[lbo-talk] Karen Armstrong on veiling

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Fri Oct 27 14:15:05 PDT 2006


On 10/26/06, sharif islam <sharif.islam at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my opinion, Karen Armstrong ( a former catholic nun) is one of the
> best writers on religious issues. Here's her recent comment on irony
> of veiling debate.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1931671,00.html
>
> "....Today the veiled Muslim woman appears to symbolise the perceived
> Islamic threat, as nuns once epitomised the evils of popery.
<snip>
> Muslims feel embattled at present, and at such times the bodies of
> women often symbolise the beleaguered community.
<snip>
> Headscarves and Porno-Chic: Disciplining Girls' Bodies in the European
> Multicultural Society
> Linda Duits
> Liesbet van Zoonen
<snip>
> Through their analysis of the headscarves and porno-chic
> debate, the authors argue that women's sexuality and girls' bodies in
> particular have become the metonymic location for many a contemporary
> social dilemma: of the multicultural society when it concerns the
> scarf, of feminism and public morality when it concerns porno-chic.

On 10/27/06, sharif islam <sharif.islam at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was trying to point
> out the overlooked issue of controlling women's body in the veiling
> debate.

That's a good point. Regarding what minority groups wear, the dominant group tends to go more apoplectic over what minority women wear rather than what minority men wear, so there is much more debate about Muslim women's veils than Muslim men's turbans, skull caps, beards, long-sleeved shirts, long pants, etc. What minority women wear is regarded as a symbol of refusal to assimilate into the dominant culture, whereas what minority men wear isn't treated as such with the same frequency.

In the end, though, assimilation doesn't satisfy the dominant group, as long as they remain racist, ethnocentric, and xenophobic. One of the best photographed inmates of concentration camps in history are Japanese-Americans. Some of the best American photographers, such as Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, photographed them from the moment FDR issued Executive Order 9066 for Japanese internment (19 February 1942). One of the best known photographs of Japanese internment by Lange, shot in April 1942, shows little Japanese children*, hands over their hearts, saying the pledge of allegiance: <http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html>. Japanese immigrants generally have been assiduous assimilationists, just as the Japanese in Japan have been assiduous assimilators of eclectic imports from other cultures (beginning with their writing system and religions). Japanese-Americans were interned all the same.

* Over half of the Japanese internees were children (cf. <http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/>). -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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