Hats in political protest have their 15 minutes of fame

Once, activists for social justice wore their hearts on their sleeves. Today, writes Tanya Farber, they are talking through their hats

You could lay down your life for a political cause. Or you could simply Instagram yourself wearing your political hat "just so" in a selfie with your bestie.

From pink pussy hats to red berets, hats in political protest are having their 15 minutes of fame thanks to drone photography, social media and cause-hopping.

According to South African fashion designer Gavin Rajah, the mainstreaming of political hats and clothing through social media has strengthened the "human as a billboard" phenomenon.

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"In the past, sloganism in fashion was relegated to environmental issues or commenting on military occupation," he says. "But [Donald] Trump has exposed so much latent racism in so many people that others, in equal numbers, are searching for platforms to express their feelings against it. Clothing and hats are part of those platforms."

With social media spreading those images far and wide, "people en masse are no longer just clothes hangers - they're now hangers for political statements".

While it isn't a new thing to see hats playing this role, social media and technology have speeded up the replication of them as symbols.

When hundreds of people in the same hat are filmed or photographed from above, the sheer spectacle of it becomes an even stronger signifier.

That's exactly what inspired Jayna Zweiman, co-founder of the Pussyhat Project in which women from all over the US and other countries knitted pink hats in response to then US presidential candidate Trump's notorious comment about women and male celebrities.

She said that "the pussy hat strips a hat down to its essential diagram" and "is playful, yet has the audacity to call out the sexism of those in power while focusing attention on the power of the gender".

She described the project as being "rooted in feminist practices of women knitting together to support political action that has spanned centuries".

Women in the American colonies of the 18th century knitted Liberty Caps during the revolution and hosted knitting circles as opportunities for political discourse.

Professor Hlonipha Mokoena, at the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research, described the fact that the pussy hats were handknitted as an example of the "Etsy-fication" of political protest, a reference to the online craft shopping site.

She said home industries as sites of politics were being hailed as "the new way to work", but asked: "How many people can afford the time when we're out working for up to 10 hours a day?"

She said there was irony in the fact that industries used to farm their needlework out to women in homesteads.

Today, participating in a group formation to show you're anti-Trump has its merits, but this Etsy-fication of political protest was for "very well-off people", she said.

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It was also only when ideas were at their least powerful that they got taken up by fashion as "radical chic".

By then, she said, the ideas sewn into the hats and garments were not a threat to anyone.

Earlier this year, Christian Dior kitted out ramp models in T-shirts that read, "We should all be feminists".

This came hot on the heels of its Dio(r)evolution concept - a fashion empire built on capitalism feeding on the zeitgeist of resistance without the slightest trace of irony.

Said Mokoena: "If Dior can identify itself with these issues and 'sell' feminism, perhaps feminism is no longer important at all."

She also suspects that "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are turning in their graves" as the red of communism appears in the form of EFF berets, when communism as a political ideology has "zero to little chance of being South Africa's next economic system".

In other words, if it's safe to wear the symbol, the idea's not that radical or much of a statement anymore.

EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, however, said that the symbolic red had gravitas and helped to connect the dots from one socialist movement to the next.

He described the red beret as a "very specific symbol associated with revolutionaries from all over the world, from Venezuela to Cuba to Burkina Faso".

He said it "plugs directly into the performance of left-wing political action, and I do not think it has been commercialised in South Africa despite its growing popularity. It remains a statement associated with socialism."

It has "not only boosted the profile and membership of the organisation, it has also brought in some income" (although he doesn't know exactly how much over the four years of its existence).

block_quotes_start The red beret means we can spot each other very easily at any gathering, and it is a way of saying, yes, this is the party I belong to block_quotes_end

EFF supporter Patricia Bahlakwana said the beret "makes the collective stand out in the media".

"You see us on TV and there's a wave of red. But then in the crowd, you don't stand out - so it works both ways.

"Now we're part of the group and the hats are speaking out for us. We can spot each other very easily at any gathering, and it is a way of saying, yes, this is the party I belong to. You won't see me jumping from this one to that one and back again."

However, like any shorthand, the political hat in all its small-package dynamite has its own terms and conditions.

Said Dawnn Karen, founder of the Fashion Psychology Institute in the US: "There are limitations of aligning oneself politically with the semiotics of a hat.

"If you ever want to change your political stance, once you've worn that hat and an 'audience' has viewed images of you in that hat, it stays in the person's subconscious mind.

"So, although you may wear another hat carrying another message, you won't get rid of what that first hat signified."

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sub_head_start Be the # you want to see sub_head_end

If you are wearing different protest hats (both literally and figuratively), could you be the mascot of a cause-hopping generation?

"Nowadays you can pick and choose your social movements," says Professor Hlonipha Mokoena of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg.

"Today you can be Black Lives Matter, tomorrow you can wear your pussy hat, and the next day you can be marching for equal pay. This is how politics has become a leisure activity. Everyone's looking for the next hashtag."

If we have politics as leisure, we have Instagram to document all the cause-hopping going on.

"That is what I see on Instagram," Mokoena says, "people identifying with a dozen causes. Fifty years ago, that would have been unheard of."

She describes this as a "peculiar problem of the 21st century".

The "completely radical" development was the advent of wearable and portable devices which meant people were "attached to media and messages all day" and were thus mired in political anxiety, "constantly looking for something noble to attach themselves to".

Think of the flood of glamorous photos Instagrammed during the Boko Haram mass abduction in Nigeria - every wannabe celeb was seen in haute couture holding a placard demanding "bring back our girls".

Problems can then arise when attachment to a cause - however flippant - sows the seeds of division among people who might otherwise share common views.

But don't rush to blame the internet. A recently published study in the US found that the "growth in polarisation in recent years is largest for the demographic groups least likely to use the internet and social media".

People older than 75 were found to be far more politically polarised than those between 18 and 39.

Said lead researcher Levi Boxell from Stanford University: "These facts argue against the hypothesis that the internet is a primary driver of rising political polarisation."

For local designer Gavin Rajah, the nuanced spaces between polarised views are where South Africans need to search for meaning.

"Attaching yourself to a cause shouldn't just be for the feel-good element of being part of a global group," he says. "The biggest driver should be about looking at the context and what is happening in our own country."

Rajah says the support shown locally for the anti-Trump and anti-sexism movements was "great", and it was "amazing to see sisterhoods cutting across race and socio-economics", but, he adds, "our focus should be what is affecting women here in our own country".

Then again, he says, "anything that adds to the momentum and visibility of a protest" can only be healthy.

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sub_head_start Clash of symbols sub_head_end

Besides hats, other shorthand symbols used to define modern protests include:

• In 2014, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong carried umbrellas as a shield against teargas. The umbrellas became a symbol of the resistance movement and soon the phrase "Umbrella Revolution" appeared in the media;

• In Russia this year, protesters in anticorruption marches wore Nike takkies strung around their necks by the laces to satirise the luxury items purchased by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev;

• In Taiwan, the sunflower gained popularity as a symbol of protest after a 2014 march in which 100,000 protesters converged on Taipei accusing their leaders of pushing through a trade deal with China. It became known as the Sunflower Movement; and

• In Greece in 2015, household cleaning gloves became the symbol of protest against austerity measures. This was after a large group of women (mainly cleaners) camped in the streets of central Athens after 600 cleaning jobs were cut in the country's finance ministry offices.