Consider This from NPR - The Symbolism And History Of The Keffiyeh

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Keffiyehs, checkered scarves most closely associated with Palestinians, have been in the news lately. In Vermont, three men of Palestinian descent, two of whom were wearing keffiyehs, were shot. NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Wafa Ghnaim, a fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People, about the history of the garment, what it means to Palestinian identity and what it means to her.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ashish Prashad is really attached to his keffiyeh. Two-thirds of the year you'll see it around my neck, except maybe in New York winters where I need something really, really thick to keep myself warm. My son even slept in it in his first three or four months of existence because he could smell dad. Keffiyehs have been in the news a lot lately because they symbolize Palestinian identity, whether these scarves are worn at protests or just out and about. Prashar is British Indian. His kefiyah was a gift from a Palestinian whom he met in the West Bank. And he says he wears it to show solidarity with all oppressed people, but especially

Palestinians. And he says it usually gets a positive response. I've had people on the street stop me and ask me about it and we break bread together. He says he got a much different reaction at a public park in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. A video he recorded shows a woman throwing a cell phone at him and his 18-month-old son. Then, he says, she threw a hot drink. I'm wearing a scarf and I'm getting attacked because apparently I'm a terrorist. He reported to police that she made anti-Islamic statements towards him. Hadassah Bozakarovani is now facing hate crime charges in the case.

She pleaded not guilty, according to court records. Her lawyer didn't respond to a request for comment. hate crime charges in the case. She pleaded not guilty, according to court records. Her lawyer didn't respond to a request for comment. In Vermont a couple weeks ago, another incident. Three students of Palestinian descent were shot by a white man. One of them was left paralyzed. Two were wearing the keffiyeh. None of this has stopped Run Jatan from wearing her keffiyeh. The thing about us is, you know, the more violent they are to us, the more we want to be ourselves, the more we want to be more of who we are as Palestinians.

She's Palestinian and lives in New York and says she wears the keffiyeh to feel connected to who she is. This is just a scarf, right? But it's not just a scarf. We all know that. It carries a lot of symbolism. It carries a lot of deep history. Consider this. The evolution of the keffiyeh traces the history of the Palestinian people.

We'll explain how a piece of cloth became a powerful symbol. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, December 5th. It's Consider This from NPR. Okay, so a basic question. What is the keffiyeh? Like, what does it look like? Well, at a very literal level, it's a square piece of cloth. It's usually white with either a black checkered pattern or a red checkered pattern, though it can come in multiple colors. And there's also kind of a woven kind of design on the edges, as well as some tassels and macrame that hang on the corners. That's Wafa Ghanim. She's a research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People. Specifically, it's a men's headdress and usually folded diagonally in half and secured on the head with a agel or a

headrope. But there's a lot of meaning embedded in this article of clothing. I look at the keffiyeh as a symbol of freedom and history. And it's true. I mean, go back through more than a century of Palestinian history, and you'll see the keffiyeh right in the middle of one pivotal moment after another. For example, in 1974, when Yasser Arafat, at the time the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, addressed the UN General Assembly. He wore the keffiyeh, which was his trademark. Yasser Arafat was known to fold the keffiyeh into the shape of historic Palestine before wearing it on his head. So we have a really beautiful symbolism in that and in the way that he expressed his own connection to homeland.

The keffiyeh's history as a political symbol, it goes all the way back to the 1930s, to what's known as the Arab Revolt. That's when a headdress, mostly worn by nomadic Bedouins, became an identifier for all Palestinian Arabs. Those riots emerged primarily, they were demanding an end to the British occupation of Palestine. And at this time, we see Palestinian men, not just that were Bedouin or nomadic, but from villages and towns that began to wear the black and white kafia as an expression of political identity and national identity. Wafaa Ghanem is Palestinian herself. And I asked her about what the keffiyeh means to her personally. I feel connected with my past, with my ancestors, with my great grandparents, with my father. And my kofi specifically and the way that I've added embroidery to it reminds me of also a memory of my ancestors and our long and beautiful and rich history of creation and culture and art. Yeah. What did you embroider specifically on your

keffiyeh? I decided to embroider a goat's design, which when I learned that design from my mother, it was a maternal motif because it featured two goats looking at each other and underneath them are like a baby goat on each side. And I stitched this guffia when I was on maternity leave with my son, my newborn baby at the time, my son, and I wanted to create it. I had a calling in that moment to create it and to wear it, but then also to pass it on to him and as part of his own cultural inheritance of being a Palestinian in exile. I love that. You know, when I hear you describe what the keffiyeh means to you personally, it's so beautiful. And I have to ask you, when you watch people react hatefully to the keffiyeh, I'm thinking about the shooting

recently of three young men in Vermont. Two of them were wearing keffiyehs. In New York recently, a woman allegedly harassed and threw a cup of hot coffee at a British Indian man who was wearing a keffiyeh as well. And we don't know exactly what motivated these people to strike out, but what goes through your mind when you see people become victims of violence when wearing this scarf? Of course, this is tragic and it saddens me because the keffiyeh is a historic garment. And all I can think about is how dehumanized Palestinians and our cause, our cause for freedom is and how the kofia is ultimately and the way that it's viewed and the symbolism of the way it's viewed today is a reflection of that dehumanization. The kofia will always, and our clothing will always reflect our current context and our identity. This is the history of

Palestinian dress. We always express identity through our dress. And I think right now we see that also it seems people reflect their own beliefs and judgments of our identity onto our dress. And I find that in and of itself very interesting. As a Palestinian dress historian, I'm often regarded as an activist, but I find that interesting because as somebody who is preserving cultural heritage with colleagues and peers, preserving cultural heritage of other cultures in the world, they're not considered activists. And so for Palestinians to be so maligned to the point that to preserve our own cultural heritage or our dress history makes us political in any way, I think is an interesting thought to consider and how that might change one day when we are free. When you're just sharing your family history to be perceived as being an activist, I mean, that's really something, isn't it? Yeah, to preserve even a scarf and the beauty and history of a scarf and how it reflected certain segments of society and how it

was worn and the way it was folded or, or even in our embroidery and the designs that we embroider, um, to have that be politicked and regarded as sort of this revolutionary. And of course, you know, of course, as a Palestinian, I am an activist and I do believe in freedom and that will never change. But at the end of the day, I'm here to document the history of dress. And this to me is a cultural and humanitarian contribution, not necessarily a political one. Wafa Ghanim is curator for the Museum of the Palestinian People. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.