Hijab versus balaclava: a contemporização do projeto colonial francês expressa na ambivalência em relação à cobertura facial e seclusão do "outro" islâmico

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the recent prohibitions on the use of Islamic hijab by women in France as virulent policies that are complicit with the character of colonial control and subjugation devices applied to native women during the French colonial rule in Algeria. The prohibition of this attire is contextualized with the rise of the balaclava, which, although based on the same principle of covering the face, is widely accommodated within European modernisms. To highlight how the ambivalence in reactions involving the balaclava and the Islamic veil reveals the colonial legacy in the French treatment of Islamic bodies/presence, the study will draw on the theoretical propositions of Chakrabarty and Bhabha. They respectively raise questions about the temporalization of difference and the securitization of identity, ultimately producing the religious expression of Islam in France as a radical difference external to the liberal-democratic/secular framework.