fact it is European Muslims who are most at risk, from racist attacks by extreme-right militants and the police, and increased racial profilings and community repression since 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings.
Where Bawer's argument connects with "liberal" discourse is in its concern with women's and gay rights. Bawer asserts that "some estimates suggest that 90 percent of European Muslim wives are physically abused" (59), and he is concerned that non-Muslim European are threatened by Muslim violence, particularly rape (55). But it is Muslim homophobia that really exercises him, as someone who left the US because of Christian fundamentalist intolerance for gays, only to find conditions were worse in Europe. "I wasn't fond of the hypocritical conservative-Christian line about hating the sin and loving the sinner," Bawer writes, "but it was preferable to the forthright fundamentalist Muslim view that homosexuals merited death" (33). And he quotes approvingly the statements of Pim Fortuyn, Holland's charismatic anti-immigrant and populist politician, assassinated in 2002: "What...would happen to same-sex marriage when fundamentalist Muslims gained enough power to eradicate it? Islamic countries not only prohibit gay marriage: they execute people for sodomy" (164-165). Bawer concludes the book by stating that Muslim intolerance is making life more dangerous for gays in Holland, and that this is prompting a desire among many Dutch to emigrate.
Certainly, women's and gay rights must be defended. What I want to underscore here, however, is the ways in which Bawer deploys stereotypes of Muslim intolerance of women's and gay rights to argue for a crackdown on Muslim immigrants (and citizens) and immigration writ large. Western discourse about defending women from sexist Muslim men, of course, has a long history, whereas the defense of gay rights against fundamentalist Muslims represents the embrace of a relatively new Western "tolerant" value. According to a report in the New York Times last October, "So strong is the fear that Dutch values of tolerance are under siege that the government last winter introduced a primer on those values for prospective newcomers to Dutch life: A DVD briefly showing topless women and two men kissing."
Increasingly, centrists and liberals across Europe are embracing the view that Muslim religious and cultural values are simply too conservative and fundamentalist, that they are incompatible with the "tolerant" European values that have taken hold since the 1960s and 1970s. Immigration, therefore, should be strictly limited or cut off altogether, and Muslims in Europe should be forced to "integrate."
Let's hope that the National Book Critics Circle has the good sense not to honor a book that propagates such arguments.
Friday, February 23, 2007
R.I.P. Mai Ghoussoub, 1952-2007
I was devastated when I learned earlier this week of the death of Mai Ghoussoub over the past weekend. I first met Mai in 1971, when we were both undergraduates at the American University of Beirut. We were both involved in left student politics at AUB, and both belonged to an independent left student organization called Our Struggle (Kifahuna) that published a mimeographed magazine by the same name. Mai was also the member of Lebanon's small but active Trotskyist movement at that time.
I lost touch with Mai after I left Beirut in January 1976, during the civil war, but I did hear from mutual friends that she had been wounded in the civil war. I also knew that she had co-founded Saqi Books in London, but although I was in London three times in the '80s, our paths never crossed. It wasn't until April 1999 that I met her again, when we both presented papers at a conference on Middle East Culture at Georgetown University, organized by Walter Armbrust. Since then, we stayed in touch, and I saw her in London in September '02 and July '03. I had a fabulous time with Mai the last time I saw her, when she took me to Momo's and its very exclusive downstairs Kemia bar. She liked to keep me informed about Beirut's cultural revival (I've not been back since January 1976), and it's thanks to her that I know about Beirut's jazz scene and groups like Soap Kills.
Mai was so generous, so creative, so vivacious and smart and fun. She worked very hard to make Saqi Books the first-rate publisher of Middle East (and other) books that it is today. She was a very fine writer--her Leaving Beirut: Women and the Wars Within is one of the best books I've read about Lebanon and the civil war, incredibly moving and lyrical. Mai was also an accomplished sculptor, playwright and actress. Her departure leaves a gaping hole.
Excellent obits/tributes can be found here and here and here.
And some examples of her writing:
"Lebanon: Slices of Life" (Oct. 31, 2006)
"Beirut and contradiction: reading the World Press Photo award" (Feb. 13, 2007)
Friday, February 16, 2007
The secret of Brazilian pop music?
From no less an authority than tropicalista giant Tom Zé, speaking to the New York Times (1/26/07) about the traditional folk music of Brazil's Northeast, which he says is the source of the "richness and strength of Brazilian popular music":
The compilation referred to is recently released 4-CD set drawn from an archive collected in the northeast by a folklore team in 1938.
