| The Hijab And The Bikini: The Long And Dangerous Road To Women Freedom |
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| Written by Eucharia Mbachu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saturday, 08 September 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ever since the rise of human civilization many millennia ago, men and women were conscious of their biological differences and in time religion, history and politics combined to allocate a special and specific role for man and woman in their understanding of nature and in their distribution of power. Not only have our societies, clans and families created a division of labor but our very relationships have been affected by our sense of guilty and shame. Since these are the most powerful means of controlling human behavior and action in society, the Adam and Eve of our time have been vulnerable because of their nakedness or their failure to be morally accountable to the demands of their society. Throughout history human groups have defined what it means to be dressed. How you dress and in what manner you are dressed have determined our fascination with cotton and with other materials selected for our dress code and our fashion In various parts of the world the mode of dress of male and female is determined by the sociology of costume in that particular society. When the way we dress is determined by the religion or politics of our society, then the individual member of that society is most likely going to dress the way society wishes him to dress and not the way he wishes to dress. Up until recent times, the mode of dress and the style of dress have been dictated by society either through religious specifics conveyed by family and church or the synagogue and the Mosque. Remnants of this mode of behavior linger on in many societies. In most of the developing parts of the world what is obvious to the attentive is the persistence of traditional mode of what the people wear which is largely determined by religious tradition of a particular culture. In the African contexts three examples beg for attention. There is the cultural tradition of the Masai in East Africa and their willingness to be less dressed and more artistic in their use of cloth to define the boundary lines between privacy and social acceptability. This Masai assertion of ethnic and tribal self-definition became the badge of distinction between them and most of the other ethnic groups in Kenya and beyond. Much has been said about this phenomenon and during the Ujamaa days of the late President Julius Nyerere, a fierce battle developed between his regime and the Masai ethnic group over the question of dress. Ali A. Mazrui contributed to that discourse in the 1960’s and his article about this political conflict between Masai cultural preference and Tanzanian national commitment to more elaborate ways of covering one’s body, has become relevant in the debate over hijab in Nigeria, North Africa and other regions in the Horn of Africa and in East Africa. Separate and distinct from the Masai phenomenon is the African adoption and assimilation of Western modes of dress. In West Africa since the latter part of the nineteen century, African women who were exposed to Western ways of life have gradually adopted some of the cloth manufactured out of European factories. Pioneers in this earlier African love affair with Western dresses were the Senoras of the Senegal and Cape Verde . These early Westernized women who were closely linked to the Portuguese and other Western men living in Africa since the days after the Portuguese mariners are fairly known. George Brooksand other writers on the African encounter with the West have shed some light on this matter. The Senora story is a part of the larger African narrative about dress and culture around the continent. This gradual fascination with things Western has created a taste for things Western and the African markets and the European firms that brought Western goods to Africa have fostered and promoted Western dress over African fashion. This was particularly true of the Africans converted to Christianity. Not only did they change their mode of dress for the death by wearing black dresses during mourning period but they also wear white during their western (white) wedding celebrations. Such transformations in the African form of outfit are found all around Africa . In contrast to the Masai phenomenon are the Tuaregs of Mali, Niger and in certain parts of West Africa . Living as companions of the Sahara Desert , these Africans of the oases have historically created their own modes of dress. Because of the desert storms and the mighty power of the sand and wind of theses part of Africa, the Tuaregs are the mirror opposites of the Westernized, the Masai, and the other Africans unaffected by the desert. It is true that in the Horn of Africa, the Ethiopian woman, the Somali, the Muslim women in the Sudan and others along the East African coast dress differently from the Masai or the Westernized African woman of West Africa , East Africa or Central/Southern Africa. This strong identification with traditional costumes in these areas has set up a cultural zone separate and distinct from the Masai zone or the Western zone. In the particular case of the Muslim zones of Africa , the events following the Iranian Revolution in 1979 created a new state of affairs. The wearing of the Hijab, which existed in these Muslim areas prior to that revolution but was gradually weakened by modernity and secularization, has become fashion in certain Muslim quarters. Real or imagined, this state of affairs has become a bone of contention in several states of Nigeria