Yin3an abu ta3arees um al manayik – owlad al sharameet – ukhwan al khara!!
With a great deal of discomfort and a tad bit of pissed-off-ness, I regret to (re)inform the KABOB-o-sphere that Palestine has officially become a trend…
That's right folks, for a mere $20.00 (or 75.0127 Saudi Riyal) you too can jump on the socially stupid hipster-doofus bandwagon by rocking your very own "Anti-War Woven Scarf!" (available only at Urban Outfitters… or..err..uh… the Middle East)
Lightweight and oversized, this woven scarf can be worn a million ways, all year long!"But Nadeem, black and white checkers clash with my bright orange Versace messenger bag!" Don't fret my young a la mode fraternity brother, the "Anti-War Woven Scarf" also comes in crap brown, booger green, period-stain red, and homosexual blue! Yay!!
Call me a crazy kaffiya wearing A-rab, but I've always had my suspicions about all those lesbian hippies and upper middle-class twats walking around with black and white scarves ever-so-gently draped around their coco-buttery smooth necks.
After all, since the onset of Israel's brutal military occupation and apartheid rule of Palestine, activists have transformed the traditional Arab-male headdress (the kaffiya - which only exists in black / white or red / white) into a statement of solidarity with Palestinians… which, by all means, is great! But the more that I (and others) have noticed it being worn by seemingly clueless d-bags who know little more about the scarf than its pretty patterns – the more disgusted I've become with the idea of people expropriating aspects of my culture... especially when they strip those things of all meaning.
It's still pretty funny though. Yassir Arafat never left home without one – I suppose that now he'll not only go down in the history books as the personification of Palestine 's struggle, but also as a revolutionary… of fashion! (Side note: He also started that whole injecting your lips with collagen to make them look fuller trend that's so huge in Hollywood right now.)
Besides – what the hell is so "anti-war" about a kaffiya anyway? Are people wearing it in solidarity with the Iraqis? If so, which Iraqis? And what do they propose the US' role should be in the country after the war is over? I wonder how many of these "anti-war" Iraqi solidarity fashion moguls voted to reinstate G.W. Bush for second term in 2004 - or didn't show their solidarity with the millions of Iraqi children who suffered and/or died during 10 brutal years of American endorsed UN sanctions... oi vey!
I don't know about you – but I, for one, don't appreciate being tokenized! What next - a FUBU yarmulka? Puh-leez! If you're sincere in your display of solidarity, buy your kaffiyas from here.
(Tarboush Tip: All those peeps Will mentioned in the post below me) Oh, and I like Will's post better!
23 comments:
It's one thing to be selling kaffiyas as scarves, but check out these kaffiyah inspired women's shirts. They're described as "batik print", which makes absolutely no sense, and does not give any credit to the Palestinian origins of the design!
When I saw one of my friends wearing one, I said, wow they're making this kind of stuff in Palestine? And she says, no, I got it from UO...
I hate the fact that this unique symbolic tradition is being commercialized this way.
that's an assumption you should know it's surprising who knows what/cares about palestine
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/806069.html
from jan. 3 haaretz: The good men of Leipzig
...
A good example of the pro-Israel activity in Leipzig is the public campaign against wearing kaffiyehs, once an essential accessory in the European left-wing activist's wardrobe.
"Do you have a problem with Jews or is it only that your neck is cold?" was the slogan for the campaign organized by the center in recent years.
The campaign aimed to prevent young people from wearing what the center perceived as a symbol of identification with the Palestinians and with anti-Semitism.
"If a young person shows up today at one of the events here wearing a kaffiyeh, (Conne Island is one of the most popular performance spaces in Leipzig - A.U.), we will politely ask him to remove the kaffiyeh, while explaining to him what the significance of it is. Otherwise, he simply won't enter," says Schneider.
i am thinking about buying one and I am not really feeling associated to antiwar stance, palestinians, and iraqis. i think that a fair number of foreigners somehow associate it with islam. since the number of converts to islam has increased greatly in the united states it is habitual for americans to purchase things "to help them in their conversion". Consider those quote signs to be very large :). most stores that carry muslim clothes also carry the shemaghs. It is simply an impulse buy.
