The Dynamism of the Veil: Veiling and Unveiling as a Means of Creating Identity in Algeria and France

Abstract

The Dynamism of the Veil: Veiling and Unveiling as a Means of Creating Identity in Algeria and France By Peter Racco n contemporary political discourse, particularly in the United States, Muslim women who don the veil are often considered agentless members of an oppressive patriarchal religion, subjects in need of rescue. 1 This idea of the white male rescuing brown women from brown men is perpetuated throughout colonial history and discourse, 2 including within the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Yet the reality of the matter is that women have a variety of reasons for veiling and that, while the idea of being forced to do so vis-a-vis a subordinate position in society cannot be necessarily discounted, often times wearing a veil is used as a method of improving or challenging one’s devalued posi- tion or of asserting power beyond physicality. Similarly, the act of unveiling cannot be simply read as way of moving towards modernization, feminism, equality, et cetera but rather as a complex method for navigating tensions in a social context or contexts. As Natalya Vince, an historian of modern France and Algeria, warns, we should take care not to suggest that the veil, whether worn or un- worn, always indicates “colonial influence over the local population or a Fanonian cultural resistance,” as both can be done for “socioeconomic or familial reasons” as well. 3 It is my intention to argue that the veil is used as a method of creating or maintaining a multitude of identities – some real, some constructed – in order to better suit one’s political, societal, economical, and/or familial needs. To do so, I will compare the use of the veil as a form of resistance during the Algerian War for Independence and the use of the veil as an identity- creating tool in 1980s-90s France (during the headscarf controversy). During the Algerian War for Independence, the veil, or absence thereof, allowed women to become highly effective guerilla fighters. This, however, was merely one part of the larger trend of the Algerian War, wherein identities and senses of belonging were chal- lenged, contested, and redefined. 4 Frantz Fanon – a psychiatrist whose work relating to post-colonial studies and particularly the Algerian War for Independence is well known – argues that, initially, wearing the veil in colonial Algeria was a form of cultural resistance against French efforts to unveil Algerian women (thus, in their view, bringing them over to the side of modernity and liberalism) – it “was worn because tradition demanded a rigid separation of the sexes, but also because the occupier was bent on unveiling Algeria.” 5 Then, “[w]hat is in fact the assertion of a distinct identity, concern with keeping intact a few shreds of national existence, is attributed to religious, magical, fanatical behaviour.” 6 This constitutes a clear misinterpretation on the part of the French of the actions of women who refused to unveil. The prominence of French colonial strategy placed on Algerian women as a method of destructuring Algerian society necessarily gave rise to “reactionary forms of behaviour on the part of the colonized.” 7 As immortalized in the film The Battle of Algiers, Algerian women could become highly effective guerilla fighters by shedding the veil and adopting I