Friday, January 15, 2021

Conspiracy theories and the ‘American Madness’ that gripped the Capitol

Author Tea Krulos talked to Religion News Service about how conspiracy theories have spread, how religion plays a role and how to talk to friends and family who believe them.

Jake Angeli, center, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” and other supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

January 12, 2021

Emily McFarlan Miller

(RNS) — Tea Krulos was introduced to conspiracy theories on TV shows like “The X-Files,” popular in the 1990s.

It all seemed to him like fun and games, or aliens and shadowy government figures, until the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

That’s when conspiracy theorists — convinced the shooting had been faked by the government to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights — began harassing the grieving families of 26 murdered children and school staff. And it’s when Krulos realized how deep and dark conspiracies could become.

“It’s just so crazy to think about how much this has changed in the last 10 years or even in the last five years — or even in the last year. It’s just been progressively building more and more steam,” he said.

“American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness” by Tea Krulos. Courtesy image

The Milwaukee-based freelance journalist — who previously has profiled subcultures in books about paranormal enthusiasts and doomsday preppers — most recently turned his pen to conspiracy theorists in his book “American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness.”

In it, Krulos follows the story of Richard McCaslin, who spent time in prison after raiding California’s Bohemian Grove in 2002 as his costumed alter ego, the Phantom Patriot, hoping to expose the child sacrifices and satanic ceremonies he believed world leaders were conducting there. McCaslin later died by suicide.

Krulos sees echoes of McCaslin’s story in headlines about Pizzagate and the Nashville bomber, who reportedly believed a popular conspiracy theory that lizard people called Reptilians control the world. He also sees the culmination of many conspiracy theories in last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol.

“This last year has just been one giant conspiracy theory about everything — the pandemic, the civil unrest, the election — and it all sort of culminated with this terrifying scene we saw on Jan. 6. That was an army of conspiracy theorists, pretty much,” he said.

Krulos talked to Religion News Service about how conspiracy theories have spread, how religion plays a role and how to talk to friends and family who believe them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you get interested in the Phantom Patriot and the wider world of conspiracy theories?

In 2010, I was working on my first book, “Heroes in the Night,” which was about the Real-Life Superhero subculture. Richard found my blog and was reading it, and then he sent me a message. It turned into this almost 10-year project of interviewing him and researching the conspiracy theories he was telling me about.

I think the book added another layer probably around 2015, which was when (Donald) Trump was campaigning for president. I noticed one of the first media appearances he did after he announced he was running for president was on “The Alex Jones Show” on Infowars. Alex Jones had been a big influence on Richard and his raid into the Bohemian Grove. So I was like, there’s a connection here: Richard, Alex Jones, Donald Trump.

And then, of course, the conspiracy craziness really began. I was like: This is not a unique story. It’s a story that’s repeating itself. People are getting influenced by these conspiracies and they’re being driven into extremism because of it.

Author Tea Krulos. Photo by Megan Berendt/Creative Commons

How did conspiracy theories, as you write, hijack American consciousness?

The key ingredients in conspiracy are a lot of fear and anger and division among people, and we’ve just had so much of that, especially in this era. So I think people are really primed to be influenced by this stuff. And the internet is such a huge part of the problem. I think it’s so easy to create misinformation that looks like it could be legit. I see people telling people they need to fact-check stuff, and I’m glad, but a lot of times people don’t want to fact-check it. They see something that confirms this bias they have, and they’re like, “That sounds right to me, and so it’s fact to me.”

It has such an incredible fast and far reach, and I think this year has been especially bad because you have so many people stuck at home on the internet, so they start going down these rabbit holes. At first it might be just kind of a curiosity, but it sucks them in.

How did you see this culminate Wednesday?

The details are still coming out, and the details are just awful. I’m not at all surprised, but guess who was there in the crowd (at a rally outside) riling everyone up with a bullhorn? Alex Jones himself. Lots of QAnon influencers were at the event. In fact, one of the first guys who broke into the building had a Q T-shirt on. And then, of course, the media loves showing images of this guy who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman.”

But, you know, you can’t just paint it as fringe nuts, because there were elected officials who were part of that crowd.

Trump supporters gesture to U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Who are conspiracy theorists?

