Update from Qudus' blog

Nov 9, 2011

The French society and the 'other'

Few days ago my Wife was Told to take off her cap in school.

I have a wife who chose to wear a cap to cover her hair, i mean a designer cap, not hijab nor anything mega, maybe out of her own sense of fashion or religious obligation or social identity, just as i am always on caps myself, and to her greatest surprise, she was outrightly told that she MUST take off her cap in school, not tomorrow but "take it off. now." She called me crying, for she felt as if her fundamental human right is being trampled upon, and felt so bad mostly because she has not enough tools to resist that societal pressure, in a society that i consider to be deeply fascist and not so friendly to all that is different.

I personally refuse commentaries on the "other" from a people or an authority who proclaims not only the death of God and man, but also the death of Morality, at the risk of bringing about any reference point and any object other than the SELF, reducing individuals to flows of drives and networks of DESIRES, fashion freaks and machines made of mouths, buy and consume and buy again. In the french society the question of otherness surpass the notion of "To be" and "not To be", its in fact "To be nothing" Its a shameful society we live. That's my stance.

You must know that My wife don't wear a cap to school everyday, in fact she has a very beautifully made dread-lock, so its not that she can't leave her hair open if she wants, but we grew up in a country where what you wear is never a national subject and as third world as we are, with our distorted notion of liberty, she never felt so humiliated. But here, a so called first world, an enlightened civilisation. Where we pursue happiness and it leads to resentment, and it leads to unahppiness and it leads infact to an explosion of mental illness. we pursued freedom, but we now live in a more monitored and controlled world, and our daily lives are more subjected to a network of small complicated rules that covers the surface of life, and strangles freedom.

Lets keep quiet and silently having fun, its something that can only happen to "others", not us. Sure there is fire on the mountain and no one is running now, but one day the river will overflow, and there will be no where for us to go, and we will run, run, wishing we had put out that Fire of Hatred. Until it becomes an Holocaust, then we start building museums and memorials and blame games.

37 comments:

  1. DjSalad OlugboyegaThursday, November 24, 2011

    well said,its there country thats what they are saying, if you can not abide by there ways what they are simpling saying is go back to your country, its as simple as that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmmm.. Qudus not only that u can dance, but u can also write beautifully well.. Kudos!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was told to take off my cap in nanterre university in December.I used it to cover my unkempt hair and a stupid professor told me to take it off.I didn't know the reason.I seriously don't know what a cap has got to do with an examination.I felt so ashamed that Saturday morning in the amphi theatre!tell hajarat not to worry.we give to Cesar what is for Cesar.these people preach civilization,love,peace and harmony but they are full of discrimination,shit.OSHA bi o le gbemi,shemi bi oti bami.why can't these people embrace who we are as we embraced their "culture"?hmm!first world country indeed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Renee Friesen HubkaThursday, November 24, 2011

    As I do not know what is considered polite in France, so I cannot comment about France and I am not sure what is polite in US society these days as I hardly live here. However, when I was young in the 60s/70s, it is considered good manners to remove your hat/cap inside. If you had a scarf on, as was the fashion in some of that time, you would not be asked to remove it as it was part of your fashion or hair fashion, but gentlemen and ladies were expected to remove your hats/caps inside a building. This is also the rule for some government workers. These days plenty people wear baseball caps. I know that in the past it would be considered RUDE to wear one in school and strictly enforced but I have no idea what happens these days. Did she ask why they had asked her to remove it? Since it was in a school I would guess that it is a rule and everyone must follow! I hope she gets to the bottom of it and finds out just what bothered the teacher about her wearing a cap. Sending a hug to your wife - daily life in a different culture can often be frustrating and exhausting! I know from living a long time in Africa, a woman covering her head is a sign of respect and morality. I hope she was able to explain her reason for covering her head, even with a fashionable cap!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The struggle continues Qudus. For some, it's a minor thing that Haji should have taken in her stride. For others it's a malaise of a deeply deeply unequal world. Some of us will keep questioning and challenging these inequalities until the day we die. My love to Haji xx

    ReplyDelete
  6. It was not the teacher, it was the security, so it shows that her wearing a cap has to do with the security of the establishment. and that rings further bell. lol.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i want to add my commect to this interest topic i want to tag 'remove head dress'.the French society is a liberal one at least from what i have read and seen,but we now live in a world where good people are having second thought about it-i can still remember their policy of association and assimiliation rule and all the stuff about it.it gave a pretty good idea of the political and social idealogy of the french man at the time.but things are no longer what the were now.we can blame it on terrorism or racism.but whatever the reason could be,be it school rules,security reasons or hatred, its all a by product of a radically changing world where things are now falling apart.

