Abstract
On September 11 2001 the world was changed, butforwhom and how? In hercriticaianalyses, Alison Donnell scrutinizes the attitudes to veiling in the Western media coverage after the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The human rights abuses, and especially the sanctioned violence against women in Taliban Afghanistan had been known for many years, but was post-September 11 suddenly made media-visible - on Western terms. And in the massive coverage the veil or headscarf soon became an effective symbol of oppression. The former Orientalist gaze is being replaced, Donnell argues, by an Islamophobic. The veil, formerly viewed as an object of mystique, exotism and eroticism, is becominga highly visible sign of a despised difference. Consequently, in spite of several women's organisations opposingthe Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and in spite of the mutiple functions and values of the veil in different Islamic communities, the veiled woman is constantly represented as a passive victim and as a visual reminder of the incommensurability between Western and Islamic societies.
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