It seems like everyone has people in their lives who, to varying degrees, believe some of this stuff.

I don’t think it’s relegated to just, you know, blue-collar Trump supporters. There are liberals who spread and share conspiracy theories as well. I think it’s more prevalent now that it’s conservative stuff, just because of Trump being in office and these huge groups like QAnon, but there is a wide range of people who have conspiracy beliefs.

This phrase drives me crazy when conspiracy people use it, and it’s “do your own research.” I think it’s great to read. I think it’s great to be curious about things. But by doing your own research, they’re telling you that you should watch YouTube videos that might look kind of slick because they’re presented in documentary fashion. They have this bad case of what’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where they think because they’ve watched these YouTube videos and they read a self-published book they then are equitable in their knowledge to someone who is an actual doctor or someone that works at NASA.

Religion pops up throughout your book. For one, McCaslin grew up evangelical and his comics were full of references to Scripture. What role does religion play in conspiracy theories and the people who believe in them?

A very strong one. Really QAnon, which is the biggest conspiracy problem today, is just the Satanic Panic all over again. It’s very, very much based on this idea that Trump is a man of God, and he’s engaged in a holy war with the sinister Satan-worshipping cabal of Democrats and other liberals, the media, Hollywood, stuff like that. They are the satanic ring that are pedophiles and cannibals and secretly causing everything awful happening in our country.

Richard McCaslin as his costumed alter ego, the Phantom Patriot, in an undated image. Courtesy photo

For Richard, I think it was very much religion with some comic book stuff mixed in, and both of those combined together made him really see this very black and white. There’s good guys, who are the superheroes, and there’s bad guys, who are satanists, and we’re in this very moral war where you have to pick a side, good or bad.

I found it very interesting, though, that he very suddenly switched to become a Jehovah’s Witness while he was in prison, and then when he got out of prison, he started following the teachings of this conspiracy theorist named David Icke, who really popularized the Reptilian alien theory. After he started following David, he decided to drop religion entirely, and he described himself as being a spiritual person, but no longer a Christian.

So I think that really shows you just how strong some of these conspiracy theorist teachings can be, where they’re so influential people will drop their religion. In some cases, they’ll separate themselves from their family and friends. It’s very cultlike. They’re willing to give up anything — in some cases now, even their lives — because they believe in this stuff.

Last week, Russell Moore and others called on faith leaders to combat the conspiracy theories they say contributed to the mob violence at the Capitol. What can clergy and other leaders do?

I think that’s a great idea. As leaders, they’re in a position where they can, in an empathetic way, talk to people about the dangers of these theories and maybe share some of these stories.

You know, there were four people who died at the Capitol (as well as a Capitol police officer). At first, I had a lot of anger toward this crowd, but one of the women who died was going through a hard time. She had been struggling with drug addiction, and she had talked about someday wanting to be a drug counselor herself. But she had also fallen down this QAnon rabbit hole. She was searching for something to maybe fill this void in her, and she stumbled across QAnon, when she could have filled that with something more positive

What about the rest of us? How can we talk to friends and family members who believe some of the prominent conspiracy theories out there?

It’s really difficult, and I don’t think I have all the answers on this, I’m sad to say. I think being kind and trying to listen to someone and engage in a real conversation with them is something people should try to do, rather than saying, “Oh, you’re so stupid,” or something like that. That’s not going to help at all. Trying to say, you know, “I understand why you would think this, but if you look at legitimate news sources, no one is reporting on this.”

You can try, is the best you can do. A lot of people are just going to completely shut you out, though. It’s sad. There are many, many stories of people who have lost spouses, parents, siblings, really good friends. Their relationships have been severed because a person won’t stop hounding the other person about conspiracy theories.

From the Capitol to critical race theory, white Christians grieve declining hegemony

Connecting the spectacle at the Capitol with the SBC seminary presidents' statements is the effort to sustain white supremacy.

A Trump supporter carries a Bible outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

January 13, 2021

Andre Henry

(RNS) — Many white American Christians seem to be going through the classic five stages of grief and loss about the apparent decline of white hegemony in the U.S.

On Wednesday (Jan. 6) at the U.S. Capitol, we saw stage two: anger. Others, such as the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, have already moved to the third stage, bargaining.

