Front and Back Covers, Volume 21, Number 6. December 2005

Abstract

Front and back cover caption, volume 21 issue 6Front and back coverPOLITICS OF DRESSThe front and back covers illustrate Emma Tarlo's narrative in this issue on the politics of Muslim dress in Britain. On the front cover, Muslim women in London protest against the proposed French law banning the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols in state schools. The march was organized by Hizb ut‐Tahrir, a radical Islamic political party which responded to the French proposal by promoting various forms of Islamic dress (hijab and jilbab) as a means of combating secularism, resisting integration and submitting to the commands of Allah.The back cover shows press coverage of the story of Shabina Begum, the British Muslim girl from Luton who challenged her school's uniform policy in 2002 by requesting to wear the long‐sleeved neck‐to‐toe jilbab in school, and won her case in the Court of Appeal in 2005. Barely visible, but present in the background, is her brother and legal guardian ‐ a link between the two images through his involvement with Hizb ut‐Tahrir, the organizers of the demonstration and Shabina Begum's advisors on issues of religious dress. A further link was made through the trainee journalist whom the Guardian entrusted to write its front‐page article on the outcome of the case. When this journalist wrote a piece on the inevitability of Muslim anger one week after the London bombings, it emerged that, unknown to the newspaper, he was a member of Hizb ut‐Tahrir.At a time when images of Islamic dress are increasingly used in the media as a visual shorthand for dangerous extremism, and when Muslims all over Europe are suffering from the consequences of such associations, how might anthropologists approach the issue of fundamentalist sartorial activism? Is it possible to expose the complexities of the jilbab case without contributing to the popular and false assumption that all forms of Islamic dress for women are necessarily linked to radical and oppressive ideas or suspect political agendas?The jilbab controversy raises important issues about ethnographic responsibility ‐ a theme discussed in relation to David Mosse's book Cultivating development, and in relation to attempts to rethink guidelines on ethics in anthropology. Do anthropologists have a duty to report on politically and morally uncomfortable issues they encounter in the field or should they remain silent? If so, on what criteria should such judgements be made, and how might we assess the potential distortion generated by our silence on certain issues?