Lifting the Veil, Breaking Silences: Muslim Women in South Africa Interrogate Multiple Marginalities

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1. Chandra Talpede Mohanty, ‘Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism’, in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed by Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 1–50 (p. 13).

2. Audre Lorde, ‘The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action’, in Sister Outsider (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984), pp. 40–44 (pp. 43–4).

3. Nadia Davids interview with Carol M. Kaplan, quoted in Kaplan, ‘Voices Rising: An Essay on Gender, Justice and Theater in South Africa’, Seattle Journal of Social Justice, 3.2 (2005), 711–48 (p. 723).

4. The term ‘post-apartheid’ signifies a stage after apartheid, not in the sense of completion, but rather as a continuation after the watershed democratic elections of 1994. While a new constitution promises greater equity for all and prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation, material conditions have become more onerous for millions.

5. A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 749.

6. Mahmood Mamdani's Good Muslim Bad Muslim (New York: Pantheon, 2004) explicates the terms thus: ‘Bad Muslims were clearly responsible for terrorism. […] good Muslims were anxious to clear their names. […] unless proved to be ‘good’ every Muslim was presumed to be ‘bad’. Judgments of good and bad Muslims refer to political identities, not to cultural or religious ones’ (see p. 15).

7. Leila Davids, ‘Muslim Women in Cape Town: A Feminist Narrative Analysis’ (unpublished master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004), pp.1, 19.

8. Nadia Davids, ‘Introduction’, in At Her Feet (Cape Town: Oshun Books, 2005), pp. 15–17 (p. 16).

9. Marieke de Klerk was married to former president F. W. de Klerk, and served as First Lady from 1989 to 1994.

10. Quoted in Mary Braid, ‘Part of a Wider Split’, The Independent, 18 February 1998, p. 17.

11. Ephraim C Mandivenga, ‘The Cape Muslims and the Indian Muslims of South Africa: A Comparative Analysis’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 20.2 (2000), 347–52 (p. 347). This article also contextualizes the situation of Indian Muslims.

12. Leila Davids, ‘Interview with Nadia Davids’, in At Her Feet (Cape Town: Oshun Books, 2006), pp. 67–74 (p. 68).

13. Davids, ‘Interview with Nadia Davids’, p. 73.

14. Jill Dolan, ‘Finding our Feet in the Shoes of (One An) Other: Multiple Character Solo Performers and Utopian Performatives’, Modern Drama, 45.4 (Winter 2002), 495–518.

15. Michael Peterson, Straight White Male (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1997), p. 14.

16. Dolan, ‘Finding our Feet’, p. 499.

17. This structure can be compared to Greig Coetzee's solo show White Men with Weapons, written in 1996 but set in 1990 in the South African Defense Force. A series of monologues juxtapose a range of people involved in the army, where brutality knows no bounds. Coetzee plays every part and renders a powerful view of the army ‘community’. Unlike the humanity of At Her Feet, Coetzee's play satirizes and exposes the horrifying conditions that existed when apartheid was crumbling and many of the characters in the army felt intimidated about the future.

18. Peter Tromp, ‘Audience Jump to their Feet for Quanita’, Cape Times, 11 June 2003, p. 7.

19. Susan Davis, ‘Quanita kaap die kollig[grabs the spotlight]’, Sarie, May (2005), p. 167.

20. Davids, At Her Feet, pp. 25–6.

21. Ibid., p. 25.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., p. 65.

24. Ibid., p. 64.

25. Farzana Hassan, Islam Women and the Challenges of Today (Toronto: White Knight Publications, 2006), p. 96.

26. Toronto's first honour killing concerns a father, a Pakistani immigrant, who demanded that his daughter uphold the rules of a devout family and wear a hijab. She rebelled and wanted to fit in with her Canadian friends. He warned her that he would kill her, and enlisted his son in the final action. They are both in jail awaiting trial, charged with first-degree murder. See the article by Mary Rogan, ‘Girl Interrupted’, Toronto Life, December 2008, pp. 53–8.

27. Davids, At Her Feet, p. 64.

28. Ibid.

29. Guy Willoughby, ‘Bristling Energy’, Mail & Guardian, 20–26 June 2003, p. II.

30. Gabeba Baderoon, ‘Foreword’, in At Her Feet, pp. 9–13 (p. 10).

31. She is at first reminiscent of Pieter-Dirk Uys' 90-year-old Ouma Ossewania in Ouma Ossewania praat vuil[Grandma Oxwagonia speaks dirty], in which Ouma lashes out at every individual and community with apparently equal venom. However, this satirical piece remains an exposé of many stereotypes.

32. Cited in Margaret von Klemper, ‘The Stage at Her Feet’, Natal Witness, 20 August 2003, p. 11.

33. Davids, ‘Muslim Women in Cape Town’, p. 24.

34. Davids, At Her Feet, p. 28.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid., p. 29.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., p. 30.

39. Ibid.

40. Katherine Zoepf, ‘Bestseller in the Mideast: Barbie with a Prayer Mat’, The New York Times, 22 September 2005.

41. Barbara Kay, ‘In Praise of the Invisible Hijab’, National Post, 12 April 2006, p. 18.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Interview with Carol M. Kaplan, quoted in Kaplan, ‘Voices Rising’, p. 727.

48. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘Interview’, AsiaSource, 20 March 2002, http://www.asiasource.or/news/specials_reports/lila.cfm.

49. Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others', American Anthropologist, 104.3 (2002), 783–90 (p. 786).

50. Nilufer Gole, The Forbidden: Modern Civilization and Veiling (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 4.

51. Ibid., pp. 5–6.

52. Davids, At Her Feet, p. 43.

53. Ibid., p. 47.

54. Ibid., p. 59.

55. Nadia Davids, ‘The Meaning of Madrasa’, Mail & Guardian, 20 March 2008.

56. Ibid., p. 35.

57. This emphasis on consumerism is lambasted by Ayesha and mentioned by Sara and others in the play. While it is not a focal point of the play, it is a real factor in contemporary South African life. Gabeba Baderoon comments in an interview that a ‘powerful divider of possibilities these days is materialism …  . The way our society is being degraded by neo-liberal economic policies and consumerism horrifies me. To me, one of the most important ethical tasks is how to find a language of success that is not about consumption, how to take back our rootedness in the landscape, the land – our ground’ (‘Beauty in the Harsh Lines’, Sentinel Poetry, 37 [December 2000], http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/1205/interview.htm).

58. Davids, At Her Feet, p. 37.

59. Ibid., p. 35.

60. Ibid., p. 36.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid., p. 38.

63. Ibid., p. 38 for all the references here.

64. Ibid., p. 57.

65. Ibid., p. 31.

66. Ibid., p. 51.

67. Ibid., p. 50.

68. Ibid., p. 31.

69. Ibid., p. 33.

70. Ibid., p. 53.

71. Interview with Carol Kaplan, quoted in Kaplan, ‘Voices Rising’, p. 725.

72. Charlotte Fairfax, ‘Superb Festival Highlight’, Cue, 1 July 2003, p. 5.

73. Davids, At Her Feet, pp. 62–63.

74. CISSIE is the title of Nadia David's play (inspired by Cissie Gool) that premiered at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown in July 2008.

75. Cited in Mandivenga, ‘The Cape Muslims’, p. 351.

76. Davids, At Her Feet, p. 41.

77. Nadia Davids, ‘Notes from Afar’, UCT News, University of Cape Town (2006), p. 60.

78. My sincere thanks to Jeanne Colleran for her insightful reading of this article and for an ongoing dialogue with my work. I am most grateful to Yvette Hutchison for her careful editing of this article.