In a joint statement issued after Thanksgiving, all six SBC seminary presidents, while condemning “racism in any form,” categorically dismissed critical race theory as “incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.” A decades-old academic framework that examines how race operates in society, critical race theory is aligned with ideas such as intersectionality and systemic racism.

The seminary presidents on the one hand asked to be perceived as nonracist, while categorically dismissing Black analyses of society. This statement recalled President Donald Trump’s attempt some weeks before to ban critical race theory and anti-racism education from government departments.

The seminary presidents’ statement caused immediate pushback: Some Black Southern Baptist churches cut ties with the denomination while other Black leaders issued their own statement on “Justice, Repentance, and the SBC.” On Jan. 6, after a meeting with Black church leaders and SBC President J.D. Greear, the seminary presidents said they regretted “the pain and confusion that resulted from a lack of prior dialogue.”

The meeting has not stopped the defections from the SBC.

It may seem odd to connect the spectacle at the Capitol with the seminary presidents’ fumbling, but the two moves are aligned in the same work: preserving America’s white supremacist common sense by limiting what certain social institutions are allowed to teach.

Trump supporters gather before breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

To understand why theological debates over critical race theory amount to more than squabbles on society’s margins, it’s helpful to understand an essential concept of nonviolent struggle known as “the pillars of support.”

Basically, the idea is that the structure of any social injustice can be imagined as something like an ancient Greek temple, with large columns supporting its roof. The roof represents the injustice — in this case, white supremacy — and the columns represent the social institutions that uphold it. Organized religion, media and the educational system are useful institutions to legitimate a regime by shaping the public’s common sense. White Christianity, more specifically, has always been an essential pillar of support to American white supremacy.

White Christianity’s contributions are integral to America’s racial caste system. The Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, as they called North America, were massacred with the written permission of the Catholic Church. Slaveholders misinterpreted the story of Noah to come up with their “Curse of Ham” doctrine, justifying the subjugation of their African captives. The Southern Baptist Convention itself was born over a dispute to preserve work camps where those captives were condemned to forced labor and torture.

Pastors of the Jim Crow era argued that racial apartheid was part of the divine order of things. And the civilian sentinels of that order, the Ku Klux Klan, marched the streets wearing sandwich boards bearing slogans that tied white supremacy, Christian nationalism and anti-Black totalitarianism together: “America First!” “God and Country” “America for White People!”

Today, white seminaries tell their clergy in training they don’t have to take the analysis of Black scholars seriously. These students then graduate to perpetuate that same anti-Black sentiment in their congregations. They help uphold the ignorance and antipathy about Black thought necessary for white supremacy to thrive.

Until last week, the thought leader of the seminary council statement, the Rev. Al Mohler, conflated voting for the mascot of America’s neo-fascist movement — Trump — with Christian faithfulness. He and his colleagues in this way reinforce America’s default response to white supremacy: denial. They give white Americans license to underestimate the seriousness of white supremacy. This is exactly the attitude that allowed white supremacists to storm the capital.

If the seminary presidents had devoted half as much time worrying about white supremacy’s threats to the church as they do denouncing critical race theory, there might be a far more well-informed white American citizenry where race is concerned. What looks like theological debate is actually censorship of Black thought, and reinforces America’s anti-Black common sense. As long as they pursue this line, they’re complicit in America’s near-miss with fascist takeover and authoritarian rule.

The enterprise of racial caste has in this sense always been at war with democracy. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this when he wrote in 1967 that some white Americans seem to have “declared that democracy is not worth having if it involves equality. The segregationist goal is the total reversal of all reforms, with the reestablishment of naked oppression and if need be a native form of fascism.”

White Christian theology is still an important pillar of support to white supremacy today. It can be seen in the Christian symbols in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, even as it was a few weeks earlier when armed neo-fascists stole a Black Lives Matter banner from the grounds of a historic Black church and burned it in the streets. It can be seen in SBC seminary presidents who maintain that Christian orthodoxy includes denying the existence and effects of systemic racism.

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was jarring and should be taken seriously, and so should the work that goes on in Christian seminaries. Seminaries shape public leaders, who shape the values of certain publics, who act on those values in the streets and voting booths and halls of power.

