Orthodox Anarchist

I was recently interviewed by Alyssa Benjamin, a student at Boston University, for a forthcoming article on the controversy surrounding the growing keffiyeh fashion trend. The full-text of the interview is published below.

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What is the proper way to spell kaffiyeh?

Well, the proper spelling is كوفية.

Wikipedia holds by keffiyeh, but it’s transliterated so there’s no actual universal spelling. I’m sure the MLA has a convention somewhere, but as of now, people spell it in any number of ways.

What is the kaffiyeh used for and who typically wears it?

A keffiyeh is a scarf traditionally worn as a headdress in Arabic and Islamic culture. Prominent throughout the Middle East, many clans and sects have their own variation on the design, expressed either by a marked difference in pattern or color.

Now that it has become a fashion accessory in the states, are people in Israel tying it around their necks instead of wearing it on their heads?

Before they became a highly-recognized symbol of Palestinian national resistance, Israeli people commonly wore keffiyehs as fashion items. Keffiyehs are popular in the Middle East mostly because they serve a utilitarian purpose, as both a shield against the harsh desert climate, and as a religious article. (Judaism and Islam both advocate wearing a head-covering as a symbol of devotion to God.) Nowadays, it is mostly only those Israelis who identify with the Palestinian resistance movement that wear the keffiyeh, and generally with the express purpose of pissing off those to their political right.

Can the kaffiyeh be linked to terrorism? Why did Yasir Arafat wear the kaffiyeh?

Specifically, the black-diamond patterned keffiyeh is a traditional element of Palestinian culture that has become the national symbol of the Palestinian people. Terrorists and militants pose wearing keffiyehs to express their solidarity with the Palestinian national struggle. The keffiyeh in-and-of-itself is not a terrorist symbol, however, due to the popularity of the keffiyeh among militants, it is commonly viewed as such.

Yassir Arafat was, in many ways, the individual who most popularized the keffiyeh as a Palestinian national symbol, by wearing the keffiyeh on his head in the shape of Palestine (which includes the full territory of Israel).

Is it wrong for someone to wear the scarf as a fashion accessory if they don’t know the political implications of the kaffiyeh?

I believe that — at worst — one could be accused of being culturally insensitive for being ignorant of the keffiyeh’s implications as a symbol of resistance for one community, and as a symbol of hatred for another.

On one end of the spectrum, the sale of keffiyehs as fashion items can be seen as part of the process of recuperation by which the establishment seeks to substitute the desire for revolutionary change with the consumption of products that seemingly satiate this urge. Rather than engaging in a truly revolutionary act, we collect and adorn ourselves with objects and symbols that merely infer revolution. Corporations repackage our desire for change and sell it back to us, and we buy it thinking that we’re changing something, but we’re not changing anything–we’re just opening up a new market for “revolutionary” wares. This slight of hand — this illusion — drains needed human energy from resistance movements.

Furthermore, in terms of cultural commodification, these fashion labels are taking the artifacts of an indigenous culture and mass-producing them for a consumer public. In that, they are profiting from the cultural contribution of a people with whom they have no ties and to whom they bear no responsibility. Essentially, they are stealing a cultural community’s authentic, organic product, and selling it at extravagant prices without returning anything to the public from which it stole. It is exploitative and, as such, counterrevolutionary. Ie., by buying a keffiyeh from French Connection UK, you are actually contributing to the exploitation of Palestinian culture. These corporations are not in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, they are in solidarity with their shareholders.

