Raise your Kufiya… Seriously.

Long time, new milestone! The husband and I are nearing our one year wedding anniversary and in the light of this beautiful occasion, my super sweet in-laws surprised me with this beautiful traditional Palestinian dress (thob). What do you guys think? I’m sooo in love with it! I’m a big fan of folklore and tradition in general, whether it’s Moroccan, Kurdish, African or Chinese. However, Palestinian heritage has an extra dimension to it, with good reason.

Lately, I’ve been stalking my husband and his family with questions regarding Palestinian culture and the fact that it seems to be vanishing from daily native Palestinian life. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the wedding video of my in-laws for the first time. Besides reliving the 80’s, including oversized men fashion and the infamous shoulder pads for women, one particular detail immediately stood out for me: Kufiya’s. Everywhere. It was such a big difference compared to the amount of Kufiya’s that were present on my own wedding (a grand total of 2, maximum 3?) and so I decided to interrogate the man of the house on the matter, which went somewhat like this:

“Honey, why don’t you wear Kufiya’s anymore?”
— Because only old people wear it, young people don’t wear it anymore.
“But why don’t they wear it anymore?”
— *indistinguishable annoyed mumbling*
“But shouldn’t you preserve your tradition? Isn’t it typically Palestinian? What about Yasser Arafat? They still wear it in Jordan and the Gulf, why don’t women wear a traditional dress when they get married? Did you know that in Moro-“
— Iman. We have a conflict to deal with, do you think we have time to worry about tradition?!

No clear answers and an annoyed husband later, I still couldn’t shake it off. I really believe it’s a pretty serious matter, as (traditional) clothing is such an important aspect of expressing a society’s identity. It makes no sense to me that native Palestinians do not consider preserving their heritage as a priority, especially because they’re living in a conflict each day. Changing geographical names into Hebrew as well as systematically changing historical facts is an ongoing and very disturbing process which became painfully evident to me during my research. With a conflict that all comes down to the right of existence, strong heritage is a powerful asset and preserving it is therefore an absolute necessity.

With regards to the Palestinian dress that I’m wearing, here’s a little background: In the early twentieth century, Palestinian women in each local region created garments with distinctive types of embroidery (tatreez) and decoration that immediately established her origin. Palestinian girls began learning embroidery and dressmaking skills from their grandmothers at about the age of seven. From this early age, a girl began creating items for her wedding trousseau so that by the time she married, it would include many richly embroidered items. These garments remain among the best-known traditional handcrafts of Palestine.

Being Egyptian myself, I really regret that we don’t have some sort of traditional clothing (anymore), except maybe for the (in)famous bellydance outfit and the Galabeya. Obviously, these were not the looks I wanted to go for on my wedding, so marrying a Palestinian really felt like hitting the million dollar jackpot for that matter. When our wedding day was finally approaching, I was more than excited about having my traditional Palestinian wedding dress made in Ramallah. The dress was a great success, but my mother in law later confessed that she was reluctant about the idea at first, since the present-day native Palestinian bride doesn’t wear it anymore. The latter is exactly the problem: The Palestinian cultural heritage is rich, but it’s currently only known to the elders. In addition, there seem to be very few efforts to record traditions, songs, stories, or the art of embroidery, with the result that it’s completely disappearing. It really is a shame.

Back to the Kufiya. This traditional Palestinian scarf has been the symbol of the Palestinian struggle for freedom since the Palestinian uprise against the British Mandate in the 1930’s. Ironically, it is nowhere to be seen in current times, at least not in Jatt or any other Arab village I’ve visited. Didn’t Mohamed Assaf tell you all to raise your Kufiya’s? Do you even have one at home? And if so, why is the last Palestinian Kufiya Factory in fear of closing?

“The ignorance of the oppressed is strength for the oppressor.” — A.R. Bernard

So.. How about raising that Kufiya?

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Originally published at mylevant.wordpress.com on October 19, 2014.