Another big factor is post 9/11 climate in American universities. Everything related to Middle East creates a buzz and people respond favorably to increased activity of muslim/arab student clubs. I am sure there are a few shemagh wearing people among them offering free lessons on proper ways to wear it at an open house.
My personal reason for buying one is to ease effects of cold air on my lungs. Beats wearing a lame scarf from Gap Ltd.
its crazy....the other day i was walking down the street, i literally saw 4 different people wearing one in the span of 15 minutes...its getting to be something i see everyday actually. i'm happy ppl are wearing it of course, but i just wish they knew what the hell they were wearing!
Perhaps a website or a public campaign to explain the significance behind the kuffiyeh is in order...
I say to people wearing one, "Nice Palestinian Terrorist Scarf! May you meet the same fate that your heros Arafat and Saddam met, Inshallah!"
or
"That's an awesome Jew Killin Scarf you have there. I look forward to your naive Christian Infidel ass being strung up in the center of Boston under the Caliph!"
It's "Koufeyyeh" not "Kaffiya". If we are going to protect it from appropriation and commenrcialization, we need, at least, to know what it is called : )
Moukh,
Thanks for the spelling advice - I didn't know Webster's Dictionary made an Arab-ezee edition...
It's an Arabic word written in English letters - there is no proper spelling. So Tuz.
i want a keffiyeh but not one for $20 and not from a gay place like urban outfitters. does wal-mart sell em?
Do you have any that match my pink Che shirt? Or one that matches my "Trophy Wife" light green tank top? Or maybe my "In Rachel St. Pancake We Trust!" bandana?
do they make any homophobic-symbolic scarves in "homosexual blue" ?
Yes, but it has stars of david instead of checkers all over it. I hear they're hot sellers in Jerusalem - you know, where rabbis riot in the streets and burn dumpsters to protest the right of one man to have sex with another.
What an embellishment! It's happened once and no one was hurt. Now let's compare that to Muslim "youths" in France who rampage, riot, and torch cars and property almost every night.
In Israel, they have gay pride parade in Jerusalem, in Palestine, they hang gays from lightpoles in the town square. Vast difference. Civilization and Klingons.
None of it makes a difference anyway, since Urban Outfitters pulled the Palestinian Death Cult Scarf!
Civilized response to offensive clothing: 1
Palestinian Death Cult Propaganda: 0
Not sure what your issues with 'lesbians' are ...that's pretty bizarre and I guess your personal problem. It adds nothing to your argument unless you're preaching to people with similar issues.
People from other demographics wear those scarves - those from different cultures, from different class origins and those kids with parents from arab countries where this is not their typical dress. And so what?
If I buy this scarf abroad, do you think the person selling it to me actually expects me to be championing the Palestinian cause? Or do they realise that for me it is just "a neat souvenir from the holy land"? And why shouldn't it be? Why can't people just like something for purely aesthetic reasons? "Farmers use is to protect from the sun" - can't non-farmers in the West use it to protect themselves from the cold AND like the look of it, to boot? "they strip those things of all meaning". Do you understand how fashion works? The West is also rarely 'symbolic' in its culture, so it is to be expected. Maybe you're wearing clothes which are a rip off of someone else's culture. Do you ensure that you're not doing that everytime you buy a piece of clothing? Maybe you don't honour other people's cultures in the way you expect people to honour yours (I can see two examples already - gay culture and upper middle class culture). Why is your ignorance any more acceptable than other people's?
"I don't know about you – but I, for one, don't appreciate being tokenized!" Neither do I but unfortunately this is how it works for minorities...tokenism, satire of tokenism then acceptance. Always. People arrive at cultural appreciation from different angles - not just politically. It cannot always be the way you want it to be and thank God for that.
oh - and sort out your homophobia -respect is a two way thing.
Ah Urban Outfitters: run by stupid white people. Che was rolling in his grave when they started capitalising on t-shirts with his face printed on it. Now they're calling kaffiyah-inspired designs "batik". Hell, I'm Indonesian, and I know what "batik" looks like. That is definitely not even close to batik.
I don't think you can exploit a very particular item of symbolic clothing to cash in on the social credit that comes with keeping up with the commercialist/western bourgeois and say that you can do so without stripping it of its meaning and bastardizing it. You cannot remain at a position of ethical obliviousness or nihilistic consumerism without addressing the contradiction to any values you must hold. This act literally rots away the message of the symbol. The middle class whites who need to recognize the message and issues behind the symbol in the hopes that they will wrangle in their incredibly violent, imperialist government and by extension their zionist agent in the oil region. To enjoy the rich material life that this imperial violence begets especially in the area of fashion, while claiming exception from any ethical implication is contradictory logic in my opinion.
