Week 4: What Freedom

The veiled women of the colonies were often projected as "unfortunate" beings who were banned from the public sphere. Very often, the white men's civilizing mission entailed rescuing brown women from the brown men's oppression. In Algeria, the veil was seen as a source of oppression that limited the freedom and movement of Muslim women. These women shrouded in mystery and confusion also became the subject of the colonizer's sexual gaze. For the colonizers, unveiling the Algerian women became important to liberate them from oppression and  to further penetrate within the Algerian society. Franz Fanon's 'Algeria Unveiled' provides a counternarrative to the colonial discourse as it unpacks how Algerian women used their veil to seek freedom from the colonial gaze and the traditional social practices that limited them to the private sphere.

Fanon talks about the colonial agenda of  "winning over" the women to destroy the native culture and to weaken the men.  As an initial response to the infiltration, women held on to the cultural practice as it was of symbolic importance to them.  However, during the revolution, the veil was 'reappropriated' by the women as an instrument of war and as a tool of freedom. The women of the revolution unveiled themselves to carry weapons within the guarded areas with ease. According to Fanon, the veil was an integral part of their bodies and its absence distorted their "corporal pattern" and they had to adapt their bodies to the changing situation. Even though this physical transformation was difficult, but it liberated women from the colonial gaze as the new "dialectic of the body" helped them use the colonial obsession with veils to their advantage in war. There was a switch in the gaze of the colonizers who no longer saw these uncovered women as part of their sexual fantasy, but rather as a gateway to the Algerian society. One the other hand, the male revolutionaries made space for the women who were not included as "replacement products" but as new "elements" who could be trusted with important tasks. The practice of veiling and unveiling not only played an integral role in the success of the revolution but also showed that decolonization was not a space for warring men only. This strategy provided women with the agency to leave behind their former gender roles and take up new duties in the public sphere.

The women's fight for freedom was not only against colonialism but also against the existing social practices. By claiming space within the public sphere these women created new identities for themselves. Fanon mentions how female fighters revealed their long-standing commitment to the cause when their fathers and families expressed their "old fear of dishonor". Moreover, they were constantly in "conflict with their bodies", and had to undergo a mental transformation, curb their timidness and anxiety, to play an integral role within the revolution. The veil formed an important part of their transformation as it became a means of "camouflage" and "struggle". For example, after the French authorities suspected the new European women of participating in the liberation struggle " a new technique had to be learned". The female fighter's body had to be "squashed, made shapeless and even ridiculous" to hide a bomb or gun. The reappearance of the veil did not mean women's return to the private sphere, instead, it allowed women to renegotiate their place within the Algerian Society where the veil no longer had a  "virtually taboo character". This shows that the new veil was nothing like the old veil that was only meant to "discipline" a woman's body. It served the dual purpose of liberating women from colonialism and oppression.