Clothes and Identity

Dec 21, 2012 Editorial

An intriguing discussion is unfolding in our letter pages about a possible nexus of the clothes of females and acts of violence including rape, perpetuated on them. Over three years ago we had weighed in on the “signification” of clothes which we resubmit with the intent to place the discussion within a context.
Clothes, they say, “maketh the man”, not to mention the woman. While man has been making clothes for quite awhile (as far back as the Palaeolithic cavemen furs) it is safe to say that in the beginning the reason was far more mundane than creating status for the wearer: “making the man”. The weather, we now know, had been quite nippy, and moving through thick brushes and forests in their quest for food must have focused our early ancestors’ mind wonderfully on the need for protection of their rather exposed yet tender hides.
But somewhere along the way – one presumes not long after they covered their nakedness – questions of status crept in. The swiftest hunter must have insisted that the hide of the most prized prey should literally fall on his shoulders. And so we witnessed first, the “head hunter”, then the chief and then the king insist that more ostentatious and ornate clothes should signify their higher status. This affectation was mocked in an early spoof, The Emperor who had no Clothes”.
But there is another early social nexus with clothes: morality. While the popular story of Adam and Eve being forced to cover their nakedness after “eating the apple” may be from the Judaic to the Christian and Muslim tradition, all the other high cultures at some point or other insisted that the human body, especially the female body, had to be covered in deference to “public morality”. The height of the European colonial expansion coincided with the Victorian insistence of “covering it all” to go with a strict moral code and even those societies that may have had a more liberal concept on what constituted “proper” clothing, fell into line.
The beginning of the “modern” era in the west, however, saw a gradual slackening of public morality in which Victorian mores were derided as prudery. Given the connection noted above, there was a corresponding revolution in clothing, which culminated in the “free love” era of the sixties, typified by the “micro-mini” of Carnaby Street. While many were drawn into accepting the loosening of morality and its corresponding raising of the hemlines under the influence of wanting to be “modern”, some cultures balked. To be modern, they insisted, did not mean automatically jettisoning all that was traditional to their culture. Modernity was not coincident with “westernisation” and there was no inherent reason to discard a traditional practice, especially if it was related to a deeply felt moral order.
Up to this point, the divergence in what was considered proper dress, even with its subtext of who defined morality and one’s identity, may not have amounted to more than a case of de gustibus non est deiputandum – there’s no disputing about tastes, and settled with a shrug of the shoulders. However, because of the immigration of millions of Muslims from all across the globe into Europe, the matter has precipitated a major debate there.
The Europeans, beginning with France and spreading into Britain, are insisting that the mode of dress of the Muslim womenfolk is conflicting with their values. In reality, the objections on the clothes are a stalking horse for the deeper concerns as to “who” and “what” is to define “European culture”.
The Muslim community are standing their ground and challenging the bases of the multicultural ideal that had been touted in those societies (especially Britain) as encouraging “diversity” and “tolerance”. The question, as always has to do with power: in this case the power to define. In Guyana, our multiracial and multiethnic society should take note of the debate, for sooner or later there may be some who may try to use the same rationales to stifle the right of others who want to live authentically by the traditions of their culture.

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