June 5, 2020. ( A previous version of this article was published in July 2019)

Andres P. Mohorte

The  veil  is a central issue not only in the Middle East, but also in the West: the high mass of immigration that has arrived in European and American countries in recent decades has caused its presence in public spaces to be a subject of debate. Whether it is  an explicit apology  for it through feminism or  proposing its prohibition in schools , the veil represents a heated and virulent debate in the current political scene.

Part of the argument revolves around its  cultural value : the veil is part of  the Muslim identity  of many women, and does not represent the patriarchal oppression to which they are subjected in some Arab societies. However, the hijab and the various forms of veil  have not always been part of the culture  of Muslim countries: until just a few decades ago, their mere imposition caused laughter among large audiences.

The story takes us back to 1958 (or 1953, the year of reference varies), when the then President of Egypt,  Gamal Abdel Nasser , explained in a packed conference how the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood  had asked him to implement the  mandatory veil on the streets of Egypt.

In his talk, immortalized today on video, Nasser recounts how the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood had proposed a ceasefire (at a time of high political upheaval in Egypt,  including attacks  on the president) in exchange for some reforms. Among them, the  imposition  of the veil. As Nasser recounts the anecdote of the meeting, a man in the audience exclaims: «Why doesn’t he wear the veil himself!»

Nasser goes on to explain the conversation: “Your daughter is studying medicine,” he tells the Brotherhood leader, presumably  Hassan al-Hudaibi . “She doesn’t wear a veil. If you yourself cannot impose the veil on your daughter, what makes you think I can impose it on ten million Egyptian women?” At the end of his sentence, the audience bursts into loud laughter  ,  and Nasser himself cannot contain his laughter. The idea of ​​imposing the veil on women is passed off as a bad joke, unrealizable.

The mood of mockery is constant. When Nasser introduces the subject and explains the Islamic leader’s request, the audience laughs in monologue-like fashion. «If I introduce a law like that, people will tell me that we have returned to the times of  Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah , when people were forbidden to walk during the day and could only do so at night,» Nasser replied, according to his testimony. And more laughter.

At the time, Egypt was a young country, more influenced by  the secular Arabism  of a new generation of leaders than by the ramifications of radical Islamism that dominate much of Arab politics today. Nasser, a figure as full of light as he was of shadows, promoted a  secular and socialist pan-Arabism  that permeated much of the political culture of the Middle East for decades, from Syria to Iraq, via Libya and Jordan.

His position was as much ideological as it was strategic. The opposition of the Muslim Brotherhood,  a transnational party-network-movement  that for decades has permeated Muslim culture from less radical Islamism, left him a wide space in secularism and a more  Western profile  to maintain power. Whatever the case, Nasser’s speech represented Egypt: in 1959,  almost no women wore the veil  at Cairo University.

Egypt, 1959.

Things gradually changed. If the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organisations did not have power, they did control the neighbourhoods of the increasingly crowded cities of the Middle East through networks of support and education. Two decades later, the same photo from the same university in Cairo showed  half  of the women wearing the veil. And another decade later, not a single woman appeared on the university campus without the veil.

Egypt, 2004.

Something similar has happened in other countries such as Iran,  where the fall of the secular monarchy  gave rise to a revitalised strict Islamism that still requires women to wear the veil, when in 1979 they did not. The process has been both organic and directed by states or patriarchal society, and has  changed  the face of Arab countries. Today it is widely accepted as a dress not only in Egypt or Jordan, but also in European countries with large Muslim populations.

Gone are the days when Nasser would laugh at the veil in front of an audience that was delighted to mock the then bizarre ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood. The veil ceased to be a political demand and became part of Arab culture.

Image:   Mostafa Meraji

https://magnet.xataka.com/en-diez-minutos/when-imposition-velo-a-mujeres-era-motivo-risa-paises-musulmanes-1

 

03/18/2024