BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mayada Chazi does not think of herself as particularly religious. She's more interested in talking about boys, reading English novels, or dreaming of visiting New York. But she has taken to wearing the head scarf of a devout Muslim woman.
Related Links
• Veil Has Only Recently Reappeared in Iraq (AP)
Many women who bared their heads and dressed in Western-style clothes in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s secular Iraq (news - web sites) have started covering up — some out of Islamic devotion, others in a desperate bid to shield themselves from the torrent of violence that has swept the country since the dictator's fall.
Wrapped in scarfs and cloaks, the ghostlike figures shrink into the background, barely noticed as they drift past the bomb craters, sandbagged checkpoints and blast walls along Baghdad's chaotic streets.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041006/ap_on_re_mi_ea/veiling_iraq<< Sounds like progress to me.