Mr. Zé also noted that the music of the Brazilian northeast that came from Portugal was itself a result of cultural mixing, especially from the Arab domination there [Portugal] during the medieval era. The lyrics of some songs in the compilation [Musica Tradicional do Norte e Nordeste 1938] date back to troubadors' tales from that era, but the Arab presence manifested itself mainly in a vocal style characterized by a fondness for bent notes.
"That influence is still there in Brazilian popular music today," he said. "I hear it most clearly and beautifully when Caetano [Veloso] sings. He has developed a sophisticated, intensive way to use these modulations that were quite common in the singers we heard there in the backlands of the northeast."
The compilation referred to is recently released 4-CD set drawn from an archive collected in the northeast by a folklore team in 1938.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Hijab couture goes mainstream?
Check out this fashion item from the current London Fashion Week. The caption on Yahoo! News says, "A model wears an outfit by Fashion East designer Louise Golden during her catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Monday Feb. 12, 2007. The designers are showing their Autumn/ Winter 2007/8 collections. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)" (Thanks to Chris for bringing this to my attention.)
(Note that Muslim women have been wearing fashionable headgear for some time now--see for instance the items at HijabShop.com.)
Fox News carried a related article on February 6 by Catherine Donaldson entitled "Bye Bye, Hair! Hello, Turban Chic," which I initially discounted but now am inclined to take more seriously. Donaldson reports that designers like Prada, Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren, and chain stores like H&M are now offering turbans (Donaldson also calls them "full-on headscarves") for women, some as expensive as $700, and that they have been sported by Katie Holmes, Jennifer Lopez, Eva Mendes and Prince (at Superbowl half-time).
The "turban" hearkens back to '40s, '50s, and '60s fashion, when it was worn by the likes of Joan Crawford and Ava Gardner. Donaldson also notes that, "Some [observers] speculate that turbans are popping up on women because of India's increasing influence on Western pop culture and a growing post-Sept. 11 interest in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East." Sounds like more Orientalist confusion to me, a mash-up of the turban worn by Sikh men and the headscarves of pious Muslim women in Islamic cultures.
And here's a couple more strands noted by Donaldson: "the style has been adopted by hippie chicks on the one hand and women embracing their African roots on the other (think India.Arie and Erykah Badu)."
Fascinating that such style is showing up on London and Paris fashion catwalks (photo at left is a Prada turban at the Paris spring fashion show) when British politicians like Jack Straw, prominent Labor Party politician and Leader of the House of Commons are campaigning against veils worn by British Asian Muslim women. In early October 2006, Straw published a controversial article stating that he asked Muslim women constituents who visited his office for consultations to raise their veil, if they wore a niqab (a full veil with a slit for the eyes) so that he could see their eyes. The veil (i.e. niqab), he wrote, is a "visible statement of separation and difference." Both both PM Tony Blair and his presumed successor, Gordon Brown, chimed in to support Straw. Blair too has stated that the veil is a "mark of separation" and that it has made some "outside the community uncomfortable," while Gordon Brown said it would be "better for Britain" if fewer women wore veils. Brown also asserted that immigrants "should speak the language of English."
I don't read J-Lo, Katie Holmes', and Prada's embrace of the turban as indicating any kind of dissent from Labour politicians Straw, Blair and Brown. Erykah Badu, who comes out of a Nation of Gods and Earths background, is another matter, however. And then there is Cat Power's very intriguing use of hijabs in her video for "Living Proof."
Saturday, February 10, 2007
kufiyaspotting #14: New York Times (citing me)
This article appears tomorrow in the Sunday Times Style section. (I was originally told that it would appear in the Style section the Thursday after next, February 22, but that the editors liked the piece so much they decided to move it up to this Sunday.) It's a good article, and not only because it quotes me :). I'm not sure whether the red kufiya is associated today, in Palestine, with Hamas today, but that may be correct, for all I know. The red kufiya used to indicate either Jordanian or PFLP affiliation. Otherwise, this seems pretty much spot on, except that Rochelle Davis, who is also quoted is a "she," not a "he."
Addendum: Rochelle Davis informs me that the Hamas/red kufiya association is dead wrong. And my stepsister Cynthia notes with regret that the article gives the last word to fashionista Jay Hukahori. But Hukahori is dead wrong too--the kufiya is not "dead," even if its NYC fashion career may be played out.
New York Times, February 11, 2007
"Where Some See Fashion, Others See Politics"
By Kibum Kim
THREE months ago, Jay Hukahori, a 24-year-old fashion design student at Parsons, went to a party at Guesthouse, a club in Chelsea, in an outfit topped off by a kaffiyeh, a scarf with a black and white chain-link pattern and knotted tassels that is typically worn in Arab countries.