At the other end of things, one should also keep in mind that many Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel relate to the keffiyeh no differently than they would a Nazi armband. Because of the adoption of the keffiyeh as a symbol by some Palestinian militants who have expressed their desire — not only to resist the occupation — but to destroy the State of Israel and to kill Jewish civilians in Israel and abroad, the keffiyeh has come to be viewed as a symbol of hatred against the Jewish community. Indeed, a trend has recently emerged within neo-Nazi movements throughout Europe, where the very same groups that profess hatred against Muslim immigrants have adopted the keffiyeh as a symbol of resistance to alleged “Jewish domination.” As such, before donning a keffiyeh, one ought to carefully consider the fact that it is a highly-charged and potentially offensive symbol to a community, that, for its contributions to public life, are owed some measure of respect, and for its history of persecution, are owed some measure of forgiveness. Certainly it is within reason to challenge the destructive policies of the State of Israel and to call the American Jewish community on its support for those policies. However, wearing the a keffiyeh may be considered a provocation, and it is therefore counterproductive, as such acts further entrench the Jewish community in its defensiveness. The Jewish community will only let down its guard, and we will only end this conflict, when the Jewish community no longer feels itself threatened.

Why do you think “hipsters” have chosen to wear the scarf? Do you think they support the Palestinians or are they just trying to wear something controversial?

No two individuals are the same, no matter how similar they appear on the surface. Therefore, one can’t generalize. However, if I were to venture to guess how some individuals in that community came into to contact with the keffiyeh, I would proffer that some discovered it in Europe, where this fashion trend has already made several rounds; while others likely lifted it from the dyed-in-the-wool activists mobilizing the anti-war scene back in 2002-2003, many of whom were also involved in Palestinian solidarity work.

Why don’t any Jewish people wear the kaffiyeh? Is it only associated with Palestinian nationalism? Is it a ethnic or political scarf?

I believe I’ve addressed this question.

What do you think of Urban Outfitters marketing the kaffiyeh as an “anti-war” scarf? Does the commercialization of the scarf change its meaning?

I believe I’ve addressed this as well.

Urban Outfitters removed the black and white kaffiyeh but re-stocked shelves with similar looking scarves in colors like fuchsia and indigo etc…Do you think people still would associate these colorful scarves (made in India) with the kaffiyeh?

Whether black and white or pink and green, this is an act of cultural appropriation made with the sole intent of turning a profit. I would much rather see Palestinian women manufacturing and selling funky-colored keffiyehs, and in turn feeding their suffering families with the proceeds, than see the director of Urban Outfitters — who mind you, is a major financial contributor to the GOP — profit from the theft of Palestinian culture.

Can the kaffiyeh ever be considered just fashion? Is this along the lines of Prada’s new turban silk head wraps?

Again, the keffiyeh certainly has utilitarian and aesthetic functions. And fashion is supposed to be about self-expression, right? So I can see the keffiyeh being worn as a romantic expression of identification with elements of Islamic, Arabic or Middle Eastern culture — though that seems a little Orientalist to me. Moreso, I think that the clothes we obtain in our adventures can reawaken the spirit of our adventure when, afterwards, we wear them again. They have the power to take us back to that time and place again, even if it’s thousands of miles away and years in the past.

In that, I think the wearer should have some personal relationship to their garments, and not merely a consumer relationship. If, for example, you bought a keffiyeh from a Palestinian shopkeep while doing solidarity work in the West Bank with the ISM, or even if you just picked one up on a trek across Jordan, or on a visit to Marrakech or Beirut, you’ve at least got some experience there tying you to that article, and thus investing in it some significance that you can express in its wearing. If, however, you just walked into a store in midtown Manhattan and plopped $25 down on the counter for a sweatshop-made reproduction that elicits an experience you’ve never had, you frankly deserve to be scorned.

Are people making too big a deal out of the politics of this fashion trend?

People should be aware that symbols have meaning. Take the dollar bill, for example. Every star, every arrow, every little shape, is of deep spiritual or political significance. Yet we hardly ever notice the symbols passing through our hands, let alone reflect upon their meaning. Nonetheless, these symbols have tremendous power and influence over us in ways we don’t even consciously perceive.

Individuals should be aware of how their perceptions are shaped by symbols and their meanings, how symbols are manipulated and even turned against themselves in order to alter or repudiate their significance, and furthermore, how our adoption and perpetuation of symbols contributes to their meaning and to the growth of their influence.