The News – International, Pakistan
March 23 2008
Turkey: with or without the headscarf
By Razeshta Sethna
3/23/2008
The Turkish government is standing firm after lifting a legal ban
that prevents women who wear the headscarf from attending college.
But secularists are outraged and say it threatens to create a
"religious pressure" that might have a snowball effect. As
secularists and the military fear a hidden agenda, despite efforts at
introducing reforms, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
has remained undeterred while redrawing Turkey’s 1981 constitution.
Erdogan’s first move during this constitutional overhaul included
preserving anti-free-speech laws, including the infamous Article 301,
which has taken authors such as the Nobel winner, Orhan Pamuk, and
Elif Shafak to court for "insulting Turkishness," and calling for the
revoking of the headscarf ban in universities.
His idea is to ensure Turkey amalgamates into Europe eventually: a
revitalised Turkey that Europe would perceive as an asset in circles
that presently remain skeptical about the inclusion of a country
where speech remains far from free (Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor
Hrant Dink’s murder in Istanbul in January 2007, being an example),
and where article 301 still reigns supreme.
But what might be a dangerous tilt for Erdogan’s AK party is the
intensifying debate surrounding the headscarf. The leader of Turkey’s
opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) says that his supporters
will fight to reinstate the headscarf ban, which has been lifted in
universities. Interestingly, some AK party members themselves are
known to have questioned why just universities, and why then is the
headscarf still banned in hospitals, courts and municipal buildings.
That, too, might qualify as a liberal move, permitting the freedom of
choice and religion which opposes Ataturk’s ideal pointing at the
freedom from religion.
The headscarf remains the most charged issue in Turkey today, which
has taken the form of a politicised ongoing battle between the
country’s politicians and its secular elite that have long ruled the
state. The argument is that even though wearing the headscarf may be
a political symbol, it cannot be banned as there is no legal
justification. Erdogan is said to have stated that "in a world were
freedoms are debated, where everyone dresses up the way they want to
everywhere they go," the ban being lifted makes perfect sense.
Therefore, when Turkey’s Islamists express surprise about Erdogan’s
stance on Europe and his enthusiasm during negotiations with the
European Union, his critics scoff at what they term sugar-coated
attempts. During his years in power the Turkish prime minister is
known to have developed a powerful position for Turkey as a bridge
between East and West, a link connecting opposing cultures, which
when given the global clash of civilisations is a relevant
philosophy. It is this philosophy of promoting cross-cultural
concerns and promoting global understanding that he so eloquently
articulated at the Madrid Conference on the "Alliance of
Civilisations" in January this year, which he co-hosted with his
Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
His premise remained unchanged: Turkey should not stand in isolation.
Of course, pragmatically this all makes sense as Turkey continues to
do business with Europe with rising foreign investment reaching $20
billion last year. But the road isn’t as smooth sailing as it might
appear for the leader of the AK party as the army, though clearly out
of the political mainstream remains suspicious of the party’s
Islamist agenda, remaining patrons of Kemal Ataturk’s secular
revolution.
Not too long before his nomination and subsequent parliamentary vote
for the presidency, even Turkish president Abdullah Gul’s wife, who
wears a headscarf, was initially told not to accompany her husband in
public, and an Austrian couturier was called in to design the
first-lady’s politically charged headscarves. So, if the first lady
wears a headscarf, then should it be widely accepted, even adopted,
or the question that remains unanswered is what should an ideal
Turkish woman look like? The AK party it appears did not want to take
any chances in the past, but today’s Turkey has softened this ban,
which was introduced to keep the influence of Islam on the state and
the public in check, say critics who stand alongside the strict
secularists.
Erdogan has to steer a rocky path, as there is now growing fear the
country will steer towards conservative religious direction – not a
palatable direction, given the potent mix of religion and politics
emerging in the nearby Middle East. Stressing that freedom of
religion and democracy go hand in hand, he has a tough job:
satisfying his party’s conservative members and the all-powerful
ultra-secularists in the military, judiciary and the bureaucracy.
In February, despite warnings, it was reported that three
universities in Istanbul, two in Ankara and five in Izmir have
maintained this headscarf ban, among a few others countrywide. But
not allowing women students to choose their own form of dress, say
human rights observers, has nothing to do with religion or politics
but with individual freedoms. However, it was the 2005 case that
showed critics of the headscarf that even the European Court of Human
Rights is on their side when it ruled that this ban upholds the
principle of secularism and protects Turkey’s democratic system. It
appears that this debate on gender and women is politicised to an
extent that women’s bodies and images have become ideological
battlegrounds, writes the Turkish author Elif Shafak, who was tried
in 2006 and acquitted on charges of "insulting Turkishness" in her
novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
In the Turkish language, yemeni, turbaan, esharp, charshaf, are words
that might stand for some form or the other of the headscarf/veil.
Take a walk on the streets of Turkey, and you will notice women,
young and old from all walks of life: you will observe how Turkish
society, like its fashion-makers, seeks to balance the lure of
opposites. The woman who could seem to be European in Turkey and her
friend in the veil whose ideals she shares, choose to walk through
busy Taksim Square, where they buy coffees and pretzels as persistent
snowflakes whiten the pavement. Sometimes, the young daughter is
covered and the mother is not, as they stroll through posh malls,
sieving through western retailers like Zara and Mango among many that
one would also find on the other side of Europe in London and
Barcelona, before catching the ferry to the Eastern shores. Mosques,
churches and synagogues are all in close proximity to one another.
Turkish society is brimming with a harmonious fusion of the best of
the East and West: food, music, fiction, fashion, art, business and
the media.
Latest polls reveal that 64 percent favour scrapping the headscarf
ban and last month 120,000 people marched in Ankara to protest this
decision to repeal the ban, which has been imposed since the 1980s in
higher educational institutions.
A number of Turkish universities continue to defy this new law that
allows women to don headscarves. What remains exceptional is that
Turkey, unlike many Islamic nation-states, has never allowed religion
to place unjust curbs or to undermine a largely secular, moderate way
of life. They have rallied in the millions to protest effectively,
whether it has been members of civil society, women’s groups or
concerned secularists. Draped in carpet-sized flags, 200,000 Turks
gathered in Izmir last May, along the seafront: one woman said that
Ataturk had liberated women in 1923, and covered women weren’t going
to take Turkish society backwards. Such is the fear among many Turks,
who believe religion should stay clear of politics.
Turkey sure looks and feels like Europe. Turks identify
overwhelmingly with democratic ideals and freedoms that even the
lifting of the ban on the headscarf might not erode. Perhaps
rendering it a political flashpoint is a calculated move towards
straight political Islam, which to all effect will have a limited
majority of takers.