“I knew that with the doormen, it’d be easily identifiable as a hip accessory,” Ms. Hukahori said.
Once the trademark headwear of Yasir Arafat, and long associated with his Palestinian countrymen, the kaffiyeh has lately shown up on the shelves of adventurous boutiques in the United States and even mainstream retailers like Urban Outfitters.
Its newest wearers, who wrap it around the neck like a scarf, say they are less Fatah sympathizers than fashion party crashers. The kaffiyeh appears to be the dubious successor to last year’s Che Guevara T-shirts, a symbol denuded of any potent political associations by pop culture.
But not everyone finds it so simple a fashion statement. A blogger named Mobius, posting Jan. 16 on Jewschool, a Jewish blog that targets a young audience, blasted Urban Outfitters for selling kaffiyehs. Taking issue with the retailer’s decision to label the item an “anti-war woven scarf,” Mobius posted pictures of terrorists adorned in kaffiyehs.
The same day Urban Outfitters, which had offered the scarves in several color combinations for $20, pulled them from stores. Its Web site posted this explanation: “Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale. We apologize if we offended anyone, this was by no means our intention.” A spokeswoman for the store, which has 95 branches nationwide, declined to comment further.
Hanyi Lee, a graphic designer in New York, who had bought a kaffiyeh at Urban Outfitters and now owns three, didn’t intend anything provocative when she wore hers. “I didn’t think it was anything that heavy,” Ms. Lee said, noting that she takes fashion cues from a variety of cultures.
Ms. Hukahori thought it strange that Urban Outfitters would call the kaffiyeh (pronounced kuh-FEE-yeh) an antiwar scarf.
“That’s so cheap of Urban, a PR gambit,” she said. “But I think it’s great that this controversy will get kids to start learning about it.”
Clearly, many wearers have not considered the kaffiyeh’s political import. “I’m not too up to speed in what’s going on in the Middle East,” said Liz Chernett [pictured below--T.S.], a strategic consultant in branding and a youth trends expert who bought a kaffiyeh from a vendor on St. Mark’s Place three months ago. “It’s an aesthetic thing.”
Perhaps what is most telling about the mainstreaming of the kaffiyeh is what it says about the country’s political mood. The scarf’s popularity seems to have less to do with solidarity with Arabs than it has to do with the war in Iraq. Marketing it as an antiwar statement, as Urban Outfitters attempted, would probably have been even more controversial a few years ago, when the country was more divided about Iraq, said Ted Swedenburg, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, who blogs about pop culture, music and the Middle East.
In Britain, where voters are even more united against the war than Americans, the kaffiyeh’s fashionability has been taken a step farther. TopShop, the high-street juggernaut, is selling kaffiyehs stamped with skull prints, conflating two hot looks of the recent past.
Dr. Swedenburg said he thinks that the exotic element of the scarf becomes more important, and the political aspect less so, as it becomes mainstream. “It’s chic because it’s different,” he said. “It’s Eastern.”
According to Professor Swedenburg and others who have studied the history of the kaffiyeh, it was originally the headwear of Palestinian peasants, worn around the head and fastened in place by a band called an agal. In the insurrection against the British occupation from 1936 to 1939, the kaffiyeh became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism as well as an expression of class struggle. The insurgents forced upper-class Palestinians, who typically wore the Ottoman fez, to don the kaffiyeh to show sympathy with the fighters. The kaffiyeh rose in prominence again in the 1960s when the Palestinian resistance movement started and Arafat famously adopted it. “Above all, it’s important to remember a kaffiyeh is something to wear like a hat, to keep out the cold, keep out the sun,” said Rochelle Davis, an assistant professor of culture and society at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
But if an older generation of Arabs still wears it as utilitarian headwear, the younger generation in the Middle East may wear it expressly to show support of the Palestinian cause, and it is also used by militants to disguise their faces. The black and white kaffiyeh is often associated with Fatah; the red and white with Hamas.
Many in the Jewish community, in particular, object to people wearing the scarf as a fashion statement. “Because there are people who wear the kaffiyeh as a sign of solidarity with Palestinians, some people view it as an endorsement of terrorism,” said Mik Moore, chairman of the board of directors for the Jewish Student Press Service, an independent nonprofit organization.
Dr. Swedenburg doesn’t think it should be viewed this way. “I think to associate it directly with terrorism is to tar all Palestinians with the brush of terrorism,” he said. “That’s a mischaracterization.”
