Over on ‘hawgblawg‘ Ted Swedenburg posted the below picture that was sent to him by a friend:
Ted is an anthropologist and author of the book “Memories of Revolt: The 1936-39 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past.” One of the themes of his blog is to point out places where the kufiya – the scarf synonymous with Palestinian resistance – is being used for some other purpose, usually fashion.
On this particular picture, Ted writes:
The baseball cap says ‘kafir’ in Arabic, which is correctly translated as infidel. A synonym is unbeliever. I believe that Islamist insurgents in Iraq fighting against the US occupation would have used this term fairly routinely to describe the US military forces. I did not know that (some) US troops had embraced the term.
Readers of this blog know all too well how the term infidel gets slung around in military circles. It’s interesting to see an anthropology professor who focuses on the Middle East catch wind of it in this way, years after it became “a thing.”
Enjoy the posts? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter.
Carrying the Gun 