• Item #C482
  • ISBN: 0938960482
  • ISBN13: 978-0-938960-48-5
  • Copyright 2002
  • 413 pp.
  • Form: Paperback, Trade paperback (US)
  • Also available in: Hardback, $44.00
  • Price: $24.95


Through Middle Eastern Eyes, 4th Edition (Post-9/11)

By Robert P. Pearson, Leon E. Clark, Robert P. Pearson, Robert P. Pearson and Robert P. Pearson

Blurbs

Content Sample

Removing the Veil

Salt will never be worm-eaten. --Arab proverb

INTRODUCTION: Throughout the world, including the Middle East, the status and role of women are changing, and men and women are beginning to work out new relationships with each other. Until relatively recently, in the United States as elsewhere, a woman's place was considered to be in the home, and it was only in 1920 that American women first won the right to vote. One of the signs of the changing status of women in the Middle East is the removal of the veil. The veiling of women was a custom that was borrowed by the Moslems from the Christians of Constantinople, where it was considered a stylish way to distinguish the sophisticated city women from the women of the country. The veil is disappearing in the Middle East at rates varying greatly from country to country. As we see in the next selection, the veil was being removed in Turkey as much as fifty years ago. In Lebanon as well, the majority of women in the large cities have been without veils for many years. In these same countries, however, women from small towns may still be veiled most of the time or may cover their face when passing a man.

In other parts of the Middle East, change has been slower. In Afghanistan, women were not officially allowed to remove the veil until 1959 and have done so only in the larger cities, where the veil has been replaced by scarves or dark glasses. Even in places where the veil has been removed, women most often walk modestly and avoid looking directly at men. Dating does occur, but it is usually chaperoned.

In the following selection, a Turkish writer describes what happened when his mother decided to remove her veil. The struggle between tradition and change, so obvious here, is typical of what continues to take place in many parts of the Middle East today.

My mother was rebelling against life .... Her rebellion, unexpectedly enough, was against wearing the veil, for she had noticed that none of the foreign women wore them and that even a few of the more daring Turkish women from good families had ceased the practice .... She used to complain about it to my grandmother, declaring that she was sick and tired of keeping her face covered. I would interrupt from the lofty perch of my ten years, saying that I would not have her going about the streets with her face open. I would [criticize] her, too, for her many goings-out.

"You are never at home," I would declare; and although usually I was told to mind my own affairs, one day I was very surprised when my grandmother actually agreed with me." It is quite true," she said heatedly. "You are always out these days. And it is not right for you to complain that you have to wear the veil. Why, many women ... never see the color of the sky except from behind their veils .... It is a wonder to me that you were accepted in this street, for you behaved exactly like a fast woman looking for another husband or like a prostitute. Yes, you did!" she assured my mother's astonished face. "And now you talk of leaving aside your veil. Why, I lived for thirty years with my husband, and I never went out without his permission and I had to keep my face covered all the time. If I went out in the carriage with Murat, immediately all the windows were closed and sometimes the blinds were drawn too. I say it is a scandal that women today are revealing their faces. God will punish them! Do not let me hear another word from you, my daughter, for surely the sky will open on you for such impiety." Never had I heard my grandmother talk at such length or with such obvious passion.

My mother replied: "You are talking a great deal of old fashioned nonsense, Mother! My place is not in the home these days. If I were to sit at home all day, or you either for that matter, who would go to market for us? Do you expect me to stay here all day, reading the Koran and wearing my veil for fear the passersby should see me from the street? I tell you again: From now on I shall go without my veil!" She angrily tore the pretty veil from her face and threw it ... on the floor. My grandmother lifted her hands to heaven. "I never thought I should live to see this day," she said. "Ach! Times are changing," said my mother. "They will say you are a prostitute!" wailed my grandmother, genuinely distressed .... "If they do, it will not worry me," retorted my mother. "Their words will not bring bread to me. And from now on, you will throw aside your veil too, Mother." "Oh , no, no, no!" said my grandmother in ... horror. "God forbid that I should invite punishment upon myself!"

But the next morning, when my mother went into Beyoglu with a box of embroidered articles under her arm and her lovely face naked to the world, she was stoned by some children near Bayazit and received a nasty cut on the side of her head. After that she was cautious about going anywhere alone; but she was obstinate about reveiling herself, and Mehmet or I would go with her to Beyoglu, my grandmother steadfastly refusing to be seen with her. The reaction to her in the street was mixed. The older ones were stricken with horror, more especially since they had always recognized my mother as a good woman; now their faith in her was badly shaken. She was still young and attractive--she was twenty-five--and despite the shadows that lingered now and then in her eyes, she was so unusually beautiful that people could not help staring at her. Certain sections of the street wondered if she were trying to catch a husband. They came in droves, the old men as well, to [complain to] my grandmother, urging her to put a stop to this terrible thing; and my grandmother, thoroughly enjoying herself, would groan to them that she had no authority left in this wayward family of hers. But the younger women sided with my mother, and some of them even began to follow her example. Their fathers, however, in the absence of dead husbands, took a stick to them, muttering piously that no woman in their families would so disgrace themselves. So they put their veils on again in a hurry.

Not a few wished to apply the ... stick to my mother also. They gave my grandmother sympathy until she was sick of it, prophesying gloomily ... that my mother would come to a bad end. And indeed she very nearly did!

For one day in Bayazit, when she was alone, an impressionable Frenchman attempted to flirt with her. She tried walking hurriedly on, but this had no effect at all; or, if anything, it had a worse effect, for the gallant Frenchman became more than ever aware of the swing of her silk skirts and the little dark curls ... at the nape of her neck. Naturally, he followed her. All the little boys of the district became aware, as is the way of all little boys, of the one-sided flirtation that was in progress. And naturally enough, they followed the tall Frenchman, so there was that day in Bayazit the very, very unusual sight of a young Turkish woman, with open face, followed by a foreigner and innumerable small, dirty-nosed boys. When my mother made the mistake of stopping, trying to explain in her entirely inadequate French that the gentleman was making a great mistake, he took off his hat, bowed elegantly, and declared with obvious feeling, "Vous et es ravissante!" ["You are ravishing!"]

The small boys, who could not understand a word of what he said, cheered or jeered ... and my mother--very properly--hurried on, blushing and breathless and perhaps wishing a little for the security of her veil.

When she came down our street, with her procession behind her, the neighbors were more scandalized than ever and ran into their houses to tell the ones inside. But when my mother called out to them in Turkish that she was being followed, and very much against her will, they set to with a vengeance and brought out sticks and brooms, shooing off the ... [Frenchman] in no uncertain manner. Mehmet and I, who were watching the whole proceedings from the window, were bursting with laughter, but my poor grandmother was quite ready to die of shame.

"Such a disgrace!" she kept saying. "We shall never be able to live in this street again." But in this she was wrong, for when the street [was finally clear] of the ... Frenchman, and a few old men had, in fact, chased him halfway to Bayazit with tin buckets in their hands to break his head, the street settled down again [saying] my mother [was not to] blame--all except the old women, that is.