Dr. Davis shares this opinion. “I think it diminishes its meaning and its value to just say ‘it’s been used by terrorists,’ ” he said. “I think it has a much richer history and a much richer meaning system than that.”
For those with a long memory, the current kaffiyeh craze may seem familiar. The scarves became a fashion statement in the United States at the start of the first intifada in 1987. In 1988, CBS News and Time magazine chronicled the trend. In a 1992 Michigan Quarterly Review article about the kaffiyeh’s modern history, Dr. Swedenburg wrote about how a “sign of Palestinian struggle suddenly appeared in the ensembles of ‘downtown’ U.S.A., together with black turtlenecks, ripped Levi’s, high-top sneakers and eight-zippered black leather jackets.”
In its 2007 revival, the kaffiyeh has similar sidekicks. “It’s hipster 101: I need my skinny jeans, some sort of scarf and a beat up T-shirt,” Ms. Hukahori said. “O.K., I’m a hipster now.” [Hukahori is pictured below. The caption under this photo reads, "Jay Hukahori modeling hers. She says she doesn’t wear it anymore because she no longer thinks it’s fashionable."]
Whether the scarf is seen as a political statement is usually in the eye of the beholder. “I think the meaning is given to it as much by the viewer as the wearer,” Dr. Davis said. “I see it and immediately think, ‘Is that person wearing it for a reason or just as a fashion accessory?’ ”
Ms. Chernett has not encountered any reactions to her kaffiyeh in New York but she has in cities like Philadelphia.
“I’ve gotten a lot of comments about it, like, ‘Doesn’t that support terrorists?’ ” she said. “ ‘Aren’t you Jewish?’ ” (Ms. Chernett said she is half-Jewish.)
Ms. Hukahori doesn’t have to answer any such questions; she hasn’t worn her kaffiyeh in public in months. It would never make her stand out with a club doorman today, she feels. The kaffiyeh, she said, is “dead.”
Addendum: Rochelle Davis informs me that the Hamas/red kufiya association is dead wrong. And my stepsister Cynthia notes with regret that the article gives the last word to fashionista Jay Hukahori. But Hukahori is dead wrong too--the kufiya is not "dead," even if its NYC fashion career may be played out.
New York Times, February 11, 2007
"Where Some See Fashion, Others See Politics"
By Kibum Kim
THREE months ago, Jay Hukahori, a 24-year-old fashion design student at Parsons, went to a party at Guesthouse, a club in Chelsea, in an outfit topped off by a kaffiyeh, a scarf with a black and white chain-link pattern and knotted tassels that is typically worn in Arab countries.
“I knew that with the doormen, it’d be easily identifiable as a hip accessory,” Ms. Hukahori said.
Once the trademark headwear of Yasir Arafat, and long associated with his Palestinian countrymen, the kaffiyeh has lately shown up on the shelves of adventurous boutiques in the United States and even mainstream retailers like Urban Outfitters.
Its newest wearers, who wrap it around the neck like a scarf, say they are less Fatah sympathizers than fashion party crashers. The kaffiyeh appears to be the dubious successor to last year’s Che Guevara T-shirts, a symbol denuded of any potent political associations by pop culture.
But not everyone finds it so simple a fashion statement. A blogger named Mobius, posting Jan. 16 on Jewschool, a Jewish blog that targets a young audience, blasted Urban Outfitters for selling kaffiyehs. Taking issue with the retailer’s decision to label the item an “anti-war woven scarf,” Mobius posted pictures of terrorists adorned in kaffiyehs.
The same day Urban Outfitters, which had offered the scarves in several color combinations for $20, pulled them from stores. Its Web site posted this explanation: “Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale. We apologize if we offended anyone, this was by no means our intention.” A spokeswoman for the store, which has 95 branches nationwide, declined to comment further.
Hanyi Lee, a graphic designer in New York, who had bought a kaffiyeh at Urban Outfitters and now owns three, didn’t intend anything provocative when she wore hers. “I didn’t think it was anything that heavy,” Ms. Lee said, noting that she takes fashion cues from a variety of cultures.
Ms. Hukahori thought it strange that Urban Outfitters would call the kaffiyeh (pronounced kuh-FEE-yeh) an antiwar scarf.
“That’s so cheap of Urban, a PR gambit,” she said. “But I think it’s great that this controversy will get kids to start learning about it.”
Clearly, many wearers have not considered the kaffiyeh’s political import. “I’m not too up to speed in what’s going on in the Middle East,” said Liz Chernett [pictured below--T.S.], a strategic consultant in branding and a youth trends expert who bought a kaffiyeh from a vendor on St. Mark’s Place three months ago. “It’s an aesthetic thing.”
