Author: Hiroki Murakami
Found in section: Features
Do you know what a keffiyeh is? You probably wouldn’t at first, but you could probably spot one if you were reminded of a few of the keffiyeh’s misleading western nicknames, such as “desert bandana”, “peace scarves”, or “terrorist headband”.
Spend ten minutes on campus, and you’ll probably spot one. The keffiyeh is a cotton headdress worn traditionally by Arabic men. It usually has a woven red-and-white checkered pattern and can be worn in a variety of styles that may differ across cultures. However, the keffiyeh has recently become one of the most controversial clothing items in the Western world.
In 2007, the clothing store Urban Outfitters sparked debate and controversy by discontinuing a line of “peace scarves” after pro-Israeli activists filed complaints. In a press release epitomizing Western misconceptions about the keffiyeh, Urban Outfitters quickly renounced rumors of “sympathy for or support of terrorists or terrorism.”
Many Americans share the misunderstanding that the keffiyeh is linked with insurgency. News coverage of Iraqi insurgents wearing the keffiyeh aired back-to-back with American gangsters wearing similarly shaped bandanas could be perhaps to blame for this wide-spread association.
According to Akrem, a BCC student from North Africa, “[The keffiyeh] has no relation to war…it’s just a cultural thing.” Akrem believes that much of the misconceptions have to do solely with war. “In Palestine, there is a war… when [non-Arabs] see most of the people wearing them, they think it’s about war. But, even in other countries were there is no war, people wear them,” he said.
Unknown to most Westerners, the keffiyeh is worn by much of the general Arabic public. One student at BCC said that in Saudi Arabia the keffiyeh is only a military item in certain contexts. She compares wearing a specially made keffiyeh that represents the Taliban to wearing gang apparel; in certain neighborhoods it could represent a lot. According to her, the keffiyeh could be intentionally made or worn to show affiliation with insurgencies similar to wearing specially marked do-rags or bandanas to proclaim gang affiliation.
While wearing a keffiyeh, it becomes easy to see why it is such a practical piece of apparel. Palestinian peasants originally wore the keffiyeh to shield their face and neck from constant exposure to the sun. In an arid environment like the Middle East, the keffiyeh can ward off wind chill, block out the sun, and keep the face shielded from sand and dust caught up in the wind. In fact, the United States and British militaries have been issuing the keffiyeh to soldiers since the first Gulf War.
I asked Akrem what he thinks about non-Arabs, and especially teens wearing keffiyeh for fashion.
“We don’t care…In the Western world just like back [in the Middle East], it’s a cultural thing.”
Another example of short-sightedness propagated for which the media are responsible by projecting negative imagery to sway emotional appeal during war time. The politicisation of dress garments from hijab to kaffieyeh is an effort to sway American hearts and minds that marginalise social customs and create an “us versus them” mentality. Perhaps the media should politicise yarmulke wearing-bearded clad Talmud reciting Hasidim with their shawl wearing women at the wailing wall during Purim and Passover each time Israeli military launches counteroffensives into the West Bank and Gaza.
Students unfamiliar with Arabic cultures may see hijabs and keffiyehs often without knowing what they are. With the space we’ve been given to educate and inform our constituents, leaving them to learn by word of mouth in our current national climate would be considerably less fair than attempting, through research and interviews, to give them balanced information.
In the last several years, much hostility toward and myth about Arabic culture has been propagated. I believe that to identify ideas, however derogatory, that prevail in our society, forces people to intelligently examine the actual viability of these ideas rather than automatically accepting them de facto. Popular society will talk, and it will speak louder on behalf of the statistical majority. We, however, by publishing the defense of members of the under-represented group, attempt to provide them an equal voice with which to meet their opposers.
We, as members of the media, cannot pretend that by ignoring conflict in our reporting it will disappear. Only by educating the public, presenting all sides of a conflict, can we hope that readers will come to the most ethical conclusion without any slant from us.
Plus, excuse me, did you actually read the article? Hiroki Murakani is clearly not presenting the argument that the Keffiyeh is some kind of terrorist garment. If he has any slant, it is against that ignorant notion. By fully explaining that the garment is worn regularly by many Arabic men for no political reasons, Murakani is in fact working to dispell any politicisation of the garment.