Scarf's cool, but what's it mean?

When is a scarf not just a scarf? When it's a keffiyeh.

The scarves, native to the Middle East, have become ubiquitous in the United States again, showing up on the necks of celebrities such as Chris Brown and in mall stores such as Forever 21. But the wraps are also loaded with political baggage - or at least, they used to be.

"I just got mine because it was warm, and it looked all right," said Derek Fredrick, a freshman at Elizabeth City State University. In his hometown of Flatbush, Brooklyn, many of his peers had incorporated their keffiyehs into '80s hip-hop homage looks complete with Kangols and Gazelle glasses. He had a hunch that the scarf he bought from a vendor for $8 was from Israel, but "I didn't look it up or anything."

If he had, he might have discovered a lengthy history on the wrap. At various times it has signaled anti-war sentiments, solidarity with Palestinians and, in a story in the Los Angeles Times in 2006, "terrorist chic."

The scarves, traditionally worn by Arabs needing protection from the elements, had mostly a benign meaning until the 1960s. Some Americans wore them to advertise that they were against Vietnam. And they became symbols of Palestinian solidarity, particularly when the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat wore his draped over his shoulder in the rough shape of his homeland. That imagery, for some observers, linked the garment with political unrest.

"There was a possible connection one would make between terrorism and that item," said Rabbi Israel Zoberman, of Congregation Beth Chaverim of Virginia Beach, who bought a keffiyeh on a trip to Jordan decades ago. "Today with the threat of terrorism and radical Islam, that can create a subtext or false assumption."

The scarves have become the new version of the Che Guevara T-shirts everyone was wearing in the late 1990s, celebrating the revolutionary who fought alongside Fidel Castro to seize power in Cuba in the late 1950s. It's clothing that, for some people, triggers intense feelings; for others, it symbolizes counterculture cool for reasons they are not entirely clear about.

"It tells a story about you," said Nichole Williams, an Old Dominion University senior who bought her statement of what she called "creativity, originality and out-of-the-box thinking" from For Love 21, the accessories branch of Forever 21, which owns 391 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Forever 21 has a store at MacArthur Center, and For Love 21 is at MacArthur and Lynnhaven malls. "Some say they originate back to Africa," she said, sort of correctly, before adding, "the Hinduism culture, even the Asian culture."

She had not heard the word keffiyeh. "We just call them scarves. Some people call them bandana - as long as they have those little frillies on the end."

Some people know exactly what the scarves mean. Students at Columbia University wore keffiyehs en masse to graduation in 2002, to show solidarity with Palestine. Actor Colin Farrell wore one to the premiere of a pro-Palestinian film and was mocked and criticized online, where some vented open disdain for clueless hipsters or worse, people they feel are being deliberately anti-Semitic.

It was those kinds of complaints that prompted Urban Outfitters to remove the scarves from store shelves in 2007.

Zoberman said no one should make assumptions about someone wearing one, though.

"I would caution people not to connect to anything negative with it," he said. He does not wear the keffiyeh he bought years ago. "We live at a time when clothes might reflect political attitudes, but you really have to talk to a person to verify the intent behind it. On the one hand, it's a symbol, but it's also just a piece of clothing."

That's just what it is for Williams and many others who wear them. Almost any outfit can get a jolt from the scarves' clashing patterns. And the exoticism of the "little frillies" can't be underestimated.

"It doesn't have to match, just coordinate," Williams said. Added her friend Amber Worrell, also an ODU student, "You can really do it with any scarf. It just has to be a square shape."

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662, malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com