and in North Africa . Such consolidation of the Hijab zone has heightened the tension between the modernists and the religiously conscious elements in Africa and beyond. Similarly, looking into the road to freedom for women in Africa and the rest of the world, the hijab and the bikini serve as two separate and distinct milestones on the journey to freedom. Given the debate over both items on the global woman’s list of fashions, one is struck by four things about these two dresses of the daughters of Eve in our times. The hijab has become a political and social object of attention because since the Iran Revolution, the political potency of the hijab has become too obvious to be missed by any political scientist. In the same way, the debate over the rights and freedom of Western and Westernized women, the bikini and the mini skirt have emerged as objects of self-liberation or a badge of shame in a cultural war between the modernists and the religious conscious. These cultural wars are raging on global fashion arena and in the battles between town and gown of many Bible-belt areas of America and other areas where traditional Christianity still holds sway. This conflict is due to the fact that the modernists and the religious disagree violently in their views regarding clothing and the definition of nakedness. Related to the debate is the commodification of sex and its implications for women right. It is a paradox to see many a woman agitating fiercely for the liberation of women from the sexually assaults of men only to dance joyfully when their naked body becomes an object of vanity and greed. It is vanity, in the sense that her values and concern for dignity are subject to the dictates of the market place; and greed, because money talks and the clamors for women rights is simply a slight of hand from a skilful magician. In the eyes of a skeptic such acts are nothing but ejaculations, not serious affirmation of one’s pride and dignity. Is this the destiny of our struggle to be fully accepted as human equals? When we revisit the hijab as a badge of Islamic identity and solidarity, we meet certain Muslims who are still wondering as they wander whether the rest of the world is mindful of the fact that the hijab is as comforting as the bikini or the min skirt. To these women wearing the hijab is as defining as the mini skirt or the bikini are defining to the assertive female liberated from the chains of male chauvinists. To some of these Muslim women I know their lives are not of a ghetto dweller, lamenting at the gates of oppression and marginality. To the contrary, these women in some cases are highly educated and their hijab serves as a fountain of cool water in a growing desert of male penetration of everything about body and soul without a hiding place. While conceding the claims of the hijabi women, one wonders why they love all the creature comforts of modernity without accepting the sociological, psychological and philosophical consequences of our modern and post modern situation. Certainly, we are not trying to drag them out of their circled wagons and safe havens of religious satisfaction, but we are concerned about their ostrich-like attitudes to modernity and demand for greater social engagement in the social universe. Given this permanent contest, when are the hijabi people going to break away from their circled wagons and confront the fear created by their enemies from the caravan of modernity? Another bone of contention between the modernists who embrace the feminist perspectives on the question of dress and their religious rivals is the degree of nakedness acceptable in the public square. Because the capitalist system embraces the value that brings the highest gains it is on most occasions silent about nakedness that is not widely opposed by members of the public square. Since fashions are known to come and go, and morality cannot be legislated as articulated long time ago by John Stuart Mills; it is dangerous and unwise for students of African and other societies to ignore the place of prudence in such disputes over dress and nakedness. Logic rules when it comes to people’s unwillingness to accept excesses on the part of fashion. The African societies are likely to discuss for a long time the differential mode of reconciliation between the approaches of the different mode of dress around the continent. No simple formula exists. Each country out of the fifty-four states of the continent must develop its own sociological and anthropological assessments of its peoples and their respective histories of dress. As stated above, the accepted state of affairs in this field of human endeavors could be the fact the Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and his cohorts learned the hard way in their attempt to modernize and civilize the Masai. Thinking that they were Africans, many of these leaders in the continent failed to realize a point made long time ago by an African professor at Howard University that they were not truly Africans but aspiring Africans. To be truly African one must internalize a African perspective and behave and act as if all of Africa belongs to you emotionally and intellectually. Patrick Henry serves as a good reminder to Africans banking heavily on a comparative perspective between Africa and the U.S. To this gentleman from Virginia , one of his claim to fame was “I am not a Virginian, I am an American.” And he meant it. A third point to note with respect to women and the covering of their bodies as discussed above is the question of nakedness and the capitalist system which creates a paradoxical problem for women in their quest for freedom. Under the existing order a