Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

In the discourses of geopolitics the reemergent veil is an emblem of many things, prominent among which is its meaning as the rejection of the West. But when one considers why the veil has this meaning in the late twentieth century, it becomes obvious that, ironically, it was the discourses of the West, and specifically the discourse of colonial domination, that in the first place determined the meaning of the veil in geopolitical discourses and thereby set the terms for its emergence as a symbol of resistance. In other words, the reemergent veil attests, by virtue of its very power as a symbol of resistance, to the uncontested hegemonic diffusion of the discourses of the West in our age. And it attests to the fact that, at least as regards the Islamic world, the discourses of resistance and rejection are inextricably informed by the languages and ideas developed and disseminated by the West to no less a degree than are the languages of those openly advocating emulation of the West or ...

“ The left is White. It is Eurocentric. It believes itself to be materialist but it is actually idealist. For example, it is anticlerical, and this is understandable in the historical context of a powerful church at the heart of the state. But, as a materialist, you understand that neither Islam nor Muslims dominate the French state. Muslims are the poorest section of the working class. These two elements should have made the left the main allies of Muslims. Without discussion. But there was discussion, on the backs of the poorest classes. The left did not see the wretched of the earth, they saw the veil. Again this Eurocentrism. The White experience prevailed over everything. Liberation would be the way White people experience it. The experience of White women would be the experience of humanity. But the veil affair showed that this particular experience of gender relations is not the experience of everyone. When our parents came here, they were the poor relations of class struggle. T...

  A History of Arab Feminism (a 2015 documentary) A liberal perspective. A whole essay could be written as a critique of the documentary. Here some of my thoughts on it: Very informative, although I disagree with the approach and the omissions. “Feminism” is not one. But it is obvious in this documentary that “liberal” feminism, i.e. the feminism of the “free market” Western capitalism, is the reference and criteria. “Liberal feminism” includes sexualisation of the body and commodification of women, exploitation of women as cheap labour, although that has a contradictory aspect, for it helps women join the labour force and gain some rights. It is also obvious in the documentary that the “liberation” of Tunisian women did originally and mostly came from above, not through a radical movement. But the documentary wanted to say that it came through both. The documentary has some inaccuracies in the English translation. Example: تونس دولة مدنية must be translated “Tunisia is a civic st...

Boris and the burka: taking cue from the EU

"The problem of pseudo-choice also demonstrates the limitations of the standard liberal attitude towards Muslim women who wear the veil: acceptable if it is their own free choice rather than imposed on them by husbands or family. However, the moment a woman dons the veil as the result of personal choice, its meaning changes completely: it is no longer a sign of belonging to the Muslim community, but an expression of idiosyncratic individuality. In other words, a choice is always a meta-choice, a choice of the modality of the choice itself: it is only the woman who does not choose to wear a veil that effectively chooses a choice. This is why, in our secular liberal democracies, people who maintain a substantial religious allegiance are in a subordinate position: their faith is ‘tolerated’ as their own personal choice, but the moment they present it publicly as what it is for them—a matter of substantial belonging—they stand accused of ‘fundamentalism’. Plainly, the ‘subject of fre...

English schools: on the footsteps of the French ones? Mr Courtney was referring to a speech in February in which Ms Spielman said: "School leaders must have the right to set school uniform policies in a way that they see fit, in order to promote cohesion." By "cohesion" Ms Spielman means conformity . What we are speaking about hear is the headscarf not the veil. The latter covers the whole face not the first. Banning the headscarf at school is considered

There is an irony in this, as Farris observes. The European feminists’ insistence that migrant women’s autonomy would be furthered by the work of domestic service defined as liberating the very household drudgery that these feminists had long sought to escape. There is both a racist and a sexist element to this, Farris says, because “they reinforce the conditions for the reproduction at the societal level of Muslim and non-Western migrant women’s segregation, traditional gender roles, and the gender injustice they claim to be combating.” The Culture Veil

Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil Published in 2002, but ...