Word: veils
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...halted in its tracks because the people got in its way, and because it got in theirs. Knowing something is not the same as watching it happen. For decades critics of communism have been saying that the party has no legitimacy; that its claims of representation are a tattered veil for its true function of repression; that for all their apparent obedience, passivity and discipline, many or even most of the populace are not just unhappy but deeply angry and increasingly overt in their defiance. Still, the seven-week-long student protest in Tiananmen Square hit with the impact...
...That same week, I showed up at the gym wearing the standard uniform of young, urban Iranian women: a veil, short coat and jeans. The receptionist told me the authorities had also paid them a visit; unless their women patrons started dressing more conservatively, the gym would be shut down. Again, the official warning was smoothly delivered via a civilian intermediary without ugly confrontation, and was perhaps even more effective for its underlying threat: if you don't dress the way we want, we will take away your ability to exercise. At the same time, authorities have targeted retailers...
...veil has become contagious," explains Nabila el-Hakim, a local haute couture designer who estimates that 60% of her customers are now veiled. "I am adding sleeves and closing cleavage." Experts say the trend is part of an Islamic cultural wave traced back to Israel's humiliating defeat of Egypt in the 1967 war. More recently, they say, the quest for a stronger Islamic identity led more women to take up the veil after the Sept. 11 attacks set off Muslim-Western tensions. As often as not, the pressure to veil is as much social as religious, with unveiled women...
...typically applying a loose interpretation to the Islamic injunction for women to safeguard their chastity and avoid the attentions of men. "I love Allah and I also love to dress up," explains emcee Do'aa Amer, a popular personality on an Arab satellite channel, who took up the veil herself after a pilgrimage to Mecca six years ago. "The veiled woman can be stylish and hip." Adds Amina Shelbaya, whose Lips agency supplied most of the models for the show: "To be veiled does not mean to get fat and not care about your looks...
...Fundamentalists, for their part, are pleased by the swing to Islam but hardly with the way many young Egyptians are taking the veil to sexy extremes. Some night clubbers are hitting the lounge, for example, in stilettos and cover girl makeup, their hair lightly graced by a Fendi scarf. On campuses, female students pull their tresses behind a sequined wrap, worn over an ensemble of jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt that leaves little of their anatomy to the imagination. Noha Mamdouh, 18, a Cairo University student, is wearing a pink and beige scarf with a matching slinky...