I had the good fortune of attending yet another wonderful event that Dr. Anny Bakalian of the Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC) organized last week. The title is Veil(s) and is a photographic exhibition showing veiled women of the Middle East from different time periods in history. The exhibition is going on until Feb. 28th and is a must see if you are in the New York area.
Copied below are comments that Prof. Christa Salamandra of Lehman College-CUNY delivered at the Opening Ceremony a few nights ago. I found them so insightful and comprehensive, I couldnt resist requesting her permission to reprint them and then share them here.
(References available upon request!)
In English, the term “veil” serves as a metonym of a whole fantasized world of repression and voluptuousness, exoticism and severity. It is an image commodified in French colonial postcards, Hollywood epics and, more recently, the academic book market where, as Faegheh Shirazi notes, publishers advise would-be authors to include “veil” in their titles (2001: 6). The ultimate symbol of Islamic otherness, the veil has been used to vilify a religion and justify military intervention.
Yet in the Middle East, “veil” means very little. It has no literal equivalent in Arabic, but glosses an array of styles and practices, from the local traditions like the barrakān of Libya, the milāyaEgypt, and burqa of Afghanistan, to the transnational hijāb, or contemporary Islamic dress. of Veil can refer to a skimpy, sheer scarf worn at the crown of the head, or to the face enveloping niqāb.
In contemporary Western discourses, the veil has come to be associated with Islam, and specifically, with its so-called extremist or militant practitioners. Yet, as this exhibit shows, the covering of either the hair or head and face has ancient roots, and is practiced by Christians and Jews. I am old enough to remember a time when women were required to cover their heads in Catholic churches—indeed the Iraqi churchgoers in their long lace head coverings remind me of those we used to wear.
As Shirazi notes, the garment often becomes a force in and of itself (2001: 8). Yet it is important to emphasize women’s own use of the veil to do certain kinds of symbolic work, to convey carefully chosen messages. Questions about the meaning of the veil must be asked and answered in specific historical and cultural contexts. From feminist Hoda Sharawi’s dramatic 1923 unveiling in Cairo Station, to the headscarf donning student activists of the Iranian revolution, to the professional women working their way through treacherous public spaces, the veil is at once personal and political. Its meanings and uses vary as widely as the women who wear it. It may be an embodied religious practice, an expression of ethnic, sectarian or regional or national identity, or a display of cultural authenticity. Or all of these.
It is not so much invisibility as managed visibility. Elite women once veiled to signify the privilege of leisure, working women now veil to negotiate their way in a newly defined public sphere. The veil has the power to transform public space into private space. It can become, a form of portable seclusion, as Hana Papanek argues or, as Lila Abu-Lughod sees it, a mobile home (2002).
The reinvented tradition of the hijb in particular is an aesthetic, consumptive and moral choice an increasing number of women are making, often as tactic for navigating the rough waters of Middle Eastern modernity, with all its ruptures, tensions, and contradictions. It can be seen as an empowering option for women operating in conditions not of their own choosing. It becomes eloquent protest against objectification, a demand to be taken seriously. Veiling is a practice young women often adopt in defiance rather than submission, disobeying the wishes of secular parents.
Often understood as a denial of sexuality, the veil is a way for women to take control of sexuality. It can be used to attract the desired kind, or amount of attention. This aspect of veiling emerges in Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah’s documentary On Boys, Girls and the Veil. Towards the end of the film, two young muhaggibāt discuss the effect of the hijāb their interactions with men:
I did not wear the veil, and I was respectable [one of the women argued]. Now that I do, I get teased just as much, perhaps a little less. When I showed my hair, I attracted attention….the veil doesn’t keep people away… [her companion interjects]—nothing will stop a man from chatting women up—girls who don’t get chatted up get complexes.
Nasrallah’s film confounds any notion we have that we can ever know the meaning of the veil. Part of what makes the collection of images in this exhibit so powerful is that they focuses our attention away from questions of meaning, and towards color, self-expression and creativity.
