kufiyas and Hawaiian shirts: Boogaloo boys (#kufiyaspotting)

 More in the theme of the military or "tough guy" kufiya. Kufiyas show up all the time when far-right, white power militias mobilize. At Charlottesville, Amon Bundy's 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the Oath Keepers and other fascists fighting with 'antifa' in Portland, and so on. This has so much to do with US wars, with veterans from Gulf War 1, Iraq and Afghanistan, who got into kufiyas while abroad -- whether because they were very useful, given the environment, or they just thought they were cool, or they functioned as a kind of "sympathetic magic," a putting on of a garment identified with the enemy that serves to endow one with potency. Kathryn Belew's essential book Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, shows how important, since Vietnam, veterans of US imperialist adventures have been to the growth of the white power social movement. No wonder, then, that we frequently see kufiyas in all the far-right mobilizations of the last few years. (I've documented the phenomenon quite extensively here, but don't have time right now to put in all the links to previous posts -- you could do a search!)

 More photos of white power kufiyas to come!

This photo is from the New York Times, Sunday, January 31.

USA Patriot Kufiyas: 1776 and anti-masking

I'm sorry, I didn't keep track of the source, but the first image has been posted via rightwing websites and social media outlets. It's interesting, as it combines imagery of the USA patriot of 1776, in his tricorne cap, with the kufiya, often worn by rightwing militia types in the US, as I've documented in previous posts. The second image (again, I didn't keep good records) shows some armed men, exercising their 'free speech' rights not to wear masks and to carry guns in a USA café, spring of 2020. 

Kufiyas on the armed anti-government militants at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon

Several people alerted me to the widely-circulated photos of the armed anti-government militants who occupied the Oregon nature refuge.

Rob Kerr/AFP/Getty Images

The photo (source: The Guardian), from January 4, shows Ammon Bundy speaking at the militants' daily press conference. I have no idea who the guy is on Bundy's right, garbed in the green kufiya.

As you can see from the photos below, from January 8, taken by Rick Bowmer for AP (found here), sporting kufiyas seems to be pretty routine for these guys. 

I suppose there are at least a couple of sources here, and I'm pretty sure that donning kufiyas for these guys has nothing at all to do with Palestinian solidarity. First, kufiyas were and no doubt still are worn routinely by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, going back to 2003. You can find "military" ones easily with a google search, although they are more commonly called shemaghs in such circles, it seems. I have a fire retardant (!) khaki kufiya brought me by someone who served in Iraq, and I think it is military issue. I've posted about military kufiyas, which I've described as examples of "tough guy" kufiyas, here and here. 

Second, over the past decade or so, there have been several occasions where bad-ass tough guys in Hollywood movies are shown in kufiyas. My favorite is John Travolta in From Paris with Love, but there are lots of examples. Here's a few, but you can find many more in this blog. 

Finally, kufiyas have been showing up in gun catalogs. For instance, this photo, from the Griffon Industries 2011 calendar. The woman (Miss June) in the kufiya and camo bikini top is being used to market the gun. (There are more items around like this, and I need to do more searching, and posting.)

 

My guess is that the armed militants in Oregon are wearing kufiyas, inspired or influenced by the three sorts of uses described above.