A guidance counselor at a high school in Oakville, Ont. was recently recorded telling a student wearing a keffiyeh that it reminded her of a terrorist. The keffiyeh, also called a ghutra or shemagh, is a frequently worn garment across the Arab world. Yet, racist associations of Arab and Palestinian culture with terrorism are seeing the garment banned.
The keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian culture and heritage, was banned in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in March by House Speaker Ted Arnott who claimed it is a “political statement.” Since then, Muslim MPP Sarah Jama has repeatedly been made to leave the chamber for wearing the scarf in defiance of the ban.
This kind of language is rooted in a long history of colonialist and orientalist imagery that dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims as barbaric, violent and uncivilized.