For insurrectionists, a violent faith brewed from nationalism, conspiracies and Jesus

As insurrectionists began the attack on the Capitol, a banner waved above the throng. It read: 'Proud American Christian.'

Trump supporters climb inauguration scaffolding outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

January 12, 2021

Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Moments before the assault on the U.S. Capitol began Wednesday (Jan. 6), a mass of Trump supporters gathered at a northwest entrance. They were angry: Footage highlighted the presence of Proud Boys, an organization classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, who were shouting one of their favorite chants: “F— Antifa!”

As throngs surged toward a barricade manned by a vastly outnumbered handful of police, a white flag appeared above the masses, flapping in the wind: It featured an ichthys — also known as a “Jesus fish” — painted with the colors of the American flag.

Above the symbol, the words: “Proud American Christian.”

It was one of several prominent examples of religious expression that occurred in and around the storming of the Capitol last week, which left five people dead — including a police officer. Before and even during the attack, insurrectionists appealed to faith as both a source of strength as well as justification for their assault on the seat of American democracy.

While not all participants were Christian, their rhetoric often reflected an aggressive, charismatic and hypermasculine form of Christian nationalism — a fusion of God and country that has lashed together disparate pieces of Donald Trump’s religious base.

“A mistake a lot of people have made over the past few years … is to suggest there is some fundamental conflict between evangelicalism and the kind of violence or threat of violence we’re seeing,” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

“For decades now, evangelical devotional life, evangelical preaching and evangelical teaching has found a space to promote this kind of militancy.”

A form of this faith was on display in front of the Capitol the day before the attack, when hundreds of Trump supporters massed near the building for a “Jericho March.” The event’s name was a reference to the biblical account of Israelites besieging the city of Jericho in the Book of Joshua, a religious tale liberal religious activists have also invoked for their own events.

Women blow shofars during the Jericho March on Jan. 5, 2021, in Washington. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins

Trump supporters who gathered in Washington for the Jericho March were encouraged to march around the Capitol, shouting and blowing shofars as a protest against the 2020 presidential election results.

“This is our moment, Lord, this is our moment to take our country back,” declared one woman standing in a prayer circle near the U.S. Supreme Court. “This is our moment to fight … with you as our weapon. You are our fighter.”

A few minutes later, someone could be heard chanting a few feet away: “We fight for God, and God fights for us!”

With other pro-Trump gatherings taking place in the same area, the Jericho March felt less like a distinct event and more like one stage within a larger festival. Jericho March organizers encouraged participants to attend other “Stop the Steal” events, and those in Washington often did not draw firm distinctions between themselves and other Trump supporters.

“There were a bunch of agendas I followed to see how to get here,” said another woman who helped lead the prayer circle.

Some in the crowd left to march around the Capitol — an act others would repeat the day of that attack — following a woman waving a white flag emblazoned with a tree and the slogan “An Appeal To Heaven.” The flag has become a banner for Christian nationalism: First waved during the American Revolution, it is said to be a reference to an argument by British philosopher John Locke, who suggested that — just as the biblical figure Jephthah led the Israelites in battle against Ammon — so too do individuals retain the right to “appeal to heaven” and wage revolution.

Andrew Whitehead, co-author of the book “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” argued such appeals are commonplace in evangelical circles.

“Christian nationalism really tends to draw on kind of an Old Testament narrative, a kind of blood purity and violence where the Christian nation needs to be defended against the outsiders,” Whitehead said, pointing to similar conclusions drawn by Yale sociologist Philip Gorski. “It really is identity-based and tribal, where there’s an us-versus-them.”

Indeed, antagonistic religious imagery was easy to spot at the Capitol raid the next day. One insurrectionist photographed in the building’s rotunda wore military fatigues with a patch on the shoulder that showcased a cross and the words “Armor of God.” Just below was another patch featuring a slogan wrapped around a stylized skull used by the comic book character The Punisher: “God will judge our enemies. We’ll arrange the meeting.”

A Trump supporter carries a Bible outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

One person who claimed to have been among the attackers, 36-year-old West Texas florist Jenny Cudd, posted a video on Facebook discussing how she “charged the Capitol with patriots,” exclaiming “f— yes I’m proud of my actions.” She boasted about “break(ing) down” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office door, and praised other insurrectionists who attempted to overrun state capitols elsewhere.

