Eid Mubarak!

May Allah accept all our good deeds, prayers and our fasts.

Have a good Eid everyone!

The Permission to Narrate

Sahar

Feminists Naomi Wolf and Philis Chesler have recently been debating the topic of the ‘veil’ and Muslim women. It’s become somewhat of a heated debate with both sides claiming they have a better insight into the lives of Muslim women. This audacious insight of course does not actually rely on actual engagement with Muslim women, nor the participation of Muslim women in this debate– aside from brief references that are then interpreted and made to make sense through the position of both women.

Just a brief overview of the debate first:  Wolf’s experience in Morocco led her to make the following claim that Muslim women are not necessarily restricted by their religious attire (chador and headscarf) and in fact feel liberated, especially sexually. From these observations, Wolf calls for a more nuanced approach in understanding women’s freedom. Chesler has responded with the charge that Wolf is legitimizing oppressive practices and responds with outrageous statements that conclude with the following: Muslim women are oppressed in Islamic attire, they lack agency, and the Western approach to liberation is more fitting.

What interested me was the assumption of these women to debate the issue of the hijab (whatever forms of it) and the experiences of Muslim women without involving a practicing Muslim woman who observes the hijab or at least be a part of the community and faith that practices it,  and thus be more qualified on the subject.

Wolf attempts to recognise the opinions of Moroccan women and speaks on their experiences, but her own understanding of Islam, Muslim women or even the subject of Muslim dress seems to be too difficult for her when she confuses Pakistani dress (‘shalwar kameez’) with Moroccan Islamic dress which can come in the form of niqaab, abaya, jilbaba or just modestly dressed in loose pants/skirt/top and a headscarf.  So Wolf not only ignores the differences in cultural dress—for the Muslim world is just one monolithic entity anyway– these differences don’t really exist and can all fall under the category of ‘traditional dress’ conveniently juxtaposed against Western ‘modern dress’. By wearing any traditional Muslim dress (‘shalwar kazmeez’), Wolf thinks she has direct access to the experiences of Muslim women. Dress therefore becomes the embodiment of Muslim women’s lives, and a way to access their world.

As for Chesler, she too does not have much credibility (not that she does in the first place considering her inane islamophobic and racist views on Palestinians and Muslims as a whole) when she declares that ‘most’ Muslim girls and women are not given a choice in wearing any Islamic dress.  She supports her claims by shamelessly citing two women (Hirsi Ali and Nouri Darwish) who have publicly renounced Islam and have built their careers on feeding Islamophobic hysteria in the West.  So Muslim women are spoken for either through an Islamophobic feminist or apostates who work for right-wing American think tanks bent on demonizing Muslims and Islam.

Putting these absurdities aside, I also find it telling how the debate treats Muslim women as objects in an exhibition, as spectacles, who function as objects to be analysed, observed, dissected, commented and repackaged to be easily consumed by a Western audience. Muslim women’s voices are only heard through interpretation of two white women (the subject) who assume the permission to narrate what it is like to be a Muslim woman who chooses to cover her head, in whatever form.

The alienness of Muslim culture is retold in the language of universalism (western norms and feminist ideals) to ease the anxiety of the Western observer towards difference. We see this in how Wolf insists that there are similar sentiments behind Islamic dress that Western feminists can relate to “This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognisably Western feminist set of feelings”.  Or in the intimacy of Muslim homes, the presence of designer labels like Victoria Secret is comforting. Muslim mores are measured against white Western standards and only legitimised and accepted once shared values and practices are recognised. To send the reassuring message: “see, they are just like ‘us’”.

The notion of white being a signifier of objectivity is imperative here. Wolf, like the colonial traveler, is an objective observer who can participate in the local customs and wear the traditional dress– yet can remain ‘detached’ from her surrounding in order to make perceptive observations that can be taken away for examination.  Thus, both women’s subjectivities as white, upper-middle class Western women are not called into question when they speak on behalf of Muslim women in this debate. It is in fact this same subjectivity that permits them to narrate for Muslim women.  They speak with an unquestionable authority as whiteness has a moral-worth of its own masquerading as universal and never questioned.

So it is not that Muslim women are silenced by her hijab, as many white  feminists like to claim, but because they are made to be silent by those who wish to speak for them.

Princess Hijab

Farah

I was going to write a response to this article by Phyllis Chesler. Her article contains gems of wisdom like “most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags” and “I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week.” But I’m getting a little tired of repeating the same arguments over and over. Instead, I want to write about Princess Hijab, the creation of a Parisian guerrilla street artist. Princess Hijab uses the imagery of the niqab to subvert commercial imagery by drawing then onto billboards and posters, and also tags with her ‘Hijab-ad’ prints.