Perhaps what is most telling about the mainstreaming of the kaffiyeh is what it says about the country’s political mood. The scarf’s popularity seems to have less to do with solidarity with Arabs than it has to do with the war in Iraq. Marketing it as an antiwar statement, as Urban Outfitters attempted, would probably have been even more controversial a few years ago, when the country was more divided about Iraq, said Ted Swedenburg, a professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, who blogs about pop culture, music and the Middle East.
In Britain, where voters are even more united against the war than Americans, the kaffiyeh’s fashionability has been taken a step farther. TopShop, the high-street juggernaut, is selling kaffiyehs stamped with skull prints, conflating two hot looks of the recent past.
Dr. Swedenburg said he thinks that the exotic element of the scarf becomes more important, and the political aspect less so, as it becomes mainstream. “It’s chic because it’s different,” he said. “It’s Eastern.”
According to Professor Swedenburg and others who have studied the history of the kaffiyeh, it was originally the headwear of Palestinian peasants, worn around the head and fastened in place by a band called an agal. In the insurrection against the British occupation from 1936 to 1939, the kaffiyeh became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism as well as an expression of class struggle. The insurgents forced upper-class Palestinians, who typically wore the Ottoman fez, to don the kaffiyeh to show sympathy with the fighters. The kaffiyeh rose in prominence again in the 1960s when the Palestinian resistance movement started and Arafat famously adopted it. “Above all, it’s important to remember a kaffiyeh is something to wear like a hat, to keep out the cold, keep out the sun,” said Rochelle Davis, an assistant professor of culture and society at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
But if an older generation of Arabs still wears it as utilitarian headwear, the younger generation in the Middle East may wear it expressly to show support of the Palestinian cause, and it is also used by militants to disguise their faces. The black and white kaffiyeh is often associated with Fatah; the red and white with Hamas.
Many in the Jewish community, in particular, object to people wearing the scarf as a fashion statement. “Because there are people who wear the kaffiyeh as a sign of solidarity with Palestinians, some people view it as an endorsement of terrorism,” said Mik Moore, chairman of the board of directors for the Jewish Student Press Service, an independent nonprofit organization.
Dr. Swedenburg doesn’t think it should be viewed this way. “I think to associate it directly with terrorism is to tar all Palestinians with the brush of terrorism,” he said. “That’s a mischaracterization.”
Dr. Davis shares this opinion. “I think it diminishes its meaning and its value to just say ‘it’s been used by terrorists,’ ” he said. “I think it has a much richer history and a much richer meaning system than that.”
For those with a long memory, the current kaffiyeh craze may seem familiar. The scarves became a fashion statement in the United States at the start of the first intifada in 1987. In 1988, CBS News and Time magazine chronicled the trend. In a 1992 Michigan Quarterly Review article about the kaffiyeh’s modern history, Dr. Swedenburg wrote about how a “sign of Palestinian struggle suddenly appeared in the ensembles of ‘downtown’ U.S.A., together with black turtlenecks, ripped Levi’s, high-top sneakers and eight-zippered black leather jackets.”
In its 2007 revival, the kaffiyeh has similar sidekicks. “It’s hipster 101: I need my skinny jeans, some sort of scarf and a beat up T-shirt,” Ms. Hukahori said. “O.K., I’m a hipster now.” [Hukahori is pictured below. The caption under this photo reads, "Jay Hukahori modeling hers. She says she doesn’t wear it anymore because she no longer thinks it’s fashionable."]
Whether the scarf is seen as a political statement is usually in the eye of the beholder. “I think the meaning is given to it as much by the viewer as the wearer,” Dr. Davis said. “I see it and immediately think, ‘Is that person wearing it for a reason or just as a fashion accessory?’ ”
Ms. Chernett has not encountered any reactions to her kaffiyeh in New York but she has in cities like Philadelphia.
“I’ve gotten a lot of comments about it, like, ‘Doesn’t that support terrorists?’ ” she said. “ ‘Aren’t you Jewish?’ ” (Ms. Chernett said she is half-Jewish.)
Ms. Hukahori doesn’t have to answer any such questions; she hasn’t worn her kaffiyeh in public in months. It would never make her stand out with a club doorman today, she feels. The kaffiyeh, she said, is “dead.”
Thursday, February 01, 2007
backgrounders on Lebanon
Two excellent articles recently published, Jim Quilty's "Winter of Lebanon's Discontent," from Middle East Report Online, and Mohamad Bazzi's "Blowback in Lebanon," from The Nation. Both discuss the "blowback" effect of Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in Iraq on conditions in Lebanon. (Quilty, for the record, is a recovering Razorback.)
