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The issue of the veil has a long (and complex) history in the cultural imaginary of Western modernity and so it is imperative to consider how current discussions of the veil are framed by the contemporary socio-political climate and to examine the manner in which the concerns that arise from recent discussions are related to a much longer history of British colonial encounters with Islam and the veil. The increased visibility of veiled bodies in Britain today has stirred a response that draws on long-standing Orientalist oppositions and reworks them in the current climate of 'War on Terror', connecting them to parallel racist discourses about 'threats' to British culture. Sections of the British media have presented veiled Muslim women as an obstacle to meaningful 'communication', and as an example of Islamic 'refusal' to embrace 'modernity'. Veiled women are considered to be ungrateful subjects who have failed to assimilate and are deemed to threaten a perceived homogenous entity called the 'British' way of life. The media coverage of this issue has achieved a reversal by displacing the issue of the right to religious freedom onto an abstract, a-historical, conceptualisation of British 'freedom' which relies on unstated assumptions about British culture as cohesive, liberal, sealed (until the intrusion of the masked other) and ultimately superior. This paper reviews the debate over the veil in Britain in the context of British foreign policy, attacks on civil liberties, the further marginalization of poor communities and the politicization of British Muslims, where the veil is an increasingly political image of both difference and defiance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased visibility of veiled bodies in Britain and Europe today has stirred a response that draws on long-standing Orientalist oppositions and reworks them in the current climate of the 'war on terror', connecting them to parallel racist discourses about 'threats to British culture'. Media coverage of this issue has displaced the question of the right to civic freedom onto an a-historical conceptualization of culture which relies on unstated assumptions about British/European culture as cohesive, liberal, sealed (until the intrusion of the masked 'other') and ultimately superior. Both sides of this perceived clash have been reduced to a familiar either/or dichotomy which pits progress, liberalism and modernity against tradition, intolerance and Islam. By focusing solely on questions of gender equality and by correlating equality with visible signs of agency, some feminists and left of centre commentators have side-stepped broader questions of inequality and social justice. For instance, banning the veil and public attacks on Muslim women's use of it constitutes a major obstacle to the participation of some Muslim women in public life. By pitting multiculturalism against feminism, 'equality' against 'culture', and cultural relativism against 'universal values', such approaches neglect the fact that individuals and communities are socially embedded and that identities are formed and reformed in the context of social relations. This paper argues for a broader and more multi-dimensional understanding of 'justice' not just along the axis of gender but also along other axes of social differentiation and subordination, above all in this context, class, race, nationality and religion. It re-examines the academic and media debates on 'veiled bodies', engages both with issues of 'European Islam' and with the limits of secular liberalism, and argues for a more critical and multi-dimensional account of 'Muslim' and 'European' 'culture'. It moves beyond 'culturalist' approaches which see the veil as a mere symbol of ethnic and/or religious back ground, as well as the equally problematic neo-liberal focus on 'choice' and 'individuality'. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the communication industry in Iran has emerged as one of the fastest growing economic sectors, and "new media" constitute one of the most dynamic and vibrant politico/cultural spaces. This paper examines the expansion of the Internet and the rise of weblogs in Iran in its wider social context. It will be shown how the combination of market forces and state policies are suppressing the democratic and participatory potentials of the Internet. The case of Iran while demonstrating the real 'potential' of new technologies for empowerment of citizens, also shows that the realisation of this dream and the potential of Internet depend on access and (political) entitlements for all. This paper looks at how the battle to control weblogs/bloggers is evolving in Iran. It examines different layers and methods of control and censorship, as well as significant moments of dispute. The paper will demonstrate how the very contradictory nature and factionalism of the Iranian state inevitably makes for an intriguing and contradictory blogosphere environment, and how the potentials of new media are constrained by confusion in government policies, varied institutional interests and above all the dialectical tension between the imperative of the market and the 'revolutionary' claims of the Iranian state. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]