camouflage

In Coleman's discussion of The Battle of Algiers, she discusses the tactical passing of Algerian woman in their infiltration of enemy space. Their ability to become invisible, to become illegible to cultural standards, works as a threat to the perceived truth of visuality:

"By blending in and disappearing, the women become lethal figures, focusing in on their targets — with their own countercolonial gaze as it were — and destroying the space. The women appear to be participating in the dominant culture even as they are sent to chip away at it and to help create the psychological conditions of terror…They invisibly infiltrate the enemy—an infiltration that is the stuff of nightmares on both sides of the line. This particular brand of subterfuge, where one passes for the enemy, breeds an extremely treacherous form of simulation. The subject demonstrates a mobility that makes every- one uncomfortable…Yet she has already disrupted borders of identity and power relations in making the cross from colonized subject to agitator. When she goes back to her “proper place,” she returns transformed” (197-8).

I find Fanon's writing on the use of strategies of concealment and trickery, the use of hidden transcripts, on the part of the colonized equally as appealing, particularly his discussion of the veil as a symbol of armor, self-possession, and camouflage:

"The Algerian woman moves like a fish in Western waters…no one suspects that her suitcases contain the automatic pistol…" (58).

Also, in speaking of the Algerian woman's place in the home...
"The Algerian woman, in imposing such a restriction on herself, in choosing a form of existence limited in scope, was deepening her consciousness of struggle and preparing for combat" (66)...