ETHOS

By Eric Augenbraun

I will start by saying that from the very little I know of TV host Rachael Ray, I find her incredibly annoying and rather stupid, possessing the personality of a Jack Russell terrier or a similarly excitable small animal. I also know that my mother owns one of her misleadingly titled 30-minute meals cookbooks that contains not a single recipe that could possibly be prepared in 30 minutes or less. I get the impression that Ray’s audience (like that of most daytime talk show/cooking show hosts) is generally composed of middle-aged, middle-class, women of the white variety. So, given the demographics of her audience and her own dim-wittedness, I find it hard to believe that either Ray or those who follow her (or the vast majority of the American population for that matter) had even the slightest clue to the significance of the keffiyeh that she donned in a recent Dunkin’ Donuts ad.

That’s not a Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Mocha Latte she is holding, it’s a fully functional bomb!

Naturally, there was a backlash to the advertisement, eventually resulting in it being canned. Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin took a break from defending the internment of Japanese-American people during World War II to chime in: “The keffiyeh has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.” I guess one person’s “murderous Palestinian jihad” is another’s “struggle for national liberation against a brutal apartheid regime.” We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one Michelle. In any case, this situation has brought to the fore a few issues I have wanted to write about for a while now:

1. In the face of the transformation of the keffiyeh into a fashion trend—as evidenced by Rachael F@#%ing Ray rocking one in a Dunkin F@#%ing Donuts advertisement—what is the history of this garment and what is, or was, its significance for both people in the Arab world and people outside of the Arab world?

2. The equation of the keffiyeh with terrorism and its implicit association of all Arab people with terrorism is patently racist.

I think it would probably be useful to start with this telling anecdote: last year, when I was a member of a certain left-wing organization, I was in West Philly selling copies of the organization’s weekly newspaper while publicizing a meeting about Palestine we had coming up and trying to recruit people. On such paper sales we would sometimes profile our targets (it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds, bear with me), looking for signs that suggested a person might be sympathetic to our arguments before we approached them—political T-shirts, buttons, hair styles, facial hair, head gear, and keffiyehs are a representative handful. Of course we didn’t confine the people to whom we spoke to these parameters, nor did every person who met one or more of the above criteria actually give a shit about our politics. For instance, on this particular sale, I spotted a college-aged white female with a black and white keffiyeh wrapped around her neck.

“Hey, nice keffiyeh,” I said pleasantly, trying to start a conversation as I approached her with a newspaper and a flyer for the upcoming meeting. Instead of an enthusiastic “free Palestine!,” “long live the Intifada!,” or even just a simple “thanks,” I got what was probably the most awkward silence and piercing stare I have ever endured. She looked at me as if I had just asked her to perform some lewd, unspeakable sexual act. Note to self: do NOT use this as a pick up line.

“What!?” she replied in a disgusted and insulted sort of way after several excruciating seconds.

“Oh, never mind,” I shot back quickly as I scurried away trying to convince myself, as I do after all such awkward encounters, that it was not nearly as awkward as it felt.

If this is at all reflective of the knowledge that the majority of keffiyeh wearers have of the garment, then it suggests that it is time to enshrine it alongside Che Guevara and Malcolm X T-shirts in the “Urban Outfitters Hall of Fame for articles of clothing that once had a modicum of political significance but now do not necessarily suggest that the wearer even knows the name of the figure on the garment or the name of the garment itself.” Excuse me while I catch my breath. In fact, Urban Outfitters went through a controversy similar to the Rachael Ray flap not too long ago when they were inundated with criticism from angry Zionists who were unhappy about the store carrying the item. Moreover, I should not be surprised that the woman I met on that paper sale didn’t know the proper name of the keffiyeh she was wearing…Urban Outfitters (where I would bet my life savings is where she purchased it) marketed them not as keffiyehs, but as “authentic Arab scarfs” or something to that effect.

Che: “I stay fly in my authentic Arab scarf.”

So what is the significance of the keffiyeh? While it has come to be associated with Palestinian people and their struggle for national liberation, the keffiyeh has been worn by Arab men in the Middle East for quite some time. The large, square, cotton cloths are typically worn wrapped around the head to protect from sun exposure in the hot and dry climate of the Middle East. The color of the pattern stitched into the cloth also tends to vary from one place to another. It was not until the 1960s with the upsurge of Palestinian resistance that the keffiyeh became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism—most notably worn by long time PLO leader Yasser Arafat. For people in the Western world, the keffiyeh thus became a popular way for anti-war and pro-Palestine progressive activists to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people in the struggle against the Zionist occupation. Still, owing to its practicality as an article of clothing, the keffiyeh is worn by Arab men across the Middle East, the vast majority of whom, obviously, have no connection to terrorism (a word that I take with a grain of salt when it is used by right-wingers anyways) and do not wear it with any intention of making a political statement.

This is why the assertion that the keffiyeh is symbolic of “terrorism” or “jihad” is so poisonous. First and foremost because it assumes both that all terrorists wear keffiyehs and all Arabs wear keffiyehs, with an act of sleight of hand that would put David Blaine to shame, the pro-Israel right-wing is able to equate being Arab with being a terrorist. Zionists and proponents of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East who attempt to turn the garment into a symbol of terrorism do so with the clear intention of legitimizing the oppression of Middle Eastern people to gain economic and political control of the region while at the same time disparaging resistance to this oppression. The amount of sway this has in shaping public opinion is unmistakable as the resistance of Palestinian people is painted as terrorism the actions of the Israeli government are thus portrayed as necessary steps in the “War on Terror”—this presents a real obstacle to building solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Yasser Arafat

Personally I am not a fan of self-righteously moralizing against the people who make such items into fads and fashion statements. To be frank, I consider it a waste of time to sit around shaking an angry fist at “these damn people who are destroying the political significance of keffiyehs”—it’s just a bunch of hot air that can never actually accomplish anything. I tend to think that the attire one wears (or any lifestyle choice for that matter) is not the most effective grounds through which to participate politically, in fact, it is an evasion from real political engagement—nothing more than a posture. Plus, this is how fashion trends usually work. In all honesty, it’s not difficult to understand why keffiyehs would become so popular; they look cool, and they serve a practical purpose—an excellent balance between form and function. Sometimes the latter is not as important as the former as far as fashion is concerned, but you get my point. I find it far more fruitful to ask the question “what is it about the political context in which we live that allows for items that were once political statements to lose this significance?” If we lived in a country with a flourishing left, a strong and united anti-war movement, and a visible Palestine solidarity movement perhaps it would be less likely that the meaning of the keffiyeh would be lost on the hipsters and fashionistas. If this were, in fact, the case, maybe public discourse around the issue would not be dominated by the thinly veiled racism of the right wing.

In closing, I will say that the commodification of the keffiyeh does have its shining moments. For instance, as a Jewish anti-Zionist, nothing strikes me as funnier than the prospect of seeing a bar- or bat-mitzvahed Jewish teen who has likely been spoon-fed Zionist rhetoric since he or she emerged from the birth canal buying an “authentic Arab scarf” from Urban Outfitters because “they think it looks cool.” As Paul and I mused, this would be a lot like a Nazi wearing a yarmulke or a Klansman rocking some FUBU or Ronald Reagan sporting a hammer and sickle tattoo.

Now imagine that!