In the mini movie “Just One Night”, two headscarf-wearing Muslim women go out to a bar to experience bar life for “just one night.” The protagonist’s friend claims she has never been to this bar before; however, the protagonist discovers her friend is a regular at the bar after seeing her picture on the wall. The protagonist pulls off her friend’s headscarf in anger after seeing the picture and watching her dance with a man at the bar. They talk. In a dramatic denouement, they hold hands in symbolic acceptance of the friend’s decision to not put her headscarf back on when she exits the bar.
This movie raises many interesting ethical questions but here I would like to probe the question of authenticity and true self-hood. In the United States, we prize a certain definition of authenticity. To be authentic is to behave in accordance with your so-called “true self” at all times, which means to behave in a similar fashion at all times. Generally speaking, we expect men and women to behave the same in public and in private.
We expect women to act the same when they are in women’s only gatherings as they behave in mixed gatherings. We expect men to interact with women the same as they conduct themselves with men and vice versa. We expect young people to speak to elders the same way they speak with peers. This mentality betrays a conception of the self as a fixed, stable, and singular entity that we can and should be true to. But from my perspective, the true self is more complex and encompasses competing elements. Spiritually speaking, there are always at least two real selves at any given moment: a self which desires closeness to God and a self which is selfish, egotistical, and always wants its whims satisfied which draws us away from God.
The mini movie can be interpreted in different ways, but it ends with the removal of the headscarf. As someone who dresses modestly and wears a headscarf, it was disappointing to watch, like most Muslim media these days. The spiritual struggle depicted in the movie certainly reflects a widespread reality among American Muslims, but it doesn’t offer any way out, any resolution, or anything to inspire us to walk the spiritual path. I am familiar with the self who wants to give into the social pressure of American culture, and dress and act like everyone else so she can belong somewhere. But what about that other self, the one which desires closeness to God and spiritual wayfaring- the one who belongs to God? Where is she in the media? Can we ever hear her story? What about the girl who, against the tide of intense social and cultural pressure decides to cover her hair and dress modestly and makes that struggle a means to closeness to God? What about the one who quits drinking and running after attention from boys and finds a completely new way of living, thinking, and being in the world? Why do we only hear stories of spiritual failure rather than spiritual success? I see myself in the girl who removes her headscarf and dances in the bar in this video, but only one part of myself. There is another part of myself, the spiritual self, who is perhaps not as appealing to Western media. She is getting stronger and stronger every day, and I choose to live and tell her story instead.
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Rachel Tagoulla is a PhD student at Indiana University in the department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures studying Islamic Ethics, Sufism and Arabic Pedagogy.
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Disclaimer: Any views and/or opinions represented in this blog solely belong to the author. Muslim Voices Public Scholarship Project is not liable for the opinions presented.
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