Sarah Jama is fighting for more than just the keffiyeh

 

The Ontario legislature’s expulsion of Jama exposes the limits of liberal inclusion—it’s about the struggle against settler colonialism, in Canada and in Palestine

On March 7, 2024, Ontario Speaker of the House Ted Arnott unilaterally banned the Palestinian keffiyeh in the legislative assembly as a “political statement,” a move that can be overturned by the unanimous consent of the entire assembly. Since then, politicians from across parties have spoken out against the ban, including Premier Doug Ford.

On April 25, newly independent MPP Sarah Jama wore a keffiyeh in the assembly and was ejected from the space. A photograph of the sergeant-at-arms looming over Jama, with three young, racialized pages looking on, circulated on social media. Journalist Shree Paradkar tweeted that the image “perfectly captures this moment in Ontario’s political, racial, sociological history. Who’s being ousted, for what reason, how alone she is, who is looking resolutely ahead or away and what.”—a sentiment shared by many online.

Much of the reaction revolved around hypocrisy, free expression, and liberal inclusion. Other heritage symbols, such as tartans, are allowable, and it goes against liberal sensibilities of individual freedom to police someone’s dress. The Ontario NDP has pledged to “defy the keffiyeh ban” if Premier Ford doesn’t intervene to overturn it.

The discourses against this ban, including the ONDP’s opposition, risk reducing what Jama herself has named as a struggle against Israeli apartheid to the individual right to clothing, akin to critiques of Bill 21 in Québec banning religious symbols for public servants. The ONDP already demonstrated their rejection of Jama’s material demand when they ejected her from caucus after she called for a ceasefire and named Israeli occupation as “apartheid” and “settler colonialism.”

The very architecture and aesthetics of the Legislative Assembly embody Canadian national mythologies and the nation-state’s British-imperialist heritage. The cries of hypocrisy overlook that allowable heritage garb or symbols, such as the tartan or even Israeli army dog tags, are neutral towards—or aligned with—the state. To wear the keffiyeh in this space, and to be expelled for it, is a microcosm of the limits of liberal inclusion within the settler-colonial state.  (more...)

Sarah Jama is fighting for more than just the keffiyeh