trans.univ-paris3.fr - mardi 7 juillet 2009.

“This is me….not a political statement” (Played in Brussels at the ‘Theatre de Poche’ in January and February 08 and rerun in May later that year)

par Karine Ancellin

Three women on stage reach into the palpitating hearts of the spectators. Music, images on screen and text combine into The Veiled Monologues, a play designed to rouse the senses and break traditional media visions of Islam and sexuality. That is what Adelheid Roosen, the Dutch playwright had set out to do. Straying from the daily clichés or various forms of exoticism over Islam, she explains her proceedings : “My attempt was to break from the two polar images of Islam between Omar Shariff and the terrorist.” After having acted for “The Vagina Monologues’ [1], Adelheid Roosen decided to write her piece with Muslim women. She spent one year interviewing and exchanging with Muslim women in the Netherlands and abroad to weave the play, involving herself in research on issues about and around Muslim women. “I was sitting inside the hamam chatting with a few women, when this well built strong woman brought me to her laps and started soap massaging me with the energy of the fruitful lands of southern Morocco. Tears came running from my eyes as I felt my own borders melt with them. Shame is like gasoline, an energized liquid, a product of Calvinism.” Roosen believes she has travelled an interesting road in sharing with these women and regrets that heavy, invisible walls still make it near impossible for a Dutch woman to meet Muslim women on an intimate level and for Muslim Women to become full part of wider Dutch society. She makes the media responsible for the dichotomy of the “us” against “them” creating thus a form of psychological ghettoization.

The authenticity and the crudeness of the words together with the rigour that feeds every detail of the stage play are Roosen’s sense of responsibility. It is though increased since her art work addresses a country whose national psyche is shaken by the death of Theo Van Gogh and the mounting far right extremists such as Mp Geert Wilders, who published a film of islamophobic propaganda. In order to achieve this feat, Roosen had to go against “Fear being made into a product by the forces of the economy.” She acknowledges the situation of the women interviewed as being twisted because the workers who were originally “invited” to come work for the Netherlands are from rural and isolated areas of North Africa. Once settled in a European context and having lost all landmarks, many became “more Catholic than the Pope” in implementing ‘home’ cultural and religious traditions.
Another factor affecting interviewees was the recession of the Dutch economy as “many became jobless and not used to being idle, they were out of balance.” All these equivocal situations are highlighted in the play.

Nevertheless the origins of Muslims in Holland are becoming increasingly diverse. There are now as many differences between Muslims as there are between communities from around the globe, Indonesians having been the largest community post decolonization. The recently-formed Dutch-based Central Committee for Ex-Muslims who saw one of its members beaten up by another Muslim group, is an indicator of the diversity of views and active dialogues arising within Muslim communities in Holland. These monologues coming from an array of different social and cultural Muslim backgrounds, speak out of three voices of astounding actresses that were not all professionals to begin with (because they had to be ‘authentic’). The play conveys Roosen’s underlying vision that “sexuality in Islam is like a right, it’s a food.” Three women each bring their own and original perspective on the place of women in society, one a mother, one a lesbian, one an executive, etc. With a particularly refined body language the three actresses give a glimpse of the many contexts and answers to choose from as a Muslim woman in Amsterdam today. From the Muslim lesbian to the infibulated mother, it is not a political statement ; it’s a heart beat !

Karine Ancellin Saleck
30 January 09

[1] The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler made up of a varying number of monologues originally performed on Broadway in 1996. It can be played by a different number of actresses.