Friday, March 13, 2009

Malays dressed as arabs

The veil is more than the veil; it is a mask of aggression. Not like the matted locks of the Ras Tafarians in Jamaica, a man dulled by marginal life that has endured for generations; not like the gear of the middle-class hippy, who wishes only to drop out; these are the clothes of uprooted village people who wish to pull down what is not theirs and then take over. Because an unacknowledged part of the fantasy is that the world goes on, runs itself, has only to be inherited. 

-from Among the Believers by V.S. Naipaul

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