Home Corporate America Islam Islamization The Hijabs of Our Banana Republic
Home Corporate America Islam Islamization The Hijabs of Our Banana Republic

The Hijabs of Our Banana Republic

When a company runs into trouble, it tries to go forward or backward. And when Banana Republic faced a 3% decline in sales, it decided to go all the way back to the 7th century. Hoping to tap into the lucrative market of concealing bruises and strangulation marks, Banana Republic rolled out a line of hijabs for the discerning woman who knows better than to leave home without the permission of a male guardian.

While women in Iran were being beaten and imprisoned for taking off their hijabs, Banana Republic decided to celebrate the courageous spirit of those women who want to live as second class citizens.

But if the Gap brand thought that displaying some garments of female subjugation between its ugly purple purses and its eighteen-dollar scrunchies would win over Islamists, it had another thing coming.

Modern lefties iconize hijabs without having the faintest idea of what they mean or what they’re for. All they know is that to properly display diversity, you need to add a woman in a hijab between the gay guy, the Black Lives Matter guy, and the militant #resistance member ready to storm Starbucks; even though a hijab is as much a symbol of human liberation as a case of female genital mutilation.

But since Banana Republic couldn’t figure out how to market female genital mutilation to sophisticated urban consumers, it had to settle for trying to sell them hijabs. A hijab, BR execs thought, is just a 72x26 shmata. Our Vietnamese slave laborers can make one a minute before passing out from the toxic fumes. And we can sell them for 20 bucks while getting a diversity award from CAIR for our wokeness.

A cigar may sometimes just be a cigar, but a hijab is always a repressive way of life.

Instead of being cheered from Algeria to Afghanistan, Banana Republic was accused of cultural appropriation and insensitivity. The failing retailer had made an obvious and tragic error. Their model may have had every lock of hair encompassed by the fashion forward follicular prison, but she was showing off her elbows in a short-sleeved shirt. What’s the point of locking up the hair after the elbows are already out there? Does Banana Republic, despite its name, understand nothing about Islam?

"There are guidelines to hijab outside of just covering hair," the founder of Haute Hijab warned.

The guidelines of Islam cover women’s hair, elbows, sometimes faces and even one eye. The hijab is the most distinctive sign of subjugation, because hair is even more offensive than elbows.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's first president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, warned that women's exposed hair emits rays that drive men mad. It's unknown if women's elbows also emit rays, but Islam approves of women's elbows no more than it approves of their hair. And Banana Republic soon repented.

The model in the black rectangular hijab print and the short sleeves vanished from Banana Republic the way she had from the republics of Afghanistan, Iran and ISIS. The very woke company replaced her provocative elbows with a cropped shot in which she no longer has elbows, arms or hair.

Just the way Allah intended.

But Muslim critics pointed out that the model in the blue soft satin square hijab has an exposed neck. And Allah is no more fond of the sight of women’s necks than he is of their hair and their elbows. Meanwhile the model in the unconvincing leopard print hijab is not only showing her neck, but has the first two buttons of her shirt open. The only thing more offensive would be is if she were also driving.

Banana Republic had banished the model with the dress slit below the knee, but it couldn’t keep up with the frenzy of demands for erasing all the parts of the female body whose existence Muslims object to.

"If people were on the fence about the short sleeves or exposed neck photos, no one could get behind the dress slit photos," Melanie Elturk, the founder of Haute Hijab, complained.

An American brand that claims to tap into the liberating power of fashion bet big on subjugation and discovered that no amount of subjugation is ever enough. The hijab is not just another twenty-buck shmata. Its origins go back to 7th century Arabia where Mohammed faced the same problem as his modern ISIS counterparts. He had to figure out how to tell apart his wives and his rape victims.

Or, as Islam likes to call them, concubines. Or, as the media likes to call them, underage sex slaves.

The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), like the Prophet Jeffrey Epstein (Prison Be Upon Him), sought to colonize the world with miniature versions of himself by capturing and raping innumerable young girls. Since the Florida Democratic Party did not exist in 7th century Arabia, Mohammed couldn’t just write a check to the Clinton Foundation, and instead had to recruit a gang of rapists with promises of rape.