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
kufiyaspotting #13: Everlast
Rap artist Everlast, ex-House of Pain, and then a solo artist (most well-known for Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, 1998), is now in a rap (would-be) super-group called La Coka Nostra (boy, not a clever name, eh?). Other members of the La Coka Nostra posse: Danny Boy, DJ Lethal, DJ Muggs.
No surprise, really, to find Everlast sporting a kufiya--he converted to Islam in the late '90s. On his Grammy award-winning song "Put Your Lights On", recorded with Santana in 1999, he sings "La ilaha illa Allah." Everlast appears on the anti-war protest song "Dear Mr. President," from LA rap producer Fredwreck (Farid Nassar). (Thanks, Dave!)
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Jerusalem Post on Urban Outfitters Disappearing Kufiyas
(Thanks to Joan for this.)
"US chain pulls 'anti-war' keffiyehs"
Michal Lando, Jerusalem Post correspondent, The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 19, 2007
Urban Outfitters, a popular American clothing store, on Thursday halted sales of a range of keffiyehs, the traditional Arab headdress, which it had been marketing this month as fashionable "anti-war woven scarves."
The firm's CEO, Dick Heyne, e-mailed a pro-Israel activist who had complained about the items earlier this week to stress that the company had not intended "to imply any sympathy for or support of terrorists or terrorism" in selling the keffiyehs and was pulling them.
The scarves, also sold on-line, were priced at $20 in several different color combinations as part of Urban Outfitters' Spring Fashion women's accessories range. "Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale," a notice on the Web site stated. "We apologize if we offended anyone, this was by no means our intention."
A manager at an Urban Outfitters on 6th Avenue in New York City close to the West Village, who wished to remain anonymous, said the item had been the "number one selling scarf."
The keffiyeh has bounced in and out of American and European fashion trends since roughly the 80s, when women draped them from their necks. But in the last few years the headdress, mostly associated by Americans with the Palestinians and especially the late Yasser Arafat, has reached a height of popularity. An article in the Los Angeles Times titled "'Terrorist Chic' and Beyond," published in April, 2006, featured the keffiyeh as the ultimate in fashionable military gear seen as chic in hip circles across America and Europe.
Many young Americans and Europeans, especially on college campuses, wear the headdress around their necks as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinians. Increasingly, too, it has become a symbol of resistance in general, invariably featuring at anti-war rallies. It is also widely worn in many cities.
"I just found it amusing that the keffiyeh as a fashion item has become so ubiquitous that it is being sold at a store known for producing the trendiest items," said Daniel 'Mobius' Sieradski, a contributor to Jewschool, a popular Jewish blog. "It's amusing because on one level the Palestinian cause has become very popular, but as it gains popularity it gets watered down."
Jews and Muslims alike had been quick to respond to the Urban Outfitters "anti-war scarves" through their respective blogs with skepticism, anger and amusement.
Earlier this week, Sieradski posted an entry on Jewschool entitled "Strangely familiar 'Anti-War Scarves' now at URBN near you!" where he mocks the selling of keffiyehs as a fashion accessory: "Well, the keffiyeh just got 10 times more passe and 10 times more trivialized, thanks to Urban Outfitters (proprietors of the once famed money grubbing Jew T-shirts) who are now selling a variety of different colored keffiyehs as - get this - anti-war scarves."
(The T-shirt reference was to the company's sale last year of shirts, playing into the Jewish American Princess stereotype, that read "Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl" and featured sketches of shopping bags and dollar signs. At the time, the Anti-Defamation League protested and the designs were changed.)
Last week, Kabobfest, an online forum for Arab-Americans, posted this entry about the UO keffiyehs: "With a great deal of discomfort and a tad bit of pissed-off-ness, I regret to (re)inform the KABOB-o-sphere that Palestine has officially become a trend…That's right folks, for a mere $20.00 (or 75.0127 Saudi Riyal) you too can jump on the socially stupid hipster-doofus bandwagon by rocking your very own "Anti-War Woven Scarf!" (available only at Urban Outfitters… or..err..uh… the Middle East)."
Another blogger, who writes under the name Moi, pointed to another item inspired by the keffiyeh labeled "Damsel Batik Fine Rib Henley" being sold for $28.00 that closely resembles the pattern of the Arab headdress.
Complaints from at least one Jewish organization may have played a part in Urban Outfitters' decision to pull the scarves from their stores.
