Defacing Muslim Women

Body apparel has become the site of contemporary political struggle. In a world where the master signifier is considered by the super powers to be the events of 9/11, and where those considered responsible for that attack were from Saudi Arabia and Morocco and also of the Islamic faith, the pariah in our midst is identified as Islam. The West, in its quest to protect its citizens from such random crime, responds by mounting its own jihad and confronting, in every way possible, what it perceives as the enemy in its midst. To this end it introduces counter-terrorism legislation and develops a panoply of measures that, in particular, marginalize and criminalize Islamic communities and controls the way of life of those communities it targets, by amongst others attacking their cultural identity and religious faith. The first strategy is characterized by the development of counter-terrorism legislation and the creation of a raft of entirely new offences, including, for example, the glorification of terrorist related activity, ¹ and the prohibition of certain political organizations through the use of proscription orders. ² At the same time erstwhile canons of liberty have been compromised. On the one hand derogating from Article 5 (the right to liberty) and Article 6 (the right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is permitted and considered justified, on the grounds that the nation is under threat. ³ The second strategy includes measures to restrict immigration by tightening immigration control. ⁴ The third strategy involves attacks on the very personality and identity of Islamic communities, including an assault on dress forms, which is legitimated by ensuring that the observers’ stereotypical interpretation of these forms of dress, seen as representing either subjugation or strident militancy, ⁵ take precedence over the wearers’ definitions. Here, body apparel, and especially ‘her’ Islamic body, is the target of imperialist scrutiny, regulation, condemnation and, at times, vilification. Dress form has been reified and made a fetish. It has also been regarded as the embodiment of either a gendered oppression or else a threatening force. Yet dress styles such as hijab (head scarf), jilbab (long tunic) and niqab (face veil) – all of which are the objects of this gaze, control and scorn ⁶ – when viewed from the standpoint of the wearer embody a multiplicity of meanings, some religious, some not, some strident, some oppressive, some passive, some subversive, some celebratory and some lost in translation. These several meanings must each be understood and located in their specific historical and materialist context. The binary presentation and crude over-determination of the imperialist interpretation merely obscures and eschews these complexities and contradictions. ⁷