'Anti-war'is a vague non-statement since many of those I marched with on saturday would be best described as anti-(imperialist)war and will have all the sorts of ideas for meeting that end that a large, diverse group of people could present.
I think that this oblivious subversion of resistance/revolutionary symbols should be particularly disgusting to informed, activated whites who are then more likely to be grouped in with hipster "d-bags" by those they are expressing solidarity with because they have reached a conclusion in their own studies of modern conflicts that warrants some sort of symbolic expression that is recognizeable by the masses.
I have been rocking a Kuf since before 9/11. And it seems alot of people dont want to except the fact that, well, it just looks cool. its not just a Palestinian thing or a leftist thing. in fact, the coolest lookin ghutras are made in yemen. I am in kuwait now and there plaid ones, fringed ones, every fuckin pattern you could possibly imagine.They have been trendy in western europe for more than 10 years now where they are called "arafats". point being-chill out and focus more on issues that are alittle deeper in value than fashion trends.
-abu ghazi
i hav one thing to say to the comments...(no offense and all):
hahahahahahahahaha!!!
....oh I luv ur comments, I see so much. Hey, it's everyone for themselves. Ur thoughts... shared!
Yaye for opinions...
Should the palestinians be trademarking the kaffiyeh now? Being part Arab but not palestinian, I have long considered the kaffiyeh as part of my culture as well. Two years after moving to North America (about 6 years ago), I bought a traditional red and white kaffiyeh to wear as a winter scarf as a symbol of my culture and to depict my pride on whom I am. My first blow was realizing that people always looked at me funny assuming I am making a statement on my support of the Palestinian cause (especially jews). Then the Iraq war came and again I got more stares assuming I was a hardliner against the war (uncomfortable when you are crossing paths with an American soldier). To make matters worse, I am black so I get even get stares from light skinned Arabs themseleves eyes saying "why in the world are you wearing that?". And then....and then....to top it all...they started to commercialize them... That was the worst blow.... Now I don't enjoy wearing it as much as I used to not only because of the assumptions people make of my political views (Which despite being correct they assume me to be a greater hardliner than normal); but also because by not looking like the stereotypical Arab, others assume I am a fashionista seeking attention and no more. We need to remember that the world is globalizing and cultures are integrated into others beyond our control. You don't see the American complaining why Arabs wear jeans because they were invented by Americans so Arabs should not expect the same for the kaffiyeh. The only annoying thing in this case is the commercialization that negates the kaffiyeh's cultural meaning. I think UO just ruined it for all those people who were wearing it for any other reason than being "cool" whilst downplaying the cultural and political symbol of it. It would have been something else if a Palestinian clothes manufacturer is the one that marketed it abroad to sell it to other countries. It's almost like a Palestinian choosing to wear a T-shirt saying "US Army" printed on it manufactured by a US company versus him wearing the same shirt manufactured by a Palestinian one. I really despise the way coorporations hijack many symbols or items of other cultures in a bid to make money without consideration on the means of expression they are taking away from the "owners" of that culture. But on the other hand, I still don't like it when people make assumptions that those who don't look Arab are non-Arab.
S. Omar
yes....that was a great explanation for all the abhorrent fools out there who claim so much for themselves to cause conflict. Coupled with the adaptation of it by many groups in arid climates, it just doesn't make sense to accuse.
I think that it is unfair to assume that the people you see on th high street do not know what the scarf they are wearing stands for. I am a white British student (and I imagine that if you saw me wearing my kaffiya you would jump to the conclusion that it was a 'fashion' item), and support Palestine. I wear the scarf as a mark of solidarity. Perhaps you should ask people about their scarves before thinking such poisonous thoughts?
"the "Anti-War Woven Scarf" also comes in [...] period-stain red, and homosexual blue! Yay!!"
You know, it's a lot easier to get your message across without alienating women, gay people, and PC liberals- those demographics are pretty important when it comes to defending minority groups from being symbolically capitalized.
If you want more people on your side, you might want to consider rewording that...
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