She concluded her more than 20-minute video with an outline of her religious beliefs.

“To me, God and country are tied — to me they’re one and the same,” she said. “We were founded as a Christian country. And we see how far we have come from that. … We are a godly country, and we are founded on godly principles. And if we do not have our country, nothing else matters.”

Whitehead was shocked by the video, but not surprised. He said Cudd’s explicit fusion of God, country and Trump is a “perfect” example of Christian nationalism, but those who invoked it while storming the Capitol are but an extremist subset of a much larger group — one that doesn’t stop at the boundaries of evangelicalism.

“A little over half of Americans are favorable toward Christian nationalism to some extent,” Whitehead said. “Extremism of any form, whether it’s religious or not, can only really flourish if it’s allowed to. So with 50% of Americans being relatively favorable toward understanding the U.S. as a Christian nation, or even that Christianity should be favored, it creates a situation where those that want to take that view even further can do that.”

There are some evangelicals who are already condemning the faith expressions seen on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of faculty and staff at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, have signed a statement decrying the “blasphemous abuses of Christian symbols” during the attack. In addition, Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Center, said the displays reminded him of a “darker reality” at work.

“We can see it in Europe, with neo-Nazis of all stripes carrying crosses as signs of ‘European heritage’ and ‘the triumph of the West,’ and we can see it in these violent white nationalist movements such as those attacking our Capitol,” he told Religion News Service. “The god of QAnon and the Proud Boys and their fellow travelers is not the God of Jesus Christ but the ancient serpent of Eden, which Jesus called ‘a murderer from the beginning.’ The way of Jesus Christ is a very different way from that one.”

But evangelicalism is a tree with many branches. Anthea Butler, associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania, pointed to Jenna Ryan, a real estate broker from Frisco, Texas. Ryan drew widespread attention for posting images of herself on social media next to a broken window at the Capitol with the caption: “If the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next.”

Demonstrators break TV equipment outside the the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

According to video obtained by The Daily Mail, Ryan also livestreamed herself as she entered the Capitol with other insurrectionists. As she crossed the threshold, she can be heard declaring “Here we are, in the name of Jesus! In the name above all names!”

Butler argued that the orisons of Ryan — who has since released a statement insisting she opposes the violence at the Capitol — are emblematic of Pentecostal or charismatic Christianity, which is both a part of evangelicalism and distinct in important ways. But recent years have seen such distinctions blur: Many of Trump’s faith advisers, such as Florida pastor Paula White, hail from charismatic traditions that place an emphasis on prophecy and “spiritual warfare.”

“To say ‘in the name of Jesus’ — that’s calling protection, but it’s also calling power,” Butler said. “So in other words, ‘Jesus has given us the power to bust into the Capitol.’”

A unsettling appeal to the Almighty was even heard during the attack: According to The Washington Post, when staffers who work for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell barricaded themselves in a room to hide from the rampaging mob, they could hear a woman praying loudly outside the door for “the evil of Congress to be brought to an end.”

Butler said such expressions could be traced back to politicized forms of evangelicalism that started under Billy Graham, but took a turn around 2008 — when that year’s Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, chose evangelical Christian Sarah Palin as his running mate. Over the next few years, multiple versions of faith-fueled politics began to emerge, some feuding with each other.

It was Trump who drew them back together, and loyalty to the president was paramount last week. In another video posted on Twitter, a man near the South side of the Capitol can be seen speaking to onlookers as hundreds stand atop the Capitol steps. While two Christian flags — white banners with a Red Cross in the corner — waved in front of him, he can be heard saying: “Donald Trump coordinated it. We’re his surrogates. He fought for us and we have to fight for him.”

He then glances at the flags before adding what sounds like “Jesus loves us.”

Du Mez said this kind of reverence for Trump is rooted in a similar affinity for masculinity that permeates many religious traditions, including evangelicalism.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

“In the the last five years, we’ve seen this God and country nationalism coalesce around the figure of Donald Trump,” Du Mez said. “There were a variety of paths to get to this point, but it coalesced in part around this long-standing us-versus-them mentality, this persecution complex, this sense that white evangelicals were particularly vulnerable and therefore needed to not just defend themselves, but that the best defense is a good offense.”

