About that scarf...

I haven't done a political post in a while, probably because so much of it seems like the sort of hysterical doomsday predictions one might expect from a classroom of third graders. That goes for both sides, of course....anyway, about that scarf kerfuffle that some of the hard-core right-wing blogs started having a fit about, well, when even Kate had something to say about it, I kinda felt I had to put in my two cents.

First off, my take on it is much like the Jawa Report's. I don't think it's obviously a kaffiyeh...frankly, it looks like exactly what Ray and Dunkin Donuts said it was, which is a simple scarf purchased for the purpose of the shoot, covered in a paisley pattern, and saying it's a kaffiyeh is silly at best.

Kate is also right to point out that the kaffiyeh, by any of its multiple names, is a functional and traditional part of Arab dress, and some variant of it can be found all over the world in any place where it's hot. She's right that simply wearing one doesn't make one a terrorist, or even a sympathizer with one. I disagree with her on the rest of her post, though, largely because a kaffiyeh with the pattern on it popularized by Arafat and others is not just a piece of cloth, and it's not just a headdress. It's a symbol, and saying otherwise is dangerously simplistic.

When a similar mode of dress, and here I'm talking specifically about the version of the kaffiyeh worn by Arafat, is explicitly worn to identify affiliation with a particular movement, political philosophy, racial identity, etc. the act of doing so creates that connection, whether it was there to begin with or not, as long as one is aware of that connection. The PLO's stated goal since its inception has been to destroy Israel, Arafat's repudiation of that in 1998 notwithstanding; there is an inescapable and very real connection between the violence between the various Arabic and Islamic groups and Israel, and the symbols that the two sides rally around every time things heat up. The kaffiyeh is one of those symbols; Arafat wore one every single time he was in public and became associated with it.

One might just as well say the same of lots of other things, though. In certain parts of Los Angeles, wearing either a blue or a red shirt during the mid-80's was tantamount to a death sentence. Schools these days restrict students from wearing clothing closely associated with gangs as a way of keeping their rivalry off school property - it doesn't always work, but one has to start somewhere. Seventy years ago, one group of people in Europe was forced to wear armbands with a yellow six-pointed star on them shortly before six million of them were hauled off and slaughtered. The color red in Russia, China, and most of Eastern Europe has a particular connotation that the rest of the world doesn't. Take some white stars, and thirteen alternating stripes of red and white, put it on a rectangular piece of cloth, and refuse to take it off the pole it's on because some people are shooting at you, and you have the inspiration for the USA's national anthem. A vehicle with two perpendicular intersecting red bars on a white background on a battlefield has come to be connected with medical attention. The list goes on and on and on, endlessly.

People look for meaning where there might not otherwise be any. We associate shapes, colors, patterns, and textures with particular concepts, it's just how we're wired. Take a kaffiyeh of plain white, hold it in place with a simple black agal, and put it on a blue-eyed Caucasian man, and you evoke Lawrence of Arabia. Take one of white with a black spiderweb pattern on it, or a red and white, and you're possibly associating yourself with the Palestinian intifada. Granted, it's not that simplistic....but the connection is there and either ignoring it or ridiculing those that do make that connection is also simplistic. Granted, there are other associations than the ones we're talking about, but meanings change. Context changes. People change.

As a good example of this kind of connection, let's take it out of the realm of Rachael Ray, Dunkin Donuts, or even Yasser Arafat. Zombietime has done a number of photo essays on this subject, so go have a look at two from this month (and read the comments, which in my opinion are the best part):

Nakba-60 - 4th, 6th, 8th, 11th, and particularly the 17th photo of the banner, masked boys shooting rocks with slingshots, a Merkava tank, et al. There's way more, but you'll get my point, just keep scrolling.

UC Berkely's Palestinian Checkpoint - the one of the students in line, about 5 photos down.

San Francisco isn't arid or that hot. The predominant population there is not Arabic. QED, there is another connotation in mind. Is it as simple as "fashionable scarves"? Maybe. Americans have a tendency to do that sort of thing, else there would be no market at all for Che Guevara or Chairman Mao merchandise (15 seconds with Google found those latter two....you don't have to go far), both of which show a deeply distressing lack of historical knowledge about what those two were all about...or else an equally distressing amount of apathy.

I agree with Kate that the whole thing is a hysterical overreaction on the part of both Michelle Malkin and Charles Johnson. I disagree, however, that it's as simple as "kaffiyehs have been around for thousands of years, way before Arafat or the Palestinians, so wearing one doesn't mean diddly." One might say the same of the swastika.

Edit: Kate rightly points out in the comments that I paraphrased her post inaccurately. The part of her post that I read that way was this one:

What hole do Malkin and Johnson live in that they’re convinced the keffiyeh is, in and of itself, a symbol of terrorism? Or that a woman’s wearing of it means, well, anything?
The keffiyeh (also known as the shmagh, shemagh, ghutra, hatta or mashada), is a traditional Arabic men’s headdress. It’s a functional piece of clothing designed to protect the head and neck from the arid, blistering heat of the Middle East. As such, it’s been around for thousands of years — long before Yasser Arafat, the Taliban or any other Islamic extremists.
To argue that, because terrorists have been seen wearing such clothing, anyone who wears similar items must also be a terrorist is laughable.