The Politics of Dress in Somali Culture

4 · Dressing the Nation—1945 to 1991

CHAPTER 4 65 Dressing the nation—1945 to 1991 The world is a journey Which leads to a beautiful dream And modernity is its nose-rope Don’t shortchange yourself It is a curse to stay behind one’s age group People have emancipated themselves From these rags and heavy clothes you wear . . . —Maxammed Jaamac Jaaf and Mariam Mursal, 1960s Fromtheendof WorldWarIItoindependencetothetotalcollapseofthegovernment in Somalia—a span of just forty-six years—Somali dress changed radically. Although there had always been some differences in dress between menandwomen,thegapwidenedsignificantly.Amongmen,European-style dress gained widespread acceptance. Among women, new types of fabric and some garments became fashionable, but European-style dress was not widely accepted and in some cases considered a mark of prostitution. Islamic “veiling” practices also took hold, even among Somalis who were not the descendants of Arab and Persian settlers. As older garments like the guntiino and maro were replaced by other forms of dress, they became valorized as symbolsoftraditionalSomalinomadicculture.Thegovernmentusedimages ofmenandwomenwearingthesegarmentsonallkindsofofficialdocuments and artifacts including postage stamps and currency. Not surprisingly—since the government of Somalia came to a dramatic and violent end after just thirty-one years of independence—the academic literatureaboutthistimeperiodtendstofocusonpolitics.Issuesofparticular concernincludetheriseandfallofdictatorSiadBarre,Somalia’sinvolvement in the Cold War, neocolonialism, and changes in clan politics. A closer look 66 The Politics of Dress in Somali Culture at dress, however, reveals other tensions: between men and women, between thosewhowere educated under the colonialsystem andgrew to accept it and those who did not, between “noble” Somalis and members of the underclass (including the descendants of former slaves), between those who wanted to romanticize traditional culture and those who were still living it, between long-standing religious practices and radical new ideas about Islam coming from the Middle East. Although Somalia has often been discussed as a “homogeneous ” nation—at least in comparison to multiethnic, multi-religious countries like Nigeria and Kenya—there were still vast differences in dress that depended on age, gender, social class, ancestry, region of the country, level of education, etc. Styles ranging from three-piece suits to conservative Islamic dress to updated “traditional” garments like the dirac and gorgorad reflected and shaped growing currents of misunderstanding and mistrust in civil society. Clothing didn’t cause the government to collapse, but as an arena for the expression of political values—one open to all members of society on a daily basis—it was certainly involved in its demise. Anyone who thinks dress could not possibly have that much political significance should consider the ban on Islamic dress in Turkey; until recently women who wore “headscarves” were not allowed to serve in Parliament or attend public universities . While these circumstances are starting to change (in 2003 a former Islamist1 became the prime minister), the goal of the Turkish government since the 1920s has been to establish and preserve secularism. Although that country, like Somalia, is ninety-nine percent Muslim, clothing reflects and inspires a great deal of tension between different segments of society.2 In the 1930s, Petr Bogatyrev observed that politics were a double-edged sword in the realm of dress. Nationalism, for example, could instill great passion and pride for certain styles, but only as long as there was no significant change in power.3 Once valorized as a symbol of the nation, dress became “subjecttotheebbandflowofcontestedpoliticalideologies.”4DuringWorld War II, the Nazi government promoted the dirndl skirt as a “symbol of the feminine ideal—Aryan, healthy, ‘natural’ and preferably blonde.”5 Although manyelitewomenrejectedthisimageandpreferredtowearFrenchcouture,6 Bavarian-style folk dress became a popular national symbol. After Germany was defeated, it rapidly fell out of use. As in the case of the dirndl, the political symbolism of dress is frequently linked to gender. In Re-Orienting Fashion, Carla Jones and Ann Marie Leshkowich observed that women tend to be responsible for negotiating ethnic and national identities through dress because they “can simultaneously be Dressing the Nation 67 imaginedasessentiallymaternalandiconicofanationalbody,yetalsodifferent , citizens who must prove their worth through high-stakes performances of identity.”7 In colonial Algeria, the French recognized the symbolic power of women’s dress and attempted to change it as a means of changing the entire local culture8 (making it more compatible with colonization and French cultural norms). Conversely, in France during the Revolution, national dress wasprimarilyamaledomain,sinceitwasbasedontheconceptofthecitizensoldier and “women were never seen as full citizens like men who could perform military service for the nation.”9 In the early 1900s, the dress of Somali men...