Trump, she said, “is really the perfect figure to stoke these anxieties, to promise to be their strong man, to be their protector. … He’s God’s special defender that God has blessed the country with for this perilous moment.”

All scholars who spoke to RNS said Christian nationalism and hypermasculinity often overlap with forms of white supremacy. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, for instance, was arrested earlier last week after he and members of his group tore a Black Lives Matter sign from a Washington church in December and burned it in the street. But the Proud Boys who appeared in Washington on Wednesday insisted they drew strength from God: As they approached the Capitol, Proud Boys — some donned in camouflage or military-style helmets, others gripping weapons such as a baseball bat — paused for a moment of prayer.

As they knelt, a man with a bullhorn — his words captured on a livestream — prayed that God would “soften the hearts” of government officials who have “turned harshly away” from God, asking for “reformation and revival.”

He concluded: “We pray that you provide all of us with courage and strength to both represent you and represent our culture well.”

For Du Mez, the prayer was striking precisely because of how normal it seemed.

“It was an evangelical prayer,” she said. “It seemed perfectly natural to all of the Proud Boys in that circle to hear that prayer and to respond. It really signals this enmeshment of white nationalism, violence and a kind of ordinary white evangelicalism.”

Whitehead agreed, and warned that ignoring such dynamics can have dire consequences.

“Christian nationalism really is a threat to pluralistic democratic society, and everybody should take that threat seriously,” he said. “We’ve seen what happens where there’s no proof of voter fraud, yet people go and — under the guise of Christian symbols and symbolism — enact violence against their own country.”

Rap against Dictatorship: The rappers taking on Thailand's leaders

Thai group Rap Against Dictatorship has the pulse on the youth of the country, many of whom have been protesting for months against the government, demanding change.

Their lyrics and videos have shocked many in the establishment, and has even led to their latest video being banned by YouTube.

One of them, known as Hockey, says the group is trying to highlight the problems with the political establishment - both before the coup and after.

Video by Daniel Bull, Nik Millard, Jonathan Head, Thanyarat Doksone, Ryn Jirenuwat, Miho Tanaka

The Truth About My Make-up (Documentary) BBC Stories

What makes our lipstick glossy and our foundation smooth? A lot of the time it’s palm oil. It’s in 70% of beauty products - and some people say it should be banned. 28-year-old make-up artist Emmy Burbidge goes to Papua New Guinea to see where palm oil comes from, and to find out what our beauty products are doing to the planet. She discovers there is much more to the palm oil industry than meets the eye. We are BBC Stories, a group of journalists making films, long and short, with the younger audience (18-24) in mind. The idea is to tackle issues which concern and impact this group of people. So think about anything from race and identity to mental health, money and much more.

Supermodel Halima Aden: ‘Why I quit’

1/14/21

IMAGE COPYRIGHTGILIANE MANSFELDT PHOTOGRAPHY

Halima Aden, the first hijab-wearing supermodel, quit the fashion industry in November saying it was incompatible with her Muslim religion. Here, in an exclusive interview, she tells BBC Global Religion reporter Sodaba Haidare the full story - how she became a model, and how she reached the decision to walk away.

Halima, 23, is in St Cloud, Minnesota, where she grew up surrounded by other Somalis. She's wearing ordinary clothes and no makeup, cheerfully petting her dog, Coco.

"I'm Halima from Kakuma," she says, referring to the refugee camp in Kenya, where she was born. Others have described her as a trailblazing hijab-wearing supermodel or as the first hijabi model to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine - but she left all that behind two months ago, saying the fashion industry clashed with her Muslim faith.

"It's the most comfortable I've ever felt in an interview," she laughs. "Because I didn't spend 10 hours getting ready, in an outfit I couldn't keep."

As a hijab-wearing model, Halima was selective about her clothing. At the start of her career, she would take a suitcase filled with her own hijabs, long dresses and skirts to every shoot. She wore her own plain black hijab for her first campaign for Rihanna's Fenty Beauty.

However she was dressed, keeping her hijab on for every shoot was non-negotiable. It was so important to her that in 2017 when she signed with IMG, one of the biggest modelling agencies in the world, she added a clause to her contract making IMG agree that she would never have to remove it. Her hijab meant the world to her.

