The liberating catwalk

Last week was ‘Fashion Week’ here in New Zealand, where both emerging and established designers show off their ‘creation’ on long impressive catwalks; a moment of ego basking in the glory of all of New Zealand’s fashionistas. Not surprisingly, I hadn’t taken much notice of this ridiculous display of unnecessary expenses; shamelessly paraded before its admiring audience, until I was notified to check out an article in our national paper on one designer in particular.  This designer was new to the industry and claimed she was ‘inspired’ by Afghan culture. I groaned upon reading this, knowing what it really meant.  To my utter disgust, the article came with images of models wearing traditional Afghani clothing walking down the catwalk. I was furious. Not because I could not be part of this oh-so momentous and proud moment of Afghan ‘triumph’—which I’m sure many would deem it such. On the contrary, it was yet another horrendous appropriation of a culture for the benefit of the fashion industry. Like the appropriation of the Palestinian symbol of self-determination and cultural identity, the keffiyeh–  worn from Hollywood celebrities to their tragic 14 year old mimics–  this designer has taken upon herself to do the same; to appropriate Afghan culture and make it more ‘fashion friendly’, repackaged, and easily consumable.

It became clear from the images I saw, the exoticisiation of Afghan culture was the dominant image– with models wearing brightly coloured, extravagant clothing, on display like ornaments in a museum. The implication here is, this disconnects Afghans from the broader daily world and marginalizes them as exotic Others wearing ‘costumes’ (as oppose to clothes in the West), existing to quench the insatiable Western desire to look, and ready to ‘inspire’ and serve Western political and artistic needs. Afghan culture, which is in reality, rich and complex, is reduced to orientalist caricatures. Essentially, these ‘exotic’ traditional dresses (as well as the burqa) summarises everything the Westerner needs to know about Afghan culture and its people.

But there’s more. The show itself began with a model removing a burqa before she strutted boldly down the catwalk in her skimpy outfit.  The burqa here is immediately presented in classic orientalist terms: oppressive and inhibiting. Chandra Mohanty observes how the ‘third world woman’ is produced in all of her stereotypical glory often using such orientalist iconography, in order to maintain the discursive contrasting representation of Western women being liberated and advanced. The burqa here is used to produce the Islamic otherness—the silent Afghan woman, who lacks agency and lives a life of subordination. Grotesque media images of women in burqa, stoned or shot to death under the brutal Taliban regime are invoked. As Judith Butler has described, the burqa is seen as not human. By removing the burqa, she is unveiling the Afghan woman to mark her ‘liberation’. This gesture reflects the neo-colonial sentiment to ‘humanise’ (Westernise) the Islamic other, so she becomes like her ‘liberated’ Western sister.

These neo-colonialist frameworks produce what the Western capitalist gaze deems as the ‘norm’ of how a woman should present herself: Like her Western sister, she must paint her face, wear the latest fashion attire– buying into the Western signifiers of what it is to be woman. In other words, to display the female body for all to see, freed for manipulation for the new capitalist economy. The Afghan woman, upon removing the burqa, is then convincing her audience she is participating in the consumer market, just like the rest. To make the female body more accessible to the market, ready to dissect her and repackage her in accordance with the markets. French philosopher and activist Alain Badiou highlights this crushing objectification of Western women, when he states she “must show what she’s got to sell. She’s got to show her goods. She’s got to indicate that, henceforth, the circulation of women abides by the generalized model, and not by restricted exchange”. And continues “Whoever covers up what she puts on the market is not a loyal merchant”.

Through her participation in the consumer market, the Afghan (Muslim) woman is proving she is a ‘loyal merchant’, and is therefore feminised– as opposed to the non-person in the burqa.  Using such reductive imagery, the East is stereotypically produced for Western consumption.  Conveniently, the wars raging in Afghanistan and Iraq are legitimised and rationalised to the Western audience, the only audience.  The atrocities of the coalition and American presence in Iraq become justified, all for a ‘good’ cause. Imbued with these ideas of emancipation through the removal of the burqa on stage, the Western consumer observer is thus persuaded that this fashion production is part of a philanthropic mission. That even the fashion industry is doing their bit!

-Sahar

Women attending the Mosque

Ramadan is an amazing time for me and my family, like it would be for all Muslims. It’s an opportunity for spiritual growth and to strengthen your faith through fast. However, it can also be a time of tension and quarreling, especially in my family.  In particular, it is the issue of women attending the Mosque for tarawe and general prayer that usually instigates heated debate.

Although I don’t usually pray at the mosque myself,  I often get angry, frustrated and disappointed at the argument many of the male members of my family use as a justification as to why a woman should not pray at the Mosque. The issue was raised again this week, in light of a particular incident that occurred at our local Mosque. I won’t go into detail as to what occurred, but certain ‘inappropriate’ behavior between two young kids (chatting in private *gasp*) has led the male leadership to ‘reconsider’ ‘women attending tarawe prayer. When there are any shortcomings in the community, let’s punish the women shall we? Furthermore, don’t you just love the arrogant assumption that women need permission to actually go to a place of worship? So who will be making this decision? Well, funny you should ask. That would be the Mosque committee with an all male membership. Convenient isn’t it? So these men will decide whether half the local Muslim community will be ‘allowed’ to worship their creator at a place where both men and women have worshipped since the advent of Islam.