    ReplyDelete
  8. In the UK wearing a hood in some places is not allowed. I went into a store on a cold winter day with my hood on my head to keep warm, the security walked up to me and asked me to take it off, some security measure, they say

    ReplyDelete
  9. Renee Friesen HubkaThursday, November 24, 2011

    No wonder she called you as most of us would not want to be confronted by SECURITY for our dress or any other reason. If it is for security reasons and everyone is under the same rules, then we can only cry over what the world is coming to or try in our small way to make changes. If she is being picked on, I'd say you need to bring it up to the school authorities. Good luck and thanks for caring so much about your wife!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sylvester Oludare BrathierThursday, November 24, 2011

    Well I don't know who can tell her to remove the cap in naija, as it is if you live in Rome behave like a Roman so some level of understanding should be exercised it is well even in the well.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    The illusions are fading. But those who are still under the grip of fear and are proud to be part of the 'elite' will need to go under a real transformation of understanding, and self-forgiveness. The world is not going back to that place ever again and once they realize this is not a bad thing, liberation will continue.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bro Sylvester Oludare Brathier, it seems to me that my reality and your reality are just not the same, out temporality and notion of place and space differs. i don't live in Rome, i live in Paris, and its been a while, and i have every right to defend my space, i rent it, i pay for it, i am responsible for it and i am part of the system that governs my space. And i can also fight for it, its part of my own way of defending the earth. I'm not an outsider in this world. I'm a son of the soil. only if you get my drift.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Christiane Da CunhaThursday, November 24, 2011

    Well your next piece should be called "Cap" and everybody, including security, should be using one or they will not enter...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    I'd be all for a 'fear and intimidation' satire if it weren't for the fact that I hate fear and intimidation.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Christiane Da CunhaThursday, November 24, 2011

    No it would be for reminding people simply that wearing a cap means wearing a cap. No fear no satire simple comon sense reality which is what the west is loosing everyday at an amazing speed....

    ReplyDelete
  16. They made Technology so minute to a pen-size device to enhance living whilst beholding the fear and terror of the developed inventions. It's a palpable caution to modernization that lethal explosives can be hidden in a cap. Never mind. Obeying those temporary laws will only add to our fashion security just as we have food security.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Sylvester Oludare BrathierThursday, November 24, 2011

    Qudus if the world u live in plays a music to dance and u choose to dance another rythm u will be misunderstood not until u are given the opportunity to explain, thats an adage which I believe u know whether by any means that makes u son of the soil there, I'm still saying it nobody will tell her to remove the cap in Nigeria.

    ReplyDelete
  18. with this rate of paranoia, i can bet one day soon the guys will only the allowed to look like tom cruise in a sleeveless shirt. and a three quarter trouser. while the ladies can only make do with bikinis until we gradually return to stone age. :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Renee Friesen HubkaThursday, November 24, 2011

    No bikini for me oh!

    ReplyDelete
  20. lol bikini for all.... occupy fashion stores.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    Qudus! Don't judge my Tom Cruise sleeveless shirt look! It's taken me weeks to perfect it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Very right Qudus. Borders are artificial and most laws are man made. It is stupid to blindly follow rules that make no sense. You, like everyone else has a right to speak up for something you believe in. Whether you are a native of the place or not makes no difference. You are a human being living in a world that no one created. Live by your conscience and make your own rules as long as they are decent, fair and respectable to all human beings including yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  23. And forget about being misunderstood or fitting in. You owe yourself that much.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Haa!! Am speechless bt like Sylvester said NOBODY in nigeria will DARE tell her to do dat,i dnt care who d person is...he or she wld prefer to embark on an endless journey thn tell her to. Its a shame a so calld civilizd country still av a long way to go wen it comes to THINKING RIGHT...if only dey can swallow thier pride we might teach dem COMMON SENSE.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Im not sure the issue here is France to be honest. In Nigeria, we have the same issues. Different angle but essentially the same malaise. I remember being harrassed on end in Nigeria in Abuja specifically because I wore a skirt that was above the knee. In my mind, this is every bit as bad as what Haji has gone through. I was abused and called a whore because I wore a short skirt and suffered abuse because someone else who was a practical stranger had judged me because of his own ideology which he had inadvertently forced upon me. This to me STILL represents a deeply flawed world.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Wow,its something,dnt really knw wat to say but one tthing I know for sure is my sister is stronger in mind dan wareva rule dey cum up wt,,,no mind dem jo!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    I have several friends who wore short skirts to visit monuments and they were forced to wear a scarf over their legs because it was 'indecent.'

    ReplyDelete
  28. Two sides of a bad coin in my opinion. The banning of the burqa In France makes me burn with rage but also the treatment of women in some countries with the restricting their choice of dress seriously offends me but anyway thats a different issue.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I feel that if one is serious about creating a fair, equal world then this should apply to every aspect even areas that we might find disagreeable or slightly uncomfortable. For example I do not understand how black people can complain about racism and still be very homophobic. It makes no sense and makes a mockery of the whole thing but anyway....