GETTY IMAGES Halima modelling for Max Mara in February 2017

"There are girls who wanted to die for a modelling contract," she says, "but I was ready to walk away if it wasn't accepted."

This was despite the fact that at that stage no-one had heard of her - that she was "a nobody".

But as time went on she had less control over the clothes she wore, and agreed to head coverings she would have ruled out at the start.

"I eventually drifted away and got into the confusing grey area of letting the team on-set style my hijab."

In the last year of her career her hijab got smaller and smaller, sometimes accentuating her neck and chest. And sometimes instead of the hijab, she wrapped jeans, or other clothes and fabrics, around her head.

GETTY IMAGES On the runway for Tommy Hilfiger London Spring 2020

Another clause of Halima's contract guaranteed her a blocked-out box, allowing her to get dressed in the privacy of her own space.

But she soon realised that other hijab-wearing models, who had followed her into the industry, were not being treated with the same respect. She would see them being told to find a bathroom to change in.

"That rubbed me the wrong way and I was like, 'OMG, these girls are following in my footsteps, and I have opened the door to the lion's mouth.'"

She had expected her successors to be her equals, and this intensified her protective feelings towards them.

"A lot of them are so young, it can be a creepy industry. Even the parties that we attended, I would always find myself in big sister mode having to grab one of the hijab-wearing models because she'd be surrounded by a group of men following and flocking [round] her. I was like, 'This doesn't look right, she's a child.' I would pull her out and ask her who she was with."

Part of this sense of responsibility and community comes from Halima's Somali background.

As a child in Kakuma refugee camp, in north-western Kenya, she was taught by her mother to work hard and to help others. And this continued after they moved to Minnesota, when Halima was seven, becoming part of the largest Somali community in the US.

So there was a problem when Halima became her high school's first hijab-wearing homecoming queen (an honour bestowed on the school's most popular students). She knew her mum, whose focus was on good grades, would disapprove.

"I was so embarrassed, because when you get nominated, the kids come to your house and I said, 'Don't do that - my mum will have the shoe ready and you wouldn't know what you've gotten yourselves into!'"

Her fears were justified. Halima's mum broke the homecoming crown. "You're focusing way too much on friends and beauty pageants," she said.

But Halima still took part in Miss Minnesota USA in 2016. She was the first hijab-wearing contestant and became a semi-finalist.

ALAMY Competing in the Miss Minnesota pageant in 2016

And then, to her mother's dismay, Halima chose to pursue a career in modelling - a career her mother felt was in conflict with who Halima was as a person: black, Muslim, refugee.

Even when she started walking on some of the world's major runways for Yeezy and Max Mara, or became a Miss USA judge, her mother still encouraged her to "get a proper job".

It was the humanitarian side of Halima's career that had gone some way to convincing her mother that it was worth it. As a refugee who had walked 12 days from Somalia to Kenya for a better life, she knew the value of helping those in need.

"She said, 'There's no way you'll do modelling if it doesn't have a giving-back component.' In my first meeting with IMG I told them to take me to Unicef," Halima says.

GETTY IMAGES

IMG supported her in this and in 2018 Halima became a Unicef ambassador. As she had spent her childhood in a refugee camp, her work focused on children's rights.

"My mum never viewed me as a model or cover girl. She viewed me as a beacon of hope for young girls and would always remind me to be a good role model for them."

Halima wanted to raise awareness about displaced children, and to show the children that if she could make it out of the refugee camp, they could hope to one day do the same.

But Unicef didn't live up to her expectations.

In 2018, not long after becoming a Unicef ambassador, she visited the Kakuma camp to give a Ted Talk.

"I met with the kids and asked them, 'Are things still being done the way they were, do you still have to dance and sing in front of newcomers?' They said, 'Yes, but this time we're not doing it for other celebrities they'd bring to the camp, this time we're doing it for you.'"

Halima was guilt-stricken and upset. She says she still remembers when she and other children sang and danced for visiting celebrities.

"The UN workers prepped me for what was to come: I had my first headshot, thanks to those organisations."

GETTY IMAGES Sudanese refugees dancing at Kakuma refugee camp

It seemed to her that the organisation focused more on its brand than on children's education.