It astounds and disturbs me the amount of men I’ve met who believe that women should actually not pray at the Mosque. Some even get quite hostile about it, and I’m sure many women reading this would have at some stage experienced this, while others actually turned away. So what does the Qu’ran and Hadiths have to say about this? To put it simply, preventing women from attending the Mosque is turning away from the Sunnah. The Prophet did no such thing. Ibn Omar reported: The Messenger of God said, “Do not prevent the maid-servants of God from going to the mosque.”(Muslim, No.888) The right of individuals to worship in the mosque is also stated in the Qur’an, “Hence, who could be more wicked than those who bar (people) from the God’s houses of worship wherein He is remembered… (2:114).

Those who object to women’s attendance rely on the hadith attributed to A’ishah who is quoted to have said, sometime after the Prophet’s death: “If the Messenger of God had seen what new things the women have introduced (in their way of life) he would have definitely prevented them from going to the mosque, as the women of Bani Israel were prevented.”(Muslim, No. 895) However, many scholars have pointed how there is no evidence that this Hadith can be attributed to A’ishah. Nor does it change the fact that the Prophet did not prevent women even– when he acknowledged some men disapproved.  Many men i’ve met have explained that it creates ‘fitnah’ and unnecessary distractions at a place where men should be focused on worship. I find this quite amusing because it implies that elsewhere, it is permissible and legitimate to behave inappropriately with women.  In other words, proper Islamic conduct is limited to the Mosque alone!  Is it too outrageous a thought to actually show proper conduct both outside and inside the Mosque, which is what is expected of Muslims wherever they are? Are men that incapable of controlling themselves that they cannot be around women? How do they act with women at work? At university? At their local park?  Should women just disappear because that is the only way men will be able to act in accordance with what is expected of them?  If so, then we, as a community, have bigger fish to fry than Mosque attendance.

The Mosque has historically been a central place of congregation for Muslims; in order for them to strengthen their bond with one another, to learn from one another, and especially in the West—to preserve their Muslim identity and faith. It is a symbol of Islam’s universalism and emphasis on community (ummah). The purpose of the Mosque therefore makes it worthwhile for both men and women to attend, and importantly, to feel welcomed, unless the definition of ‘ummah’ has undergone some changes I don’t know about.

-Sahar

Kill the Poor

In capitalist ideology poverty is thought of as an ethnic trait rather than social or economic. For instance, the disgusting term “welfare queens” is always associated with African-American single mothers. And what about Katrina? Remember how people were accusing the power elites for using Katrina as a cover to get rid of the poor? Perhaps they were on to something there.

The desire to eliminate poverty is one of the fundamental fantasies of capitalism. This desire, however, inevitably becomes the desire to get rid of the poor. Naturally, this desire is also disingenuous because the poor cannot be eliminated or gotten rid of. This, of course, can never be admitted. To do so would be to give up the fantasy of creating an utopia of a capitalism beyond capitalism where today’s underclass ‘exceptions’ – the homeless, the ghettoized, the permanently underemployed – doesn’t exist. So the poor are airbrushed out of the picture or carefully tucked away in sweatshops, hidden from the law and public. Well, at least they used to be.

This photo is from the August 2008 issue of Indian Vogue. The man, toothless and barefooted, is holding a Burberry umbrella worth $200 (it’s just an umbrella for fuck’s sake!). Other photos in the series are of similar nature. They are shamelessly made to display how unbelievably exploited they are. There’s an added bonus, too. Nameless and poor means way cheaper than hiring Kate Moss. Also, ever notice how big fashion magazines lavishly use backdrops from ‘exotic’ third world countries? Nearly always a typically white model is seen wearing ridiculously expensive clothing while the poor ‘natives’ are strategically posed in the best angle possible to capture a gorgeous picture that will be viewed by an audience who also tucks away their Mexican or Filipino maids in abusive households. It’s all there, the blatant exploitation, for all to see. There is no shame. None whatsoever. Not particularly useful to capitalism, you see. And the fact that these photos do not conform to the usual practice of airbrushing is precisely why they are shocking. The message is clear: these people are genetically destined to fail, so might as well squeeze whatever we can get out of them. Or in the case of Africa and Iraq, kill them off. Literally kill.

In 1968, environmentalist Dr. Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, which sold about 20 million copies and greatly influenced policy makers. According to him immediate radical action was required to deal with the problem of global overpopulation.

Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide. We must have population control at home, hopefully through a system of incentives and penalties, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail. We can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out.

He goes on to say that compulsory birth control could be imposed by governments by means of “temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food”.

Any moral human being would be horrified by these methods of depopulation advocated by Ehrlich. But not the US government.

In December 1974, the US National Security Council completed a classified 200 page study called “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM)”. This study explained that the US needed to control populations in third world countries in order to maintain access to certain resources:

The location of known reserves of higher-grade ores of most minerals favors increasing dependence of all industrialized regions on imports from less-developed countries. The US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less-developed countries. That fact gives the US enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.

