Forbidden Faces

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 00:12


Recovering masculinity might be a better title for this blogette du jour but I feel like something forbidden, faces some form of enlightenment. Ambiguity has its privileges. Pictured here is Mustafa the artist formerly known as Matthew. Give this bro' time for the surname. Rest assured he is working on a new one for that too.

Here in Villette in the summer it seems my beard is the subject of alot of passerby tourists camera snapping. I don't much mind having my photo taken by a stranger, though I'd rather not... What gripes me is when someone two or three meters away yielding a camera takes my photo without even bothering to talk to me regardless of trying to do so in their own mother-tongue. A person hiding behind a camera who cannot engage their subject by acknowledging the common humanity is behaving cold and inhuman - it is more than being rude. What right does a photographer have in using a camera as a substitute for some inter-human communication? A camera can be a great tool for a conversational opener but to snap a photo and run away is akin to stealing. Like back in old Ohio those Amish ways of believing a camera or photograph steals one soul - well this bro thinks there might just be some truth in that idea.

Then all those insecurity cameras - electric eyes littered about the city these days... Or CIA/Europol types disguised as tourists taking photos for gathering the facial recognition data for the Orwellian databases of the near future. How much soul do I lose in a day? To say nothing of being voluntarily photographed for family and friends. But perhaps tourists should not have the right to photograph the natives even when in a modern European city. I can't go anywhere around my neighborhood without being caught on at least one camera in any direction I go from my home. The thing is all those cameras overhead lining streets will not do anything for me if I fall victim to a pick pocket or "random" street bashing. Those cameras are only to protect multi-national corporate and insurance interests - not you or me or the terrified masses of this present disappointing modernity. And to think all those corporate multi-nationals won't hire bearded men...

I am seriously considering carrying with me at all times an Arabic headscarf. Not just to use as sun screen when neccessary or if it raining like it tends to do in Bru-town - but carrying a headscarf for some facial privacy in this day and age of digital camera technologies impolitely brandished about. It is getting to the point around town here with all the cameras that I'd rather wrap up my face like some scary Mujahideen warrior type just for a little on the street privacy. Not because I am a terrorist because I don't believe in such nonesense. Though me running around with a headscarf covering my face and my barbarosa hanging out might be a rather terrorising image for some! But I'm sure some tourist will be taking a photo too. There are two famous kinds of headscarves - the white and black Palestinian variety or the Saudi red and white style. There are though many other color combinations of this handy throughout the ages and centuries practical headscarf for men. I have some in brown and black, gray and dark red, blue and red - with fringe and tassles and without. Fringe for when I am feeling like the lunatic fringe that I am. These colored headscarves for men come with less political overtones and are generally worn in the same form of wrapping as any Saudi, Palestinian, Tuareg (the blue men of the Sahara) or any other desert man's headscarf.

There was a time - not so long ago - maybe 15 or 20 years ago in rural parts of Morocco or as it's better known as al Maghreb - The far flung West of Arabia when men were forbidden to shave their beards. Now men everywhere are forbidden to not shave their beards. Why do times change and shift and is it better? And yet men from Orthodox religions can work and keep their beards. But if you lean towards looking like something scruffy from the mountains of Afghanistan forget it you terrorist.

Meanwhile I hear when tranversing London streets one is not allowed to wear a typically American hooded sweatshirt (with the hood up I assume) as this interferes with facial recognition of street security electronic surveillance. But what about traditional Moroccan hooded thobes? The American or Moroccan hood is handy in the climates of this part of Europe. It's either intermittant rain or wind and occassionally you might want to cover up with out fussing with carrying a hat or umbrella. Umbrellas are useless anyway on the crowded urban European streets of today. At some point we are all going to have to stand up to our fear mongering, terrorism peddling as mass tactical control "democratically elected" governments shamelessly in cahoots with the Anglophone worlds aim. But how?

Meanwhile all those cameras about and I keep having this nagging feeling I'm losing my soul - and losing my masculinity to the femine form of the beardless Man today - what could possibly be next since Freedom left the building ages ago if she were ever here. Whatever happened to my right to my body? Why do we humans tell each other, legislate and legalize what one can and cannot do with the natural God-given form of their body...

Lately I have been recovering my lost sense masculinity with a beard. (Lost since I don't know when - it doesn't really feel like I ever possessed my own masculinity since even some other man's name and business was on all my underwear and clothes - Yes this is a Fight Club the book and movie refernce but true to my own experience growing up all the same). If Muslim women are choosing to wear a hijab or some other piece of fabric if not entirely concealing their western wardrobe then perhaps more Muslim Brothers might consider choosing to wear their beards au naturale along with those fashionable Adidas brand pull on and pull over sports clothes. This just might in effect be a handy self equalizing form of Islamic Feminism put in action by some forward thinking Muslim Bro's looking rather anachronistic like the one pictured here. Certainly it has been my experience by wearing a beard in this day as an unexpected form of masculinization. The beard and becoming 40 years old have given me a sense of manhood I never possessed. Yet there isn't a day that goes by where someone I know, or don't know, Muslim or not, has not expressed blatant negative opinions on my God given facial hair. Plus it seems a beard is public property and people around you wether you know them or not seem to feel they have the right to tell you what to do with your whiskers. It seems that Gillette brand capitalistic corporate-o-cratic emasculating razor is never far from away. My beard, my balls - keep off!

Not that I recognize myself in street window reflections these days when I am trodding the streets of this here Bru-town. Especially as pictured here in the way cool Shukr brand clothes I received as a gift for my recent 41st birthday. I actually remember when growing ones hair, remaining unwashed and wearing clothes with holes was an act of rebellion and determination... Now a few decades later it's growing ones beard and wearing dignified clothes and keeping clean that are rebellious social acts. It's a 180 degree shift. Choosing to be modest is out of the question. Then the word modest just seems an insufficient if not altogether hygenic or feminine word in the language English limitations to describe choosing to cover up for life in a multi-cultural urban context. Covering up to protect ones self and to protect others. Keeping covered to respect ones self and to respect the people we share the streets with. It is all about personal choice, expression and tolerance.

So for those of you out there (CIA, friend or foe or all of the above) who for whatever reason you have who wanted to know what I look like here behind the Experiencing Belgium desk in Bru-town well now you know if you didn't already...

Ya, Mustafa.