A famous PBS documentary refers to this period as an Empire of Faith.

Since the various rapists also had wives, and since Islam frowns on Muslim men assaulting each other’s wives (the wives of non-Muslims however are fair game, as Koran 4:24 states, "And all married women are forbidden unto you save those captives whom your right hand possess"), the hijab, the burka, the abaya and all the other exciting ways to repress women arrived.

“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks all over their bodies that they may thus be distinguished and not molested,” Koran 33:59 states.

A commentator on the Koran adds, “It is more likely that this way they may be recognized (as pious, free women), and may not be hurt (considered by mistake as roving slave girls.)” It’s always awkward when you confuse your wife, or somebody else’s wife with one of those roving slave girls.

Muslim women cover their hair and elbows to show that they’re the property of a Muslim man. Banana Republic had gone into the business of selling twenty-dollar social markers distinguishing their wearer as already belonging to a Muslim husband or father, and suggesting that he go “molest” someone else.

Maybe the purchaser of that Banana Republic purple purse who left her elbows shamelessly exposed.

The media can’t exactly fault the Old Navy’s cousin for advertising hijabs in a way that sends mixed messages to sex grooming gangs, so it instead threw out accusations of cultural appropriation.

Islamists had spent a generation whining about a lack of accommodation and representation. Restaurants weren’t open around the clock to break the Ramadan fast. Victoria’s Secret wasn’t hiring models in burkas. The police still treat synagogue bombings as a crime no matter what the Koran says.

And then Banana Republic debuts four hijabs and it’s cultural appropriation even though Islam appropriates cultures the way hot dog eating contest winners go through sauerkraut and brats. Huge chunks of the Koran are appropriated from Judaism and Christianity like a little kid trying to write his own comic book by taking all the best parts of all the books and movies he saw and mixing them up.

The Washington Post article concludes with a Muslim fashion blogger vowing to "stick to Muslim-owned businesses".

The Texas resident said that it is, "where my loyalty lies."

The question is where do the loyalties of the huge corporations which collude in the oppression of women lie? Is it with the women risking their lives to defy oppression or those who collude with it?

Banana Republic tried to collude with a theocracy of rape and discovered that no amount of erasing women is ever enough. And that’s a tough lesson for an American clothing retailer to absorb.

But when BR next relaunches its line of oppressive headgear, it’ll bring in CAIR advisers who will make sure that none of the models are showing any ankle, elbow, neck, or hair. And then the media will cheer. And there will be awards and an ad campaign.

Because we all live in a banana republic now.





Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

  1. The Conservative Curmudgeon19/8/19

    @ Anonymous Charlie:

    In regard to your kind acknowledgment to my earlier post I give you a verbatim from Bobby Kennedy (by way of George Bernard Shaw):

    "Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream of things that never were and say why not?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rob De Witt19/8/19

    Daniel, Daniel.....

    The expression is "If they thought.....they had another think coming."

    Thought/think, get it?

    "Another thing" coming is yet one more popular illiteracy increasingly eroding the language, like "one in the same, "free reign," "tow the line," et cetera ad nauseam.

    You're better than that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rob De Witt19/8/19

    Sorry for my self-indulgence (seethe, seethe...)

    Apart from that unconscious illiteracy on your part, this is another in a long line of wonderful rants from you. Even though I think it's ultimately hopeless, jumping on hypocrisy is ever good exercise.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous19/8/19

    A banana republic? Or a camel urine republic?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous19/8/19

    We’ve allowed ourselves to be so shamed by the
    likes of Howard Zinn that we no longer admire
    our greatest culture ever. We are perfectly
    capable and duty bound to recognize barbaric
    Islam as deserving of banishment.

    Honor our great predecessors of Western
    Civilization and proudly cast Islam, its
    symbols and psychopathy back into its pit of
    hatred and ignorance.

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  6. So, what is your position on the Torah's perspective on women's modest dress and hair covering?

