Colonial and Orientalist Veils
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Colonial and Orientalist Veils: Associations of Islamic Female Dress in the French and Moroccan Press and Politics Loubna Bijdiguen Goldmiths College – University of London Thesis Submitted for a PhD in Media and Communications Abstract The veiled Muslimah or Muslim woman has figured as a threat in media during the past few years, especially with the increasing visibility of religious practices in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts. Islamic dress has further become a means and technique of constructing ideas about the ‘other’. My study explores how the veil comes to embody this otherness in the contemporary print media and politics. It is an attempt to question constructions of the veil by showing how they repeat older colonial and Orientalist histories. I compare and contrast representations of the dress in Morocco and France. This research is about how Muslimat, and more particularly their Islamic attire, is portrayed in the contemporary print media and politics. My research aims to explore constructions of the dress in the contemporary Moroccan and French press and politics, and how the veil comes to acquire meanings, or veil associations, over time. I consider the veil in Orientalist, postcolonial, Muslim and Islamic feminist contexts, and constructions of the veil in Orientalist and Arab Nahda texts. I also examine Islamic dress in contemporary Moroccan and French print media and politics. While I focus on similarities and continuities, I also highlight differences in constructions of the veil. My study establishes the importance of merging and comparing histories, social contexts and geographies, and offers an opportunity to read the veil from a multivocal, multilingual, cross-historical perspective, in order to reconsider discourses of Islamic dress past and present in comparative perspective. 2 of 347 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 6 A Personal Story .................................................................................................................... 8 Socio-Historical Background: France and Maghrebi Colonialism ..................................... 15 Morocco and the Nahda or Arab Awakening Movement ..................................................... 20 The Veil within Orientalism, Postcolonial, Islamic and Muslim Feminism ........................... 29 Orientalism as Discourse ..................................................................................................... 30 Orientalism as a System of Representation .......................................................................... 34 Constructions of Islam and the Veil ..................................................................................... 37 The Veil and Feminism......................................................................................................... 39 Harem Veils ......................................................................................................................... 44 Islamic, Muslim Feminism and the Veil ............................................................................... 48 Approaching the Veil: a Veil Methodology .............................................................................. 57 The Politics of Location ....................................................................................................... 57 The Veil Archive ................................................................................................................... 69 Approaching Texts ............................................................................................................... 78 Translation ........................................................................................................................... 81 Orientalist Veils........................................................................................................................... 91 Unhappy Veils: ‘Miserable Conditions’ ‘Melancholic Expressions’ ................................... 92 Oppressive Veils: ‘Enslaving Harems’ and ‘Prison Hoods’ ................................................ 99 Exotic Veils: ‘Coquettish Nuns’, ‘Frail’ and ‘Muslin Veils’ .............................................. 107 3 of 347 Nahda Veils ................................................................................................................................ 116 Unhappy Veils: Law, Order, Justice and Hijabs of Hardships .......................................... 118 ‘Veiled in her house, Veil on her face’ ‘Prison of the hijab’.............................................. 124 Seductive Attractive Veils: Thin, Transparent Burqu’s and Revealing Mu’zars ................ 133 ‘Veiled in her Ignorance and Backwardness’ and ‘bonds of ignorance and the veil’ ....... 138 Veil and Dark Times: ‘Darkness of the veil’ or ‘Enlightened Guardians’ ......................... 145 French Veils ............................................................................................................................... 152 Political Threats to the French Nation .............................................................................. 155 6.1.1. Islamist Violent Fanatic and Other French Hijabs .................................................... 155 6.1.2. French Civilisation, Islamist Veils ............................................................................ 174 6.1.3. The Hijab and the Threat to Gender Equality and Emancipation .............................. 182 6.1.4. Hijabs of Oppression, Inferiority and Sexual Stigma ................................................ 183 6.1.5. Hijabs against Emancipation and Equality ................................................................ 196 French Ethical Threats ...................................................................................................... 210 6.2.1. The Hijab as Propaganda, Mission and Proselytising ............................................... 210 6.2.2. Hijab Communalism and the Threat to French Integration ....................................... 221 Moroccan Veils .......................................................................................................................... 238 Political Associations of Islamic Dress .............................................................................. 240 7.1.1. Islamism Extremism and the Politicisation and Marketing of ‘Ostentatious’ Hijabs and Niqabs 241 7.1.2. Maghrebi Feminist Construction of Islamist Veils and Public Space ....................... 256 7.1.3. Veils Fundamentalist Ideology, Shari’a and Radicalism .......................................... 262 Sexual Associations of the Veil .......................................................................................... 274 7.2.1. Niqab, Jilbab and Soutra: ‘Greatest Deprivation of Women’s Being and Freedom’ or ‘Reaction Against the Male Gaze’ ‘Denial of the Female Body’ ............................................... 275 4 of 347 7.2.2. Submission, Inferiority and Violence ........................................................................ 282 Moroccan Ethical and Socio-Cultural Veils ...................................................................... 289 7.3.1. Fantasy Fashion and Fitna Ostentatious Sexual Fashionable and Religious Hijabs and Niqabs of Threat and Fitna ......................................................................................................... 289 7.3.2. Fashionable and Fitna Veils in Feminist Debates ..................................................... 300 7.3.3. Veils of Honour and Shame ...................................................................................... 304 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 315 Veil Comparisons ............................................................................................................... 315 Implications of Study .......................................................................................................... 320 Potential Directions for Further Research ........................................................................ 326 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 329 5 of 347 Introduction This thesis is concerned with representations of the veil in France and Morocco. How did I as a Muslimah muhajjaba (or Muslim woman with a hijab) come to research Islamic dress (referred to as libas islami’ in Arabic) in France and Morocco whilst studying in England? The veil was not the original point of departure in my research. My original study was concerned with colonial discourse and Orientalism; I wanted to explore the techniques for generating ideas about ‘the other.’ But it was the figure of the veiled woman in the texts I was reading that captured my interest; I was intrigued by how she kept coming up. The research thus became about how Muslimat, and more particularly their Islamic attire, is portrayed in the contemporary print media. My research thus aims to explore constructions of Islamic female dress in the contemporary French and Moroccan press and politics. I became especially interested in how the veil comes to acquire certain meanings over time (what I call ‘veil associations’). It is worth noting early on that, when I use the term ‘veil’, I do not intend