On Monday, Stand With Us, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, sent letters of complaint to members of the board of directors of Urban Outfitters as well as to company stockholders, with photos of Hamas wearing the keffiyeh and performing a Nazi salute.
"It seems odd that something that has been so publicized as a scarf used by terrorists would be picked up as an anti-war scarf," said Allyson Rowen Taylor, associate director of Stand With Us, who told The Jerusalem Post she spoke on behalf of herself, not the organization. "I don't think it's an innocent choice. It's either pure ignorance or someone in the buying department with a political agenda against Israel and Jews."
Urban Outfitters' CEO Hayne responded to Taylor with an e-mail that said: "I had not seen the scarf to which you refer but be assured that no one in our organization intended to imply any sympathy for or support of terrorists or terrorism. I have been told that the item in question is being removed from sale. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."
"US chain pulls 'anti-war' keffiyehs"
Michal Lando, Jerusalem Post correspondent, The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 19, 2007
Urban Outfitters, a popular American clothing store, on Thursday halted sales of a range of keffiyehs, the traditional Arab headdress, which it had been marketing this month as fashionable "anti-war woven scarves."
The firm's CEO, Dick Heyne, e-mailed a pro-Israel activist who had complained about the items earlier this week to stress that the company had not intended "to imply any sympathy for or support of terrorists or terrorism" in selling the keffiyehs and was pulling them.
The scarves, also sold on-line, were priced at $20 in several different color combinations as part of Urban Outfitters' Spring Fashion women's accessories range. "Due to the sensitive nature of this item, we will no longer offer it for sale," a notice on the Web site stated. "We apologize if we offended anyone, this was by no means our intention."
A manager at an Urban Outfitters on 6th Avenue in New York City close to the West Village, who wished to remain anonymous, said the item had been the "number one selling scarf."
The keffiyeh has bounced in and out of American and European fashion trends since roughly the 80s, when women draped them from their necks. But in the last few years the headdress, mostly associated by Americans with the Palestinians and especially the late Yasser Arafat, has reached a height of popularity. An article in the Los Angeles Times titled "'Terrorist Chic' and Beyond," published in April, 2006, featured the keffiyeh as the ultimate in fashionable military gear seen as chic in hip circles across America and Europe.
Many young Americans and Europeans, especially on college campuses, wear the headdress around their necks as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinians. Increasingly, too, it has become a symbol of resistance in general, invariably featuring at anti-war rallies. It is also widely worn in many cities.
"I just found it amusing that the keffiyeh as a fashion item has become so ubiquitous that it is being sold at a store known for producing the trendiest items," said Daniel 'Mobius' Sieradski, a contributor to Jewschool, a popular Jewish blog. "It's amusing because on one level the Palestinian cause has become very popular, but as it gains popularity it gets watered down."
Jews and Muslims alike had been quick to respond to the Urban Outfitters "anti-war scarves" through their respective blogs with skepticism, anger and amusement.
Earlier this week, Sieradski posted an entry on Jewschool entitled "Strangely familiar 'Anti-War Scarves' now at URBN near you!" where he mocks the selling of keffiyehs as a fashion accessory: "Well, the keffiyeh just got 10 times more passe and 10 times more trivialized, thanks to Urban Outfitters (proprietors of the once famed money grubbing Jew T-shirts) who are now selling a variety of different colored keffiyehs as - get this - anti-war scarves."
(The T-shirt reference was to the company's sale last year of shirts, playing into the Jewish American Princess stereotype, that read "Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl" and featured sketches of shopping bags and dollar signs. At the time, the Anti-Defamation League protested and the designs were changed.)
Last week, Kabobfest, an online forum for Arab-Americans, posted this entry about the UO keffiyehs: "With a great deal of discomfort and a tad bit of pissed-off-ness, I regret to (re)inform the KABOB-o-sphere that Palestine has officially become a trend…That's right folks, for a mere $20.00 (or 75.0127 Saudi Riyal) you too can jump on the socially stupid hipster-doofus bandwagon by rocking your very own "Anti-War Woven Scarf!" (available only at Urban Outfitters… or..err..uh… the Middle East)."
Another blogger, who writes under the name Moi, pointed to another item inspired by the keffiyeh labeled "Damsel Batik Fine Rib Henley" being sold for $28.00 that closely resembles the pattern of the Arab headdress.
Complaints from at least one Jewish organization may have played a part in Urban Outfitters' decision to pull the scarves from their stores.
On Monday, Stand With Us, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, sent letters of complaint to members of the board of directors of Urban Outfitters as well as to company stockholders, with photos of Hamas wearing the keffiyeh and performing a Nazi salute.
