On headscarves

Interview with two Swedish women Anne Sofie Roald and Pernilla Ouis who decided to convert to Islam in the 80's in an effort to step forward and explain the religion to the people. In the process they adopted the headscarf. A recent trend towards secularization of religious practices has led a lot of Muslim women to shed their headscarves. The interview chronicles life under the scarf, their reasons for remaining veiled and ultimately their reasons for giving up the practice thirty years later.

What made you initially decide to adopt the headscarf?

Anne Sofie Roald: I became a Muslim in 1982 and the pressure came not just from one man, but from a number of men around me. When I became a Muslim, I had no idea you were supposed to wear the headscarf. I've always been a seeker in life, and I'm a Muslim even without a headscarf. When I came into contact with Muslims, they said women had to wear the headscarf, but nobody did that in Norway then. Some Pakistani and Moroccan women went round with simple cotton scarves tossed casually over their hair. But the Muslim group had greater expectations of me as a convert, and I was one of the first in Norway to wear the headscarf.

The headscarf wasn't all that practical. The worst thing was that it made your head so hot, plus we used safety pins to keep it in place under our chins, because it was important to keep it in place. I lived in a detached house, and every time I wanted to go out into the garden I was supposed to wear it, but it was such a bother to put on and take off so in the end I didn't go out at all. In that way the headscarf became a barrier between inside and outside.

What made you decide to take off your headscarves?

Pernilla Ouis: What came first? My altered view of religion, or my divorce? One explanation is that the pressure from my husband had gone. Another interpretation is that I got divorced because I started thinking along different lines. And after the divorce I found myself in new social settings; people outside the Muslim community became important to me. I was "the one with the headscarf", but I felt it was a false description of who I was. My religiousness had changed, and the headscarf was a symbol of something I could no longer defend. I started wondering why I should have to pay such a high price. Everyone thought I was stupid, thought I had problems with the West. I became so one-dimensional; in every context I was just a Muslim. You could see it as a defeat and say we should have carried on fighting and insisting there was much more to us than that.

A painting I did a couple years back titled 'Veil - A Mea Culpa'... More on the painting here.

Story

A lot of our stories are passed on from the ancients, borne of their legends, their aspirations and their dreams for the generations to come in their hope that their progeny be better humans than their immediate image. Sometimes the stories seem to catch on, sometimes they do not. Here is one that did catch on...

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

Quote...

Mullah to a tortured Updike Underhill in Royall Tyler’s 1797 novel “The Algerine Captive" (referenced in the New Yorker).

"A wise man adheres not to his religion, because it was that of his ancestors. Born in New England, my friend, you are a Christian purified by Calvin, born in the Campania of Rome, you would had been a Papist. Nursed by the Hindoos, you would have entered the pagoda with reverence, and worshipped the soul of your ancestor in a duck. Educated on the bank of the Wolga, the Delai Lama might have been your god. In China, you would have worshipped Tien, and perfumed Confucius, as you bowed in adoration . . . of your ancestors."

The Master of Apollo and Daphne (c. 1500), ‘Christ on the cross adored by Saints Monica, Augustine, Mary Magdalen, Jerome and Bridget of Sweden, Oil on panel, 30” X 36”

Sweet Lord - a gallery visit

Cosimo Cavallaro, ‘My Sweet Lord’, Chocolate, 72" X 72" X 24"

I was over at Chelsea for a quick jaunt and my itinerary included the Proposition. The gallery had a sequel to the originally controversial exhibit that consisted of a life size statue of the nude Jesus made entirely of chocolate. This time the artist has added eight fully clothed saints that flank the naked Jesus. I posted my gallery visit on Art and Perception (seemed logical as it adds on to an original post on this sometime back). It will be interesting to read the renewed take this time around.