Veiling Between Denigration and Glorification in Algeria

Abstract

Veiling is a cultural practice that has created controversial debates since colonial intervention in Algeria. Such debates either condemn veils as “oppressive” or deify them as markers of cultural authenticity, and women are often seen either as “victims” of an “oppressive” culture or as “dignified” guardians of a “glorious” culture. Informed by postcolonial feminist scholarship exposing the political motivations of the debates associating women with culture, this paper outlines the history of the controversies about veiling in Algeria, where women’s bodies still serve as a battlefield in power-motivated struggles. The ongoing interpretation of Algerian women’s experiences within dichotomized discourses has harmful consequences on both women and their cultural practice. While veiling is getting mystified due to denigration and glorification, women’s lives are affected in different ways by the polemical debates. The most tangible effect is the violence endured by women because of the growing tensions between the two sides of the debates, which have intangible effects that are also detrimental. These debates are shaping and distorting the attitudes of so many women about veiling. Examined sources show that women’s opinion is divided between advocates and detractors of veiling, and arguments are repetitive of the same inconsistencies created throughout the long history of the power-motivated debates. Interpreting women’s attitudes in the light of dissonance theory shows that both women who advocate veiling and those who condemn it repeat inconsistencies often motivated by defensive purposes, which obscure vision and undermine scrutiny and inquiry in what would help settle the conflictual issues.