"I could spell 'Unicef' when I couldn't spell my own name. I was marking X," she says. "Minnesota gave me my first book, my first pencil, my first backpack. Not Unicef."

She had assumed all of that had changed since she left.

In November, when she video-called the kids in Kakuma for World Children's Day, she decided she couldn't carry on. It was hard to see them in winter in the middle of a global pandemic.

"After speaking to the kids, I had a breakthrough," she says.

"I just decided I'm done with the NGO world using me for 'my beautiful story of courage and hope'"

Unicef USA told the BBC: "We are grateful for [Halima's] three-and-a-half years of partnership and support. Her remarkable story of resilience and hope has guided her vision for a world that upholds the rights of every child. It has been a privilege for Unicef to work with Halima and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours."

Halima's doubts about the modelling side of her career had also been multiplying.

As demand for her in the fashion industry grew, she spent less time with her family and would be away from home on Muslim religious festivals.

"In the first year of my career I was able to make it home for Eid and Ramadan but in the last three years, I was travelling. I was sometimes on six to seven flights a week. It just didn't pause," she says.

GETTY IMAGES Halima Aden watching a model wearing clothes designed by Sherri Hill

In September 2019, she was featured on the cover of King Kong magazine, wearing bright red and green eye shadow and a large piece of jewellery on her face. It resembled a mask and covered everything but her nose and mouth.

"The style and makeup were horrendous. I looked like a white man's fetishised version of me," she says.

And to her horror, she found a picture of a nude man in the same issue.

"Why would the magazine think it was acceptable to have a hijab-wearing Muslim woman when a naked man is on the next page?" she asks. It went against everything she believed in.

King Kong told the BBC: "The artists, photographers and contributors with whom we work express themselves in ways which may both appeal to some and seem provocative to others, but the stories they produce always respect the subject and the model.

"We are sorry that Halima now regrets the work she did with us, and that there were images in the issue that she personally did not like, but were in no way connected to her own feature."

Halima says that when she spotted her photograph on the cover of magazines at airports, as she travelled between shoots, she would often barely recognise herself.

ALAMY

"I had zero excitement because I couldn't see myself. Do you know how mentally damaging that can be to be to somebody? When I'm supposed to feel happy and grateful and I'm supposed to relate, because that's me, that's my own picture, but I was so far removed.

"My career was seemingly on top, but I was mentally not happy."

And there were those other problems - her hijab rule getting stretched to breaking point, and the way other hijab-wearing models were being treated.

The coronavirus pandemic put everything in perspective. With Covid-19 halting fashion shoots and runway shows, she returned home to St Cloud to spend time with her mother, to whom she remains incredibly close.

"I was having anxiety thinking of 2021 because I loved staying at home with my family and seeing friends again," she says.

All this explains why, in November, she decided to give up both modelling and her role with Unicef.

"I'm grateful for this new chance that Covid gave me. We're all reflecting about our career paths and asking, 'Does it bring me genuine happiness, does it bring me joy?'" she says.

Her mother's prayers had finally been granted. She was so elated she even agreed to do a photoshoot with her daughter, just for fun.

"When I was a model, my mum turned down every shoot, she wouldn't even do mother-daughter campaigns. I wanted to give her a chance to see me in my creative zone," says Halima excitedly.

"She really is my number one inspiration and I'm so grateful God picked me to be her daughter. She's truly a remarkable and resilient woman."

GILIANE MANSFELDT PHOTOGRAPHY

Halima with her mother, sister Fadumo (left) and cousin Rahma

The photoshoot is not the only thing Halima is excited about. She has just finished executive-producing a film inspired by the true story of a refugee fleeing war and violence in Afghanistan. I Am You is due to be released on Apple TV in March.

"We're anxiously waiting to see if we've been nominated for an Oscar!" she says.

Quitting Unicef doesn't mean Halima has given up doing charity work.

"I'm not going to stop volunteering," she says. "I don't think the world needs me as a model or celebrity, it needs me as Halima from Kakuma - somebody who understands the true value of a penny and the true value of community."

But first she is going to take a break.

"You know, I've never been on a proper vacation. I'm putting my mental health and my family at the top. I'm thriving, not just surviving. I'm getting my mental health checked, I'm getting therapy time."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment