Feminine Attire - Islam & the West

Vermeer. Western women once looked like this. 

Sentiment contrary to the Saracens is currently at fever-pitch in the West, although matched – strangely - by the recent embrace of the political Left for all things Mahometan. The present author – who lectured in Islamic/West relations for well over a decade – remembers very well the days when Leftists sneered at the Mooselmens for being patriarchial and sexist and anti-modern. But this was before the Left shifted to a globalist agenda and decided upon mass immigration and open borders and the dissolution of the nation state as the new progressive standard. The change was signalled by new fixtures in the Arts curriculum such as compulsory core subjects like ‘Transition to Globalism’ and similar. At the same time the Left abandoned the traditional working class and regrouped around a conglomerate of victim groups: homosexuals, feminists, refugees and so on. On the Right this polarisation has taken the form of a reinvigorated nationalism and a renewed sense of the Western tradition: unfortunately for Mahometans they are now deemed ‘Other’ and antithetical, a threat to the cogency of European civilization. With hindsight, these can be seen as inevitable reconfigurations of very old tensions and it was foolish to ever think that we had somehow by-passed those historical patterns. These are deep antipathies. There is going to be trouble. 

Anti-Saracen hostility takes an obvious form in campaigns against overtly Mooselman attire. Specifically, people are troubled by the burqa (full covering of the female) and to a degree by the heejab (the female head scrarf). It is widely felt that these norms of female garb for female Mahometans are out of place in European society and represent a specific refusal to integrate to European standards. This is an entirely understandable viewpoint and, these days, one with which the author has much sympathy. The failure – refusal – of Mahometans to adapt to Western norms invites hostility. Previous waves of immigrants (speaking of Australian society) integrated quite successfully, and without rancour, but the Mahometans are a different case. This is especially so among those who are now deeply infected by Wahhabi literalism, specifically Arabs but increasingly other ethnic groups as well. Mahometanism is totalizing. It presents itself as a “total way of life” in which a Divine Law (Sharia) governs every aspect of a Mooselman’s behaviour. No other group of immigrants (except perhaps ultra-orthodox Jews) present so many stubborn obstacles to the compromises required to find a commodious place in Western society. Mahometans set themselves apart and are treated with suspicion accordingly. Several matters make the problem acute, two especially: halal foods and religious attire. Halal food regulations mean that Mahometans cannot (will not) eat with others while also taking the form of a surreptitious food tax that is imposed upon the non-Mahometan community. Religious attire means that Mahometans, especially women, are conspicuous and, when it comes to the burqa, positively confronting. These are real barriers to constructive integration. Objections to them are not based merely in “racism” and xenophobia. They are matters of real substance. As intimated elsewhere on these pages, Islam is only an esoteric (occult) potentiality in Western civilization. It is entirely healthy if Western civilization finds the externalist manifestations of the Mahometan creed difficult to stomach and if “bigots” rebel against cultural surrender and rise up against the settlement of Mahometan ghettoes in Western cities. 

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Even so, they are not simple matters and as well as historical Islam/West tensions, and the Left/Right battles of universalism versus particular localisms, globalism versus nationalism, there are also issues that divide along the far deeper fault lines of tradition versus modernity. In this context, many of the criticisms made of the Mahometans are misplaced and often ill-conceived. This is so because in some important respects the Mahometans – though ossified by the Wahhabi heresy - remain closer to tradition than do their occidental counterparts who, for the most part, have been more thoroughly consumed by the decadence of modern deviationism. This is plain to see in the issue of feminine attire. We might sympathize with accounts of Mahometanism as ‘sexist’ and bemoan the downtrodden place of women in the Mahometan social order, but conversely the decadence of Western feminism is simply barbaric. The Mahometan order makes stark binary distinctions between men and women, but when we are confronted with the genderless perversity of the contemporary West we can only ask ‘What is wrong with that?’ In its supposed ‘backwardness’ there are ways in which the Mahometan order remains more integral and intact. 

The burqa and purda are confronting – especially on the streets of London or Paris – but the heejab is only out of place because Western women have become masculinized and feminine attire has become inelegant and utilitarian. Indeed, the vestimentary arts in the West are generally in a state of advanced decay. Contemporary clothing is horrible, and – arguably – women’s clothing especially so. The decline is easily documented. While the styles of the 1940s maintained a timeless elegance and still spoke somewhat of an inherent nobility in the human form, subsequent styles drew further and further away from such ideals. The 1960s were an historical low-point and nothing has improved since then. Far from being a matter of small consequence, vestments speak directly of inner states; the decay of the modern West (spiritual, intellectual, political, social) is reflected most obviously in the decline in standards of public dress. The invasion of workwear and sportswear, denim and the T-shirt, into acceptable fashion speaks volumes. And today, designer fashion, like modern art, has gone beyond decadence into outright obscenity. 

The dowdy and masculinized state of Western women was especially noticeable to the present writer during his recent travels through the Hindoo sub-continent and Northern Asia. It is very evident that Western women are both hardened and drab compared to women of those other civilizations. They are coarse and unattractive, defeminized, by comparison. Even the hardworking low caste women of Asia have retained a greater share of feminine grace than the over-intellectualized women one sees among European tourists who are, as it were, hardened from the head down. One can see it in their unhappy eyes and the mechanical pallor of their faces, and above all in the tasteless vulgarity of their clothing. Compared to this, a Hindoo woman in her saffron sari, or a Nipponese woman walking the promenades of Kyoto in a kimono, or indeed a Mahometan woman in her heejab is a perfect delight. 

One is reminded that it was not always the case. There is nothing, in fact, distinctly Mahometan about the head scarf and the full-length standards of the heejab. In former times, Western women conformed to these same standards. These were not merely matters of public modesty and shame but rather a proper calculation of femininity in its essence. It is certainly wrong to think that the function of heejab – and other modes of traditional feminine attire – is to hide a woman’s beauty. One hears this said among modern Mahometans, but it is itself a decadent moralism. It is plainly untrue. On the contrary, the heejab enhances a woman’s beauty both in its accentuation of certain features – such as the eyes – and, above all, by imparting the qualities of mystery and interiority, qualities that are essential to woman but conspicuously lost in the modern ‘liberation’ of masculinization. In the heejab, that is to say, less is more. If it is designed to make women unattractive and uninteresting to men, it fails utterly, just as the overtly sexualized garments of the ‘liberated’ woman (all cleavage and mid-rift and legs with a painted face) very quickly becomes tawdry and cheap and off-putting to all but the most vulgar of men.

In Australia, a campaign by social engineers has introduced the barbarism of 'women's football' as a means of further masculinising women. (As if you could make Australian women more masculine than they already are!) 

Rather than berating Mahometan women for wearing a head scarf in public, therefore, it is a pity that the self-appointed defenders of ‘Western values’ were not more sensitive to the ways in which those ‘values’ have declined into barbarism, especially in the last fifty years or so. Why, one wants to know, are they attacking a Mooselmen lady for covering her hair rather than denouncing the sub-human antics of a celebrity who arrives at a public event clad in a garment made of raw meat? Which poses the greater threat to Western civilization? The truth of it is, as even a brief tour through the latest fashion pages will show, that there is real beauty in contemporary Islamic fashion design while Western fashions rapidly decline into the ludicrous and the ugly. 

Modern Western womanhood in all its glory. 

One factor in sartorial decline. 1940 to 1980. The intrusion of sportswear. 

The complete masculinization of woman is now a cultural project of the decadent West, just as men are being feminized and emasculated. There are many unpalatable and inappropriate aspects of Mahometan culture that are rightly resisted by those who seek to defend Western civilization from the ravages of mass immigration, but defined binary distinctions of the masculine and feminine, especially as presented in feminine attire, is not one of them. We are not talking here about the ‘black sack’ of the burqa. We are simply noting the fact that a great many Mahometan women are better dressed, more elegant and more beautiful than their Western sisters. They retain sartorial standards that it is a pity the West has lost. Again: this is not a question of standards of modesty (although the commercial sexualisation of Western women – and young girls, is a phenomenon in itself) but of aesthetic standards: beauty, charm, elegance, mystery, refinement, grace, pulchritude. 

Rather than concealing, traditional garments often accentuate. 

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Here is a simple exercise that readers might like to try:

The next time you are confronted by a Mahometan woman in heejab, in a shop, on a bus, on a train, take out your cell phone and, turning to Google, summon a photograph of Hillary Clinton in one of her ‘power suits’. Honestly, which would you prefer? 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Agatha Christie and the Latin Mass

The detective/murder story is arguably the most philosophical form of popular fiction. The sleuth, confronted with a set of clues that present themselves as a puzzle that baffles the ordinary man, must use his superior powers of reason, logic and deduction, as well as his insights into human nature - powers of the mind - to expose a hidden truth; it is an inherently intellectual enterprise. The genre is also deeply moral and even theological in as much as it concerns justice and the battle of good against evil. Murder is a primordial sin; the detective represents order, law and civilisation itself. Thou shalt not kill. Every whodunit concerns eternal themes of guilt and justice.