"It seems odd that something that has been so publicized as a scarf used by terrorists would be picked up as an anti-war scarf," said Allyson Rowen Taylor, associate director of Stand With Us, who told The Jerusalem Post she spoke on behalf of herself, not the organization. "I don't think it's an innocent choice. It's either pure ignorance or someone in the buying department with a political agenda against Israel and Jews."
Urban Outfitters' CEO Hayne responded to Taylor with an e-mail that said: "I had not seen the scarf to which you refer but be assured that no one in our organization intended to imply any sympathy for or support of terrorists or terrorism. I have been told that the item in question is being removed from sale. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Disappearing Kufiyas: Urban Outfitters Discontinues its "Antiwar Woven Scarf"
Protests, apparently, have resulted in Urban Outfitters decision to discontinue marketing kufiyas in its early spring catalog (see post below). The formerly featured item has disappeared completely, the only trace an apology from UO to anyone who might have been offended by it. The action is reported by Philip Weiss, who implies that people like Abe Foxman of the ADL might be responsible for the protests.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Kufiyaspotting #12: Urban Outfitters Markets Kufiya as "Anti-War Woven Scarf"
Urban Outfitters' "early spring catalogue is now online, and the featured item in Men's Accessories is the (Palestinian) kufiya, marketed as an "anti-war woven scarf" (thanks, Hisham).
If you click on the photo of the male model, you will find the kufiya (only $20), in the classic mode, checkered black-and-white, but also available in red, turqoise (my fave), and brown.
It's remarkable that "anti-war" is now so mainstream that Urban Outfitters feels comfortable using it as a marketing tool. By contrast, back in the late '80s, the Banana Republic catalogue carried an item called the "Israeli Paratroopers Bag." It's also remarkable that despite even though the Palestinians, since the onset of the al-Aqsa Intifada, have been indelibly re-associated with terrorism and suicide bombings, the Palestinian kufiya remains so deeply rooted in hipster clothing style and the outfits of oppositional movements that it remains hip/commercial/"resistive" symbol. Something on the order of Che Guevara t-shirts, full of contradictions, capable of making money, yet still giving off the whiff of danger. Probably it's the hint of danger and the exoticism that, combined, (still) makes the kufiya marketable.
I'd hate, of course, to see wearing the "anti-war scarf" as accessory substitute for actual activism against the war/occupation. (And my friend Joel Gordon reminds me: the kufiya "originally" symbolizes resistance, and in fact, armed resistance (the Palestinian revolt of 1936-39, the fedayeen of the sixties and seventies), not "anti-war."
No doubt this is also related to the "hipness" of things Islamic today; an article by Jill Hamburg Coplan will soon appear in New York magazine, and I'll comment on it when it comes out.
I wrote an article on the kufiya as style back in 1992, in an article in Michigan Quarterly Review, and I discuss its uses, in Palestine and the US, in my book, Memories of Revolt. I've also been attempting to document various "sitings" of the kufiya in this blog.
Tags: Palestine, kufiya
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Update: Tali Fahima freed
After two years in prison, Tali Fahima, an Israeli Jew of Algerian origin, is, essentially, found innocent of the charges of supporting terrorism. (As part of a plea bargain agreement, she plead guilty to the charge of meeting "enemy agents," but all the serious charges were dropped.) Fahima was the target of massive vilification in the Israeli press, called a "terrorist whore." See my earlier post here.
Update 2: More coverage of Tali Fahima, from the Observer and the Guardian.
"My first crime was that I refused to work with Shin Bet, the second was that I insisted on going to see the Palestinians and the third was that I protested against the Israeli policy of assassination," Ms Fahima told the Guardian in her first interview since her release.
Tags: Israel, terrorism
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Fayetteville Vigil: in commemoration of the dead in Iraq
Yesterday, January 2, the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology organized a vigil to remember the now 3000+ US soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq and the half million or so Iraqis who have died since March 2003. About 40-50 people attended, holding candles and dressed in black as a sign of mourning. (Not, as some kid yelled out of the window at those assembled, to look "cool" and "kinda gothic.") The vigil received front page coverage in today's Northwest Arkansas Times. The group assembled in front of the Federal Building, on College Ave., a major thoroughfare, from 4:30-6:30, and so lots of people driving by saw the event. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and I saw no, zero, negative responses from drivers to our posters and the peace signs we waved. This is an extremely unpopular war--but how to get more people actively mobilized, and how to pressure the Democratic-controlled Congress to stop funding the war?
Tags: Iraq, war, protest, peace
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