Daily Times

Many Muslim societies, living in both Muslim-dominated states and in the Western world, are embracing religious extremism. In most of the west, the unity among the Muslims is following the classical ghettoization, once considered a trademark of Judaism. One needs the clarity and courage of Rosa-Luxemburg to express and condemn this self-imposed segregation. “What do you want with these Jewish pains?” she asks, further adding, “I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.”

It manifests a clear sense of alienation on the part of Muslims. Apart from the economic factors, the race also plays a dominant role in this case. Neither black nor coloured skin can wear a white mask for long. Franz Fanon as in many other premises was succinct in this regard too. The next and real victims of this tragic segregation are the women who have to dispense with their freedom by concealing their faces behind a veil.

Veiling has inundated the middle class of Pakistan — under the tutelage of Saudi funding — where ties of production are predominantly feudal. The introduction of a veil apparently saves the woman from the viciousness of the lewd, lusty eyes of the male; a justification offered to legitimise a coercive act by twisting reality. This blatant fact was the dehumanised thought, which objectified the women as an instrument of Eros. The hunger, undoubtedly, reaches its acme when men are starved yet this hunger becomes a clear manifestation of a society in decadence. Certain maladies including extremism are lethal especially when they deem a natural human act; a potential threat to the laws of conformism/hegemony. As Oscar Wilde rightly says, “Every impulse we try to strangle broods in mind and poison us.” How can a dominant instinct be repressed without having to suffer some kind of a neurosis? In the Western civilisation, the inhibition of Eros has lost whatever validity it had, if there was any. In a mechanised world, human effectively becomes an appendage of a machine. He/she behaves and acts more or less like a robot. Invariably, there is a time for Eros and a time for work, which, in itself, is a repressive way of self- discipline. As Horkheimer suggests, “The mass production of sexuality automatically brings out its repression.” There remains no hindrance between what is desired and what is available, hence, desire can be either sublimated or postponed. Society, in this regard, is not hostile to individual’s innermost demands. In fact, it is a mean to an end. The sexuality leads to a temporary satisfaction; the human aggression mentioned by Freud finds its catharsis. The body, after attaining relaxation, is refreshed for the production of surplus value.

When sexuality is an accepted norm in the west, why do Muslim women need to cover their faces? Is it some insecurity hammered into the feminine mind, which continues to haunt them, or is there more to it, which meets the eye?

“Why is a woman such a traumatic presence for Islam, such an ontological scandal, that it has to be veiled?” Slavoj-Zizek, a psychologist- philosopher inquires. For him, there is hardly anything wrong with the person behind the veil but it is the nature of the veil that reminds something “traumatic-subversive-creative-explosive power of feminine subjectivity” to men.

Zizek takes a clue from Jacques-Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, who narrates an example dating back to the ancient Greek era when Zeuxis and Parrhasius, two artists, produced one of their marvellous paintings. The grapes painted by Zeuxis were so real that the birds were lured into picking them. On the other hand, Parrhasius painted a curtain, which was so immaculate and real, that at first sight a bamboozled and amazed Zeuxis asked him to remove the curtain to reveal what was hidden beneath. It was the mystery shrouded behind the curtain, which was enticing. It holds true for the veiled woman as well.

For Lacan, “a veiled woman wears a concealed fake (p****) in order to evoke the idea that she is the phallus — an object of desire”. The whole phenomenon, as suggested by him, resembles the painting of Parrhasius. The man shouts, “Take this ridiculous fake off and show me what you have got beneath.” He misses the point that fake p**** is the real thing. The woman is the spectre of the non-existent ‘real’ phallus beneath the cover of the false one. What if the true scandal that this veil endeavours to obfuscate is not that of the feminine body hidden beneath it, but the inexistence of the feminine? What if the ultimate aim of the veil is precise to sustain the illusion that there is something; the substantial ‘thing’ behind the veil; the ultimate ‘truth’? Hence, for Muslims, woman is a threat because she stands for the ‘undecidability’ of truth since behind the veil “there is no ultimate hidden core.” By veiling her, we create the illusion that there lies beneath the veil the feminine truth—the horrible truth of feminine as lie and deception. There in concealed scandal of Islam; only a woman, the very embodiment of indiscernibility of truth and lie, can guarantee a Truth. For this reason, she has to be veiled. “

Apart from its psychological dimension, why the Muslims societies have pushed the women behind this iron curtain? The answer lies somewhere else. Most of the Muslim countries have a bubbling female population, which clearly outnumbers the male. Most, if not all, are still wallowing in the quagmire of feudal ties. The process of industrialisation is non-existent. In post-world war era, it was the process of industrialisation, which necessitated the utility of female gender in mechanisation. The scarcity of men consumed by the war has also played an instrumental role. Apart from the latest onslaught of imperialism, none of the Muslim- dominated countries had experienced a massacre bigger than the holocaust. The patriarchal societies incapable of employing its male population cannot be expected to leave any space for its women. The Orwellian solution was to confine them at home. With oil- wealth at their disposal, all the Sheikdoms have followed the same pattern. Woman akin to any other utility developed into a commodity, to be used and discarded at will or exchanged to gain favours or money.

Will the Muslim- dominated countries will ever be able to break through these fetters especially when the productive role of the native bourgeoisie has already finished? The monopoly capitalism with enhanced technology is reluctant to employ the human labour. This will lead to massive unemployment, but simultaneously a serious loss of profit to the capitalists as well. With falling oil prices when the availability of cheap money will become a near impossibility, unrest and coercion will increase in monarchies. How long the ruling parasites would be able to maintain their hegemony is not difficult to assess. In the absence of industrialisation, lacking the culture of an organised proletariat, and the civility of democratic ideals, these countries will be torn apart on tribal lines. Libya is one such example. Under these conditions, the emancipation of people will become a pipe dream. “There is great chaos under heavens” Mao states “the situation is excellent”. Will it ever be?

The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com