In an interview at Menassat Princess Hijab cites a number of different influences on her work, including “the Woman. No logo from Naomi Klein, The anti-advertising movement… the gender movements… the straight edge, the nerd-centrism, atheism symbolism, urban legends, the allegories and the new myths.” I remember reading No Logo eight years ago; I think it was probably the first (proper) non-fiction book I had read (well, it was either that or Merinissi’s The Veil and the Male Elite – I can’t really remember that far back anymore). I’m not sure if I understood it all back at 15 (so, so long ago) but it was a big wake up. Later at uni I would re-visit and (badly) write about one of the central topics of Klein’s book: what she refers to as “semiotic Robin Hoodism”: culture jamming.

Culture jamming seeks to hijack and politicise the message of mass culture’s main language: advertisements. Adbusters is probably the most well-known organisation (whether or not they continue to uphold their same principles is debatable) and like the stuff Adbusters do Princess Hijab’s art does share a critique of mass culture and consumerism. But, Princess Hijab “does not subvert images in an American way.” Which I can understand – culture jamming I’ve seen is largely ignorant of non-Western experiences. Her approach is unique because she infuses her art with an identity politics; she appropriates an image used by mass culture to symbolise oppression and subjugation and subverts it to challenge dominant constructs of women, Islam and femininity.

In her own words, “Princess Hijab knows that L’Oréal and Dark & Lovely have been killing her little by little. She feels that the veil is no longer that white. She feels contaminated … By day, she wears a white veil, symbol of purity. By night, her black veil is the expression of her vengeful fight for a cause.” She states she isn’t linked to any political ideology or group, but it’s hard to deny the relationship between art, culture and power evident through her work. Through her art she creates sites of resistance both disruptive and creative: sites where opposition can be mounted but also where the viewer can meaningfully engage with the content.

One of the criticisms of her art is that it is too simplistic to offer an alternative to the ideology of mass culture. But I think the criticism is unwarranted –We all use discursive techniques in which we’re fluent; for me its writing. For Princess Hijab it’s taking an image used to symbolize oppression, appropriating it and using it to represent something entirely different – a meaning we have to construct for ourselves. And culture jamming relies on the immediacy of the image and the interaction between viewer and viewed.

Advertising renders nearly anything a brand; it mines culture for its ideas, representations and forms. And in this era of visual marketing, Princess Hijab explores notions of public space and representation, challenging ideological constructs and representations with her distinctive imagery. Her work is an example of how semiotic guerrilla warfare can be used to counter the symbolist imagery adopted by mass culture.

Whether you realise it or not, you are in the midst of a culture war. The key element in the forthcoming struggle will be a battle for domination of key concept areas. It is necessary for us to predict future developments and invest our energies in ‘fringe’ activities where we judge that the issues will become key ones at a later date. Not only issues but the very language is used to formulate the debate must reflect our thinking. If we cannot yet produce our own culture (which we shall strive towards), we should seek to act as a perceptual filter for the mass culture which surrounds us.

Counter Culture helps you win.

Excerpt from An Anthology of Counter Culture edited by Peter Harrington, Tim Bragg and Terry Burgoyne.

A Desire To Look

Sahar

Unfortunately I’m extremely busy at the moment so could not write an entire piece on this list of the the hottest Muslim women  in the world , but Muslima Media Watch  has written a good post on it so check it out.  I myself could not help but make a comment on the politics of this list.

I had no idea most of these women were Muslim–mainly because they do not stress this aspect of their identity so much;  to have them on this list was somewhat baffling. It was disturbing to note their inviting poses and their nudity.  I’m reminded of European colonialism’s insatiable desire to unveil the Muslim woman, due to its obsession with looking. The colonised world was an exhibition for the European gaze, and the native as a spectacle.  The veiled Muslim woman of this period frustrated Europeans because she violated their right to look and undermined their world of exhibition.  Moreover, she refused to be exposed, made vulnerable–her existence dissected by white eyes.  Importantly, she could look without being seen and this politicised her presence.

It was not a surprise then that the veiled Muslim woman became a focus of both the coloniser’s quest to unveil and thus dominate her (by extension the Muslim society to which she belonged to) –and a symbol of national resistance.  

The Europeans in turn demonized the veil– or in today’s context–the hijab.  They forced her to unveil, to show them what she was hiding. In revenge, they unveiled her in paintings where her body was laid bare for them to see. She was also photographed in the same way. These paintings and photographs were disseminated throughout Europe and evoked sexual imagery of a feminised Orient being penetrated by a lustful Europe.

The message was clear: The exotic woman of the Orient had given herself up for the white man. She would be saved from the brutality of her world which the veil became a metaphor for.

This list of Muslim women, with not one of them in hijab, exoticised and nude,  is a modern attempt to possess the Muslim woman. In fact, the article on the list of Muslim women ends with the reminder “And the good news is, you can look at them any time of day…”.  There is a sense of excitement in it because the Muslim woman is available for them to see, and there are no barriers (veil). Such an attempt is made even more apparent in that it is a supposed ‘celebration’ of the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims.  By exposing her to the Western gaze a similar message is being sent: the Muslim woman is under the control of Western capitalism. She has been unveiled and objectified,  and here lies the real attraction of such a list.