It is a great pity then that, in popular culture, the genre has now degenerated such that the detective is no longer the hero; instead he has been displaced by the forensic scientist, the man in the white coat, who solves the crime using not raw nous but rather the technology of the laboratory. Science has eclipsed philosophy. While the moral dimension remains (usually), it is less a theological quest and more a technocratic problem in which there is little sense of cosmic violation and even less of original sin.

In classic detective stories - those of Agatha Christie, for instance - the reader is always left reflecting on the mortal condition. The crime is solved but human imperfection remains. In the more recent TV crime shows we are left marvelling at the wonders of science instead. Science itself is the focus of such shows. The detectives are shallow and forgettable as characters and the crimes are either banal or unnecessarily perverse. The microscope is the hero.

This is a failing away into a tawdry secularism. In its classical form the genre is deeply religious - which is to say in most Western contexts, Christian. A story like Murder on the Orient Express is morally complex, and is so in a specifically Christian way. The background and assumptions of such a story are those of a Christian society. Not surprisingly, such stories are often decorated with overtly religious motifs and the genre has attracted strongly religious writers, Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries being an example. Christie herself is often cited as a distinctly Christian writer. As she admitted, her early stories took the form of simple Christian morality tales. As she grew in her craft her stories grew in complexity and became more morally nuanced, but there can be no doubt that they are all the product of a Christian moral sensibility.

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Officially, Agatha Christie - touted as the world's most read author following the Bible and Shakespeare - was an Anglican. Her parents baptised her an Anglican as a child and she remained in the Church of England throughout her life. According to their station in British society, they were of the so-called 'High' Church. Her mother, however, had broad spiritual interests and introduced her daughter to both Catholicism and some of the 'occult' traditions, theosophical and orientalist, that were then in fashion, especially among educated ladies. These more esoteric interests are reflected in Agatha's passion for archaeology and archaeological research into ancient and arcane traditions, these matters forming the background to some of her more exotic stories. Her Christianity took shape less in overt churchgoing than in the lifelong practice of reading Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ before going to sleep at night; it was, it is said, her constant bedside reading (a habit she passed on to one of her most famous literary creations, the spinster sleuth Miss Marple.) Her second husband Max Mallowan was a practising Catholic but as a divorcee he - and his wife - were forbidden from taking the sacrament at mass.

Despite this unquestionably Christian and indeed Anglo-Catholic background, it is nevertheless largely an incidental matter by which Agatha Christie's name has become associated with an important aspect of Christian sanctity. Almost by accident, she has become known for efforts to preserve the traditional liturgical legacy of the Catholic Church. It happened thus: In the wake of the deconstructive self-vandalism of the Second Vatican Council and the modernising papacy of Paul VI, especially the introduction of the 'New Order' 'hippie' mass in the vernacular, leading British intellectuals and public figures fought to retain the old Latin or Tridentine liturgy. A petition was presented to the pope urging him to reconsider the scope of his reforms. Here is a list of those who signed it:

Harold Acton, Vladimir Ashkenazy, John Bayler, Lennox Berkeley, Maurice Bowra, Agatha Christie, Kenneth Clark, Nevill Coghill, Cyril Connolly, Colin Davis, Hugh Delray, Robert Exeter, Miles Fitzalan-Howard, Constantine Fitzgibbon, William Glock, Magdalen Gofflin,, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Ian Greenness, Jo Grimond, Harman Grisewood, Colin Hardie, Rupert Hart-Davis, Barbara Hepworth, Auburn Herbert, John Jolliffe, David Jones, Osbert Lancaster, Cecil Day-Lewis, Compton Mackenzie, George Malcolm, Max Mallowan, Alfred Marnau, Yehudi Menuhin, Nancy Mitford, Raymond Mortimer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Iris Murdoch, John Murray, Seán Ó Faoláin, E. J. Oliver, Oxford and Asquith, F. R. Leavis, William Plomer, Kathleen Raine, William Rees-Mogg, Ralph Richardson, John Ripon, Charles Russell, Rivers Scott, Joan Sutherland, Philip Toynbee, Martin Turnell, Bernard Wall, Patrick Wall, E. I. Watkin.