woman has the right to dress the way she wishes; however, there are limits to the degree of showing of the skin. The bikini is unacceptable in the public square except at the swimming pool. The hijab of the conservative Muslim woman, the dress of the Catholic nun and the mode of dress of the Amish or the orthodox Jew in her black dress that reminds one of the Polish nobility are all reminders that modernity and social change have created a new world order. In order for women to make it to the last miles on the path to freedom they must travel this dangerous road where the agitations of the conservatives fearful of the satanic Boobie traps them on the path to freedom and the apprehensions of the modernists who truly believe that demons are hiding somewhere with deep intentions to wreak havoc on them and their program of liberation. Due to this state of fear neither the conservatives nor the modernist feminists are going to travel very far down the road. Tied to their dress codes and determined to stay on course for the rest of their lives, neither the defenders of hijab nor the advocates of the bikini are going to create the much needed conditions for social change to take place. The Hijab defenders are going to be perceived by their opponents largely on political grounds and their struggle for freedom for women in the name of religion would be violently opposed by the modernists and secularists because of their divergent views of life and the role and place of dress in human society. Unwilling to associate any linkage between heaven and human dress or to assert their freedom and independence from any theological dictates, modern feminists allergic to religion and its teachings are not going to be partners with women in hijab at all. In like manner, the feminists who value the bikini and see it as a badge of liberation from the watchful eyes of the religiously conscious are not going to search for political advantage in any alliance between their forces and the religious groups opposed to their half-nakedness. One of the ironies of history is that while the Westernized African and his Western mentors lament the primitive nakedness of the Masai, they joyfully welcome the bikini and the lady’s garments above the knee as civilized and fashionable. One wonders about the Western logic of the Western feminist who pooh-poohs the Masai so called primitive ‘nakedness’ while dancing with joy as she shows her own flesh without shame. As a result, one can argue that the road to freedom for women is fraught with dangers. Such dangers, in my view, are not the result of men against women but women against women because of their choices of dress. The old saw that says one man’s meat is another man’s poison is relevant here. The debate before us is not over “where is the meat.” Rather, it is “what part of the meat is covered.” This brings us full circle to the African condition. In that part of the world, the Masai have to deal with the Westernized and the Muslim hijabi elements among them. Similarly, the Westernized and the hijabi groups must learn to deal with Masai with respect to their choice of dress and the logic behind it. The last and final point I wish to make lies in the heart of the journey to freedom for women. If women are going to travel along this path emotionally separated by the differential investment in the bikini and the hijab, chances are their separate agendas have schemed to make them unwilling partners for freedom. Their ideological text together with their separate contexts has willingly or unwillingly created the sub-text and the pretext for their journey to nowhere. The road to freedom cannot be successfully covered if the women of the world, particularly those in the West, are badly divided over the need to show and not to show the choicest parts of the body. The advertising agencies in the West, mainly in the United States , are willing to go Masai through the eyes of the Ugly American if money is to be made; however, the religious conservatives or aka Christian Rights abhor any such considerations because in doing so one is willing to subscribe to Satan’s circus. Unwilling to do so, such opponents of the feminist secular fundamentalists see the liberation of women not through the facilitation of the bikini and the nakedness associated with such fashion, but through the restoration of the family and the sense of privacy that rests in good motherhood and fatherhood. Guilty and shame are working companions of this dispensation and the road to freedom for this people lies in the words of salvation and wisdom in the scriptures. In conclusion, I should recapitulate by saying that the road to freedom for women in Africaand beyond is going to be negotiable only when fashion, nudity and political consciousness in the world would drive women to think a way out of their dilemma. Much as some women would like men to value them and to invest in them, they must at all times recognize their vulnerabilities in their showing of their private parts and in the economic exploitation of their feminine part in the battles of the gender. Globalization and modernity have created a new day and the freedom struggle of women is showing signs of success in certain domains. Yet, in spite of these successes, it is imperative for thinking women to examine this phenomenon and act seriously in aggregating, articulating and pressing for the creation of a new world order wherein womanhood is not sacrificed at the alter of gender envy and feminine naivety about men and power in human society. Eucharia Mbachu is the Founder of voiceofwomenandchildren.org
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Posted by Robot| 08.09.2007 12:50