    ReplyDelete
  7. The lesson BR failed to take away from this is that no matter how much you kiss moslem ass, it will never be enough.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous20/8/19

    Dear Conservative Curmudgeon,

    Very astute; you’ve found my dilemma.

    Politically, drifting from pragmatic objectivity
    into whimsical Unicornia can descend toward
    horrid tyranny. (e.g. “Living Constitution”)
    Ulysses had himself lashed to the mast to
    resist the Sirens’ song.

    YET: Many great leaps of Philosophy, Science,
    Math Hypotheses came from inspired hunches.

    Can we agree that “dreams”, like fire, can be
    valuable servants, but fearful masters?

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous21/8/19

    "So, what is your position on the Torah's perspective on women's modest dress and hair covering?"

    That it has nothing whatsoever to do with the politicized modern (1970s) anti-Western in your face colonization and intimidatation tool to fufill the koranic commandment that the kuffer must be made to see that he can never escape from islam -- the hijab and body bags have nothing to do with religion -- they are a political symbol to show western people and other kuffers that islam is in the house -- your house -- and now it is their house -- hijabs in the Arctic? hijabs on 4 year old girls? hijabs as dolce and garbaga fashion items? Symbols of Invasion, nothing else.

    What does this islmaic political colonization have to do with Jewish religious observance? Nothing. It's a strategy of the left to cunningly attempt a false equivaliency to divert from the true purpose of hijab: Show kuffers they are now invaded.

    Nice try, Lefty, but your divisive smokescreen straw man bait and switch gag is all played out in 2019. The kuffer is awakening -- too bad his children are already brainwashed.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lefty? I suppose how could suspect that a leftist would attempt to call out the right on its sometimes hypocritical approach. Hypocrisy can be found across the spectrum. Although I cannot blame you for your suspicion, all you had to do was to click on my profile, and then click on my blog to know this. You obviously never did that. Otherwise, you would know the opposite is true, and am critical of the co-dependent, Evangelical-cheer leading, co-dependent, hasbara crowd who claim to be right-wing Religious Zionists. Unfortunately, you do not have any profile which I may click on.

    You are not at all wrong about Islam. Bnei Yishmael's strategy has changed drastically since attempting to conquer Europe in the 1600's when they were eventually pushed back. True that Islam is extreme on this, as it is on a lot of things.

    But, I certainly hope you are not lumping Jews together with the West, which has its own set of extremes. We are supposed to be a separate and distinct people.

    I find that any Jews supporting "moderate" Muslims are often anti-Religion, or just "Let me do what I want" anti-Torah types. These are the people I was trying to root out.

    But, my question was also for Sultan Knish himself. I guess I'll just email him, instead.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you, Daniel, for your excellent article deftly exposing the deceit of the leftist "diversity" anthem; old fashioned crass commercialism; and Islam in general!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This week, the foreign minister of Iran visited Sweden and Norway. The female officials of those two countries tied themselves in knots over whether it would be proper for them to offer a handshake. They decided not to-not because Iran is such an oppressor of women or the world's largest supporter of terrorism, but because pious Muslim men are not supposed to shake hands with women, and they, naturally, wanted to show "proper respect". Sickening.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gary Fouse, If I were an official from Israel, and was visibly Orthodox-looking, I would expect the same. I would expect that Scandinavians would do the same research into my culture as they do for Muslims. I am certainly not comparing Israel with Iran, as many leftists (anti-Judaism) would want you to do. It is very frustrating that we, in Israel, are so co-dependent that we allow tourists and foreign workers come here, do whatever they want, and without any kind of brochure or signs indicating what they might want to avoid, like women spontaneously touching men, for example, to ask for directions or such. We're supposed to just "deal with it." In Texas, I highly doubt one would get away with offending local culture and customs, and rightly so.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is like a few months back when Vogue Magazine had to apologize for the horrible sin of listing the wrong Muslim woman's name under another Muslim woman's picture. Of course both women appeared in the magazine wearing incredibly concealing hijab which flattened and muted all features and differences, yet demand to be seen as individuals.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You May Also Like