In 1988 the Pentagon released a report entitled “Global Demographic Trends to the Year 2010: Implications for US Security” which stressed that “population planning be given the status of weapons development”.

Another report reprinted in the 1991 edition of Foreign Affairs as “Population Change and National Security,” warned that current population trends could create an “international environment even more menacing to the security prospects of the Western alliance than was the Cold War for the past generation”.

Faced with global population growth posing as a national security threat, the US government decided that the only viable solution was forced depopulation- in other words, genocide.

So AIDS was introduced to Africa. The cure, they were told, was sex with a virgin. Thousands of women, infants and little girls are raped as a result of deliberate misinformation. And throughout Africa, in war zones, nursing mothers had their breasts cut off and pregnant women had their abdomen cut open, the fetuses yanked out and kicked like footballs before slaughtering them. The idea was that without women and children, a certain race will cease to be. This is still common practice today in places like Darfur.

Similarly, the genocide unfolding before our eyes in Iraq has been carefully engineered for years. Between 1991 and 1998, half a million Iraqi children under the age of five died as a result of the sanctions. If the years between 1999-2003 are included in, the number would likely be closer to 1 million. Also, since the 2003 invasion, the US hasn’t done much to rebuild Iraq’s civilian infrastructure. In July 2004, the White House released a report stating that the US government has spent only 2% of an $18.4 billion aid package that Congress approved in October 2003! Even then nothing from the package has been spent on health care, sanitation, human rights, education, construction and water projects. And lets not forget the the effects of DU munitions, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Essentially the US has eliminated Iraqis from the healthy human gene pool. Gives a whole different meaning to genetically destined to fail, doesn’t it?

-F

Veiled Imagery

The other day I was at Borders, in the Middle East section, which was interestingly, adjacent to the religion section. I was doing what I normally do, looking for a good read while waiting for someone–of course, never to buy the ridiculously expensive books they have to offer. I picked up a book called ‘Princess Sultana’s Daughters’ which had a cover of a woman wearing a niqab and staring out with distressing eyes. Now I’ve come across this type of book before, a supposed insight into the corrupt and oppressive Saudi royal family. However, I noticed other books nearby, all with the same type of imagery: a veiled woman, enveloped in a dark background; her eyes a deep ocean of misery.

Some people might think this is a slight overreaction. So what if there were veiled women on the cover of a couple of books? In fact, in my utter disgust, I actually counted the books. From only two shelves I counted 11 books, all with an image of a veiled woman. Titles like “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia’ and ‘Nine Parts: The Hidden World of Islamic Women” accompanied what I can’t help but call these grotesque images.

What leads me to call such images grotesque is the orientalist ideology that produces what they really are: distortions and stereotypes of an entire region and its people. With every book I picked up, she stares back at me: the orientalist exotic ‘Other’, silent, veiled and miserable.

The image of the veiled women has not been reconfigured too much in today’s Western discourse. The orientalist expectation of the oppressed, silent veiled woman continues today—only with a slight twist, she now is at times is deployed also to embody Western perceptions of an ‘Islamic threat ‘. These mass produced books and stereotypical images are an ideological weapon, to counter the so called ‘Islamic threat’, if not within the West, then abroad. Repeatedly the veiled woman, her eyes just visible through a slit, is selected as the symbol or signifier for the ‘Muslim enemy’. Two meanings are deduced from such imagery: Patriarchal oppression and the hidden sinister fundamentalist presence, lurking behind the figure of the woman who manipulates her. However, it is the patriarchal oppression that is depicted the most. In the past, it was paintings, photographs and literature of the ‘orient’, that produced the static orientalist female Other. Today, she exists not only in Western literature but in media, where she embodies every negative association that one has of Islam: the harem, polygamy, restricted sexuality, segregation, domesticity, and the overall irrationalism of Islam. She therefore is doubly marginalised: as a woman and as the subaltern Other who is the subsidiary inferior.

The veiled woman signifies these so-called ‘normative’ experiences and emphasises the ‘inferiority’ and ‘alien’ qualities of Islam and Muslims. The implication here being these women are the archetypical representatives of the Middle East and Muslim world. The power of such images legitimised empire in the past because it managed to construct a monolithic ‘orient’, reduced to an unchallenged and manageable stereotype which ensured the European ‘civilising mission’. Today, it also legitimises the modern imperialist project: The resource wars raging in the region, in the guise of ‘democratisation’ –a modern equivalent of the colonial civilizing mission (we see this in Afghanistan for instance); Western hegemony, and the marginalization and containment of Muslims living in the West, especially in the ‘post-911’ period.

So what is innocently depicted as the ‘oppressed’ women of the Muslim world in these books, are in fact political strategies to reinforce racist essentialised imagery of Islam which reduce the complexities of a heterogeneous world to euro-centric constructions. This perverted logic states all ‘Islamic’ (note: Not ‘Muslim’, because everything that is produced from these societies is Islamic, including its women) women are veiled, oppressed, obedient, silenced and living a truncated life. Conveniently, it can be deduced, she is waiting to be liberated.

-Sahar