This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Increased Veiling = Increased Resistance

22 June 2007

"After each success, the authorities were strengthened in their conviction that the Algerian woman would support Western penetration into the native society. Every rejected veil disclosed to the eyes of the colonialists horizons until then forbidden, and revealed to them, piece by piece, the flesh of Algeria laid bare. The occupier's aggressiveness, and hence his hopes, multiplied ten-fold each time a new face was uncovered." (1)

Sales figures in Britain coincide with claims by Muslims in the country that there has been an increase in wearing of the veil following Labour Party leader Jack Straw's comments opposing them. Young wimmin in particular are reported to be taking on the veil in increasing numbers, with sales up 50% over the last year following Straw's comments, according to the biggest Muslim clothing distributor in the region. (2)

From afar, europeans criticize traditional Muslim clothing as oppressive towards wimmin. But when dealt with face-to-face, the complaints tend to take a more persynal form, based in the discomfort of the european, rather than the perceived oppression of the wimmin wearing the clothing. Straw's comments indicated that he was not comfortable with people wearing a veil in his office and that he felt it prevented communication and encouraged divisions within briti$h society.

A briti$h journalist commented, "We've all been too deferential, for example, about the veil, the hijab, the niqab. I find such garb, in the context of a London street, first ridiculous and then directly offensive. It says that all men are such brutes that if exposed to any more normally clothed women, they cannot be trusted to behave and that all women who dress any more scantily like that are indecent. It's abusive, a walking rejection of all our freedoms. And we don't dare say so." (3)

This quote indicates that Frantz Fanon seemed to be on to something with his approach to group psychology in the imperialist world. While it has not been conclusively proven that Jack Straw's comments where the source of the increase in veil sales over the last year, there is no indication that Muslim wimmin are facing increased oggling or sexual assaults from men to trigger the change. Here the white man turns the issue around to his individual sexual desires, when in reality, what is happening is an act of rebellion of the oppressed nations.

[Editor adds: When MIM says that veil sales increased, nor do we mean to imply that imperialism reinforces Islam. At this time, most of the organizations on the "terrorist" list of Bush are Islamic. The notion that imperialism is reinforcing Islam may have been more appropriate when the United $tates was backing Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. To say that imperialism is reinforcing Islam at this time is like saying Hitler reinforced the Soviet Union by stirring its people to action. We have to come up with strategy and tactics that stem from less poetic words, words less likely to stir the passions of the labor aristocracy.

Connected to this problem, MIM has always stressed that we must conceive of wimmin as other than people with a lifestyle. To escape the language of "pc," we have to stop talking about wimmin as "degraded," because that is not precise enough. The recent discussions of rap as "degrading" wimmin are not correct. It is not "degrading" to be called an "exploited" persyn if one is in the proletariat. Nor is it "degrading" to refer to wimmin as "'hos." We have to learn that changing language can only change so much. There are billions of exploited people and pc cannot change that. There are also billions of 'hos and pc cannot change that either, so sentimentality be damned.]

When veiled wimmin face harassment on the streets of London, it is clear that the problem isn't the frivolous right to dress how one wants as the liberals claim. The problem is that people are not dressing white enough. And here, dressing white means taking a different patriarchal approach by telling wimmin that they must flaunt it and want it, rather than hide it and resist it.

For the gender oppressed it is only natural to want to resist the sexual advances of the gender oppressor. Therefore the split between white bio-females and Muslim wimmin on this question could be indicative of their different positions within the gender hierarchy, especially in Third World countries like Afghanistan. But even more than gender differences, it is a question of national sovereignty and solidarity that seems to be behind the increase in wearing of the veil in Britain. This was certainly the case in revolutionary Algeria as we'll discuss below.

The claim that the form of the veil somehow prevents communication is just a cover for the real problem, which is that the veil is a symbol of the oppressed, distinct from and independent of imperialist culture. It is this that makes the veil so repulsive to the oppressor and increasingly attractive to the oppressed in times of conflict.

This struggle between europeans (and now amerikkkans as well) and Muslims of the oppressed nations is not a new one. In "A Dying Colonialism," Frantz Fanon describes the very same thing taking place in Algeria leading up to the revolution:

"The decisive battle was launched before 1954, more precisely during the early 1930's. The officials of the French administration in Algeria, committed to destroying the people's originality, and under instructions to bring about the disintegration, at whatever cost, of forms of existence likely to evoke a national reality directly or indirectly, were to concentrate their efforts on the wearing of the veil, which was looked upon at this juncture as a symbol of the status of the Algerian woman." (4)

Nothing has changed in regard to this policy from colonial times. The oppressor nations of the imperialist world continue to combat the national consciousness of those whom they oppress as a matter of preserving their own self-interest.