They argued that the outright abolition of the Tridentine rite was ill-considered and impoverishing and that the old rite had a special historical significance for British Catholics, and they requested a disposition from Pope Paul to allow the old rite to be continued among those who preferred it. The modernising pontiff was notoriously impatient with those who wanted to cling to the old forms and who resisted his reforms, but it is reported that when he cast his eye over this petition and came to the name 'Agatha Christie' he stopped and said, "Oh. Agatha Christie!" and relented. The resulting indult (papal permission) that gave (limited) license to continue the Latin mass in England is accordingly known as the Agatha Christie Indult, and the original petition the Agatha Christie Letter, making her name synonymous with the struggle to preserve the traditional rite.

Aside from the undercurrent of Christian morality in her detective stories, and their concern for what are undoubtedly Christian themes, this - unwittingly - is the great contribution Agatha Christie made to the Christian faith. Her reputation, the import of her name on a petition, swayed a pope.

* * *

The story of the Agatha Christie Letter came up in conversation the present author was having with Catholic friends who regularly attend the Latin mass. Although she was not herself a Roman Catholic Dame Agatha (Lady Mallowan) is reported to have regarded the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo) as a desecration and an abomination and an unwarranted deviation from tradition, as did the other non-Catholics who signed the petition. A great many Catholics feel the same. Since it was first introduced in 1969 the 'Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite' promulgated by Paul VI has been subject to withering criticism both within and beyond Catholic ranks.

It is no small matter. Liturgy is the great treasure of the Catholic tradition, just as music and song are the treasures of the Protestant tradition and iconography is the treasure of the Orthodox. No one questions the right of Popes and Councils to make appropriate revisions of the liturgy from time to time, and thus to maintain a living tradition that responds to the needs of changing circumstances, but the Mass of Paul VI was a comprehensive and radical break from tradition, a reform that did far more than revise and adjust: it completely overturned many of the norms of the Tridentine rite and all previous rites before it.

Leaving aside serious questions about its theological validity, it is artistically and aesthetically inferior, lacking in solemnity and devoid of the spiritual depth characteristic of the traditional liturgical forms. This is obvious to even a casual observer with no religious sensitivity at all. The 'new mass' is banal and uninspiring; it trades sanctity and solemnity for the cheap virtues of inclusiveness and accessibility.

Yet the old rites still have a dedicated following and, as the Agatha Christie Letter shows, have had since the time the changes were first made. There are traditionalists, and re-creationists (people not necessarily of the Catholic faith who love the liturgy for its historical and aesthetic qualities) preserving the old forms.

* * * 

Below is a video presentation of an historical re-creation prepared by a Swedish Dominican group of the Latin mass for 4th October 1450, the eighteenth Sunday after pentecost. The introduction in Swedish is as follows:

"Five hundred years ago, the universe seemed much more understandable than it does for us. All of existence was framed by a number of ceremonies and behavioral patterns which were a matter of course for people at the time. And the most important of them was the Holy Mass - that ring of charged words and actions which surround the central mystery in the Christian faith: That Jesus becomes man anew in the creatures of bread and wine. 

"We have reconstructed a High Mass from 500 years ago in an ordinary Swedish parish church, namely in Endre Church, one mile east of Visby in Gotland. We imagined ourselves to be participating in this high mass on an autumn Sunday in the middle of the 15th century. It is local people who are participating in clothes typical for the time, and we have tried as much as possible to reconstruct [something to do with (worship) services] in the Diocese of Linköping at that time - since Gotland belonged to that diocese. 

"The service is conducted in an incomprehensible language, a language incomprehensible to the people: Latin. Because church services at the time were not considered a medium for communicating information, except for silent prayers. Just as one cannot describe what is fascinating about a melody or a sight, one shouldn't be able to understand or describe the central mystery of the universe. The congregation waits for the central moment, when the bread and wine shall be transformed into the body and blood of Christ. 

"The priest was helped by a chorister, perhaps the [experienced?] youth whom [his soul has discovered?] and who with time would be sent to Linköping in order to attend the cathedral school. Songs, mostly from the Bible, were sung by the local cantor. We don't know exactly how the music went in the medieval churches. Maybe Endre Church had a specific order which required a qualified cantor like the one we shall see here. 

"The Sunday service began when the priest sprinkled Holy Water on the congregation. This was to remind them that they had become members of the Christian church through baptism. The Holy Water would drive away all the powers of evil. 

"Let us now place ourselves in the Middle Ages. Let us try to grasp the atmosphere in a normal Swedish parish church, in a time where man still believed himself cast out into an empty, cold existence, when Europe was still unified, and when the central mystery around which everything revolved was that Jesus Christ, had become man, had died, and risen again for all."

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black