    ReplyDelete
  30. Sidi Larbi CherkaouiThursday, November 24, 2011

    To wear or not to wear, that is the question

    ReplyDelete
  31. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    And I can't believe poor white people could be racist against poor black people.

    ReplyDelete
  32. @‎Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui It is the Question of how to wear the other that has always been my basis, the bible says "Love our enemies", and i can tell you that is damn difficult, but there is sense in it. That is in fact the whole essence of religion, it is based on those values such as mercy, love and tolerance, in fact there is no religion without the other. "Thou shall not kill", of course if you are alone by yourself, you will probably not fall into the trap of killing anybody.

    I'm strongly aware that the main argument we have in the west for justifying our cruelty is to say, "look we are not as worse as them" This is the language i think any comment about the other must avoid, so that it doesn't become a pretext for a comment about something else, some other places, and some other people. I don't like to make comparison when talking about particular issue, cos every issue on otherness, might share similar outer layer but there are layers upon layers of histories and thus differences beneath them, but of course there is something that is general while see SEE the other, i guess it has to do mostly with self-deception and perversion, to a deteriorating level where nothing the other says is translatable into human language, and this inaccessibility flows not from the intrinsic difficulty of understanding, not that it is hard, but simply because there hardly been any discourse about the other for the sake of the other.

    It is always "a pretext for a comment about something else, some other places, and some other people." believing that the thing is; and it is merely because it is... and this simple immediacy constitutes its TRUTH. Meaning there is nothing to justify than the fact of being there. In contrast to reason and the SELF in the West; myth and fable and the community are seen as expressing the very power of the originaire in other societies where there is little place for argument, they are mostly caught in the invocation of time and origins, they believe TIME has always been there, since time immemorial, in pure immediacy with the world and to themselves. They might from time to time shed their own bloods and make sacrifices, but certainly such societies are incapable of bombarding and uttering the Universe.

    However, this is the very nature of these other societies that we can't accord a little more space for in OUR WORLD, these OTHER PEOPLE who are moved by blind force of custom, living under the burden of charms, spells, and prodigies, and resistant to CHANGE with the big C. The idea of progress is said to disintegrate in such society. So when they migrate to OUR land, OUR level of self-deception and perversion rise even to an uncontrollable higher degree. In the West where our Western thoughts posits "the self as other than the other" that is, i SEE the other before i SEE myself as an entity, which accounts for the reason why we give so much importance to the critics and making a point AT ALL COST.

    We have built a classificatory system in which to differ from something or somebody is not simply "not to be like" (as in being non identical) it is also "not to be at all" (as is non-being). These system of reading the world attempts to exercise an authority of a particular type, assigning THE OTHER with the big O, to a special third world, an unreality such that the OTHER becomes the very figure of what is NULL, ABOLISHED, and an opposition to "WHAT IS": the very expression of that "WHAT IS NOT" whose special feature is TO BE NOTHING AT ALL. Hence the question begin to go beyond TO WEAR or NOT TO WEAR!

    ReplyDelete
  33. That one went over my head Qudus :)

    ReplyDelete
  34. Hahaha Didi Z Elwin the bottom line for me is that, rebellion and civil disobedience comes in different forms, maybe Burka is now one of the legitimate ways to be disobedient to the state, just as some professions, age groups and outlaws have their manner of dressing, Burka is also one of them now, and just like the story of the lone sheep who was rejected for his "conspiracy theory", all this in my opinion is just a game mastered by some political elite, to gain some cheap popularity by throwing provocation in the air, and we the gullible will of course fall for it as usual.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Haters gonna Hate.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Alex David RodabaughThursday, November 24, 2011

    ‎"In the West where our Western thoughts posits 'the self as other than the other' that is, i SEE the other before i SEE myself as an entity," <--- Absolutely. Since moving away from the small Ohio town I am from, I've been able to see myself as both a part of that place and time as well as a part of NYC's place and time. I don't have to 'hate' small town America because I understand the illusions that place has. I also understand why they have certain damaging beliefs and what's most important, how I can both have the optimistic beliefs I once had about community, unity, and spirituality without having to be trapped in military operations I don't agree with, keeping out 'the other', and conforming to a religious empire.

    ReplyDelete
  37. The person obviously chose a "weaker" person to prove a point. I bet you many other people could be wearing undoubtedly obscene clothes in that very same class on that day, and he/she would turn a blind eye. It is a known fact that I am not a fan on the average French person but this is borne out of experience not hearsay so I can imagine what conversation may have transpired on that day.

    ReplyDelete