Fanon describes the French policy in Algeria as: "If we want to destroy the structure of Algerian society, its capacity for resistance, we must first of all conquer the women; we must go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves and in the houses where the men keep them out of sight." (5) He goes on to describe the formation of numerous French societies to promote solidarity with Algerian wimmin and how food aid was always accompanied by the French opinion of the veil and by advice for how to overcome their lot as wimmin in Algerian society.

MIM has gone to extensive lengths to expose a similar campaign against Iran in the last couple of years. In the 1990's, wimmin's solidarity groups were formed in the imperialist countries that focused on the predicament of wimmin in Afghanistan. These groups focused their efforts on exposing and criticizing the Taliban and invited people in MIM circles to join their campaign under the guise of opposing Taliban/Pakistani "imperialism" over Afghan wimmin. MIM's definition of the principal contradiction as well as our definition of imperialism made it easy for comrades to pass up this campaign. Years later these groups were left cheerleading for the brutal u$ invasion of Afghanistan that continues to destroy the lives of Afghans over 5 years later.

Just yesterday, 25 Afghan civilians were killed by u$-led NATO forces. Among them were 3 infants and 9 wimmin. (6) The bourgeois media likes to mention facts like how many of the dead were amerikkkans or how many were female or youth, because these things resonate with their audience. To us the fact that there were 3 infants and 9 wimmin among the killed tells us a couple things. First, it demonstrates the real world results for Afghan wimmin of the campaign efforts of those pseudo-feminists who wanted our assistance in exposing the Taliban. And second, it is one example that all Afghan people are inherently involved in the fight to kick the imperialists out of their country. The Afghan wimmin don't get to stay home and be soccer moms while their husbands go to a far away land to fight. That is the privilege of the occupier.

Any effective liberation struggle will put all of its people to good use in battle. In a patriarchal society that may mean wimmin tend to play different roles than men. This is not necessarily backwardness on the part of the oppressed, but rather the tactical thinking of the oppressed in their righteous struggle for national liberation. When european-dressed wimmin were not questioned by the colonial police in revolutionary Algeria, the wimmin of the resistance took off the veil and looked european. The Algerians used the French strategy of acculturation to their advantage. When the situation shifted and the French began to interrogate people regardless of dress, the haik, a garment draping the whole body, became advantageous in concealing packages and weapons. In the process of struggle, any link between dress and tradition ended up broken by the necessity of struggle.

One lesson we can learn from wimmin's participation in the Algerian revolution is that it is in transforming the world around us that we best transform ourselves. "The doctrine of the Revolution, the strategy of combat, never postulated the necessity for a revision of forms of behavior with respect to the veil. We are able to affirm even now that when Algeria has gained her independence such questions will not be raised, for in the practice of the Revolution the people have understood that problems are resolved in the very movement that raises them." (7)

Further evidence that the condition of wimmin is just a cover for white nationalism and imperialism is found in Iraq where conditions have greatly worsened for all people as a result of u$ occupation and policies. The anti-colonial struggle there is another concrete historical example of how best to work for gender equality.

In Iraq, "Women were involved in the 1920 revolution against British occupation, including in fighting. In the 50s, political parties established women's organisations. All reflected the same principle: fighting alongside men, women were also liberating themselves. That was proven in the aftermath of the 1958 revolution ending the British-imposed monarchy when women's organisations achieved within two years what over 30 years of British occupation failed to: legal equality." (8)

This is Iraq and Algeria, half a century ago. And yet, today in 2007, white nationalists treat nations with Muslim majorities as inherently anti-womyn. Imperialism is anti-womyn and against the interests of all oppressed people.

Notes:
(1) Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. Grove Press, NY: 1965. p.42.
(2) Channel 4 News. Veil Sales Surge post Straw comments. 22 Jun 2007.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/religion/veil+sales+surge+post+straw+comments/570367
(3) Sexton, David. All this Veil Wearing is Plain Offensive. Evening Standard, 15 June 2007.
http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2007/6/16/all-this-veil-wearing-is-plain-offensive.html
(4) Fanon, p. 37.
(5) Fanon, p. 37-8.
(6) Democracy Now! 22 June 2007.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/22/1458219
(7) Fanon, p. 47-8.
(8) Zangana, Haifa. Quiet, or I'll call democracy. Guardian, 22 December 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1378532,00.html