The pronunciation is tricky. So are the provenance and political implication of the scarf on sale from sidewalk vendors all over the East Coast. Say ka- fee-a, and the sound will be right. Wear the large, brightly checked square of cotton around the neck, shawl style over the shoulders or wrapped around the head, and the look will be perfect 1988 American street style. It is also what millions of Americans see on their TV screens practically every night, worn by Palestinians defying Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories.
There are indications that the kaffiyeh style, now competing with running shoes as hot dress-down items in New York City and Washington, is spreading ever westward. When Herman Ruether, interim director of the Chicago-based Palestine Human Rights Campaign, heard that the kaffiyeh was becoming fashionable, he said, "I started talking to people at random." The results of Ruether's informal poll: only three out of ten people cited politics as their reason for wearing the scarf. He adds, however, that during the most & recent episodes of violence in Israeli-occupied areas, his office received a large number of calls from Americans sympathetic to the Palestinian cause inquiring where kaffiyehs could be bought.
Long a staple of the Middle East tourist trade and a basic component of wardrobes in the Levant, the kaffiyeh came to the U.S. via Europe, where, in all its checkered permutations (black, blue, green, red or purple on white), it is almost as ubiquitous among the young as fatigue jackets. Yasser Arafat has worn a kaffiyeh, usually with army duds, for 20 years now, and the scarf became a garment of choice among the political protesters and antimissile advocates of the '70s and early '80s. Fashion, of course, mutes political reverberation. With time the kaffiyeh became politically neutral and lost some of its freshness. But the current televised spectacle of kaffiyeh-wearing rebels playing hob with the Israeli army gives the scarves an odd, often ironic resonance when they are worn in the West. Visual continuity suggests a political solidarity that usually comes as a big surprise to the Western wearer. "It's just an accessory," says Kenneth Kaiser, a Boston retail- clothing-store manager. "The ethnic type of look is in right now." "The idea that it's political is ridiculous," says New York City Artist Steven Charny. Comments Mordechai Levy, head of the Jewish Defense Organization in New York City: "Now there are so many, they are just like any other scarf."
Certain practical home-turf applications of the kaffiyeh, like wrapping it as a mask around the face during guerrilla actions, are not yet widely attempted Stateside. But Ruether suggests that heavy sales of the scarves, mostly made in Jordan, Syria and the West Bank, could be a small economic boon to the Palestinians. Such social considerations still take a backseat to fashion. "Hey," says Gene Bursage, 19, of Brooklyn, who has worn his scarf every day, and in every temperature, since he bought it last November. "It's a scarf, that's what it is, that's all it is. What did you say it was called again?"