Unveiling the History of the Burqa
Brishkay Ahmed:
Unveiling the History of the Burqa
By Bureen Ruffin Brishkay Ahmed, center, is the filmmaker behind the documentary, Story of Burqa: Case of a Confused Afghan.(“ Burqas and the Confused Afghan,” Photo: Meghan Mcadam)
Across the globe the burqa is ubiquitous: in the markets of Kabul, on the streets of New York City, on the runways of Givenchy, and in pop music videos. It is increasingly at the center of heated debates in the East and West, but little is known about the burqa’ s origin and history, particularly in the West. Canada was recently the latest in a number of countries embroiled in a battle to restrict or ban the controversial garment.
In her documentary film Story of Burqa: Case of a Confused Afghan, Brishkay Ahmed, an Afghan- Canadian filmmaker, takes on the enormous task of uncovering the story of how the burqa came to be associated with Afghanistan and its role in the lives of Afghan women and girls.
Ahmed and her camera crew take the viewer on a journey through the alleyways and past the stalls of the Kabul markets, where burqas are made, sold, and worn. By her own admission, Ahmed’ s Dari( a dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan) is poor; still, she unflinchingly interrogates her sources— shoppers, tailors, politicians, women, and intellectuals— for answers.
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