http://www.danielpipes.org/Hijabs on Western Political Women
For fun, how about collecting those instances when female political leaders, especially leftist ones, don the hijab (Islamic headscarf)?
Oriana Fallaci, interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini in September 1979 in Qum, Iran. The interview lasted six hours and at one point, an indignant Fallaci removed her chador in and threw it at Khomeini
Oriana Fallaci interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini, before she threw her chador at him.
Princess Diana in hijab in a Pakistan hospital.
Hilary Clinton, when she was still wife of the U.S. president in 1997, traveled to Eritrea and put on a headscarf. Interestingly, her daughter Chelsea, seen in the background, did not.
But on another occasion, Chelsea joined her in wearing a hijab.
Prince Charles' wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, got into complete Egyptian Muslim garb, including hijab, on a visit to Al-Azhar.
Antje Vollmer, Green Party member and vice-president of the German Bundestag, visiting Riyadh as part of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's delegation in March 2005.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visiting a mosque in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in October 2005, wearing a black cover on her hair
Diane Sawyer of ABC's "Good Morning America" television program interviewed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wearing a hijab in February 2007.
Diane Sawyer while interviewing Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, donned a headscarf when she visited Damascus in April 2007.
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, a former Danish minister of culture (and someone with whom I have argued), wore a hijab near the parliament in April 2007.
In June 2007, three senior Bush administration staffers wore makeshift hijabs as they listened to the president address an audience at Washington's Islamic Center.
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Fran Townsend (far left), NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Judy Ansley (left), and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes (right) listen to President Bush wearing makeshift hijabs.
On a trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2007, George W. Bush's wife Laura wore a particularly severe-looking hijab.
Angelina Jolie the actress also serves as a "Goodwill Ambassador" for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; in the latter capacity, she visited a eathquake-struck village in Pakistan in August 2007
Switzerland's Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey wore a full hijab in Tehran in March 2008 as she signed a natural gas deal with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (March 19, 2008)
Mar. 23, 2008 update: A number of readers have responded to this blog by pointing out that the women pictured above are doing nothing different from non-Jewish men donning a kippah (yarmulke, skullcap) in a synagogue. To which, I have two replies:
In about half the pictures above, the women are not in a mosque or other religious place. In their cases, the comparison is irrelevant.
Where they are in a mosque, I reject the comparison of a head covering and a skullcap. Wearing a skullcap is like taking one's shoes off on entering a mosque. But wearing a hijab, especially the full hijab such as Laura Bush wore, is like a non-Jewish male putting on the tallit (prayer shawl). It is not a small symbolic step of respect but rather taking on important aspects of the ritual of a religion not one's own.
A Jewish man praying with a tallit, or prayer shawl, over his head and upper torso.
Topic: Hijabs on Western Political Women (Read 2028 times)