While the dividing line may look clear from London, the debate on
wearing headscarves in Turkish universities is more complex than it
seems
Maureen Freely
Guardian/UK
February 9, 2008 12:00 PM
This week the Turkish national assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour
of lifting the ban on Islamic headscarves in universities. There will
be a second vote today, when we can also expect to see Turkey’s
secularists taking to the streets in large numbers in most major
Turkish cities to register their fear and fury. Most of those marching
will be women. They will be protesting against what they see as the
slow but insidious infiltration of Islam into public life. Once covered
women are allowed in universities, it is only a matter of time, they
say, before they are also allowed into public buildings. Once there are
headscarf-wearing Islamists in the national assembly, they will begin
to pass laws to restrict the rights of women who do not wear
headscarves, and Ataturk’s 84-year-old secular republic will founder.
Seen from London, the dividing line looks pretty clear. On one side are
the secularists, the westernisers, and the feminists. On the other side
is Islam. The assumption is that the first camp is "more like us". But
before you jump to conclusions, there are a few things you should know.
1) There are many shades of secularism in Turkey. But the most dominant
variety puts great faith in the army. It sees the army’s involvement in
the day-to-day running of the state as necessary, even essential, for
only the army can protect the republic from its many enemies. For it is
not just the Islamists the army keeps at bay. It is also the Kurds, and
the Armenians, and (increasingly) Europe. Turkey’s
militarist-secularists have a very limited faith in democracy. They
condone or even applaud laws that make it an offence to insult
Turkishness or the memory of Ataturk. What they are defending here is
not democracy or feminism but the state’s right to decide what women
wear.
2) Women’s clothing has been politically symbolic since the early years
of the republic. Though Ataturk never banned the veil, he actively
promoted women who wore western dress, including his adopted daughter.
Families wishing to express their enthusiasm for his westernising
vision did the same. But by and large, this was confined to the
emerging bourgeoisie. Traditional Anatolian families continued to
favour headscarves tied loosely below the chin.
3) It was not until after the 1980 coup, when the army imposed its new
constitution, that the wearing of the headscarf in public places was
actually banned. But it was not until the rise of the Islamist Refah
party some years later that the headscarf ban was truly tested. And it
was not the traditional loosely tied peasant headscarf that was at
stake now. It was the turban, which was tied in a very tight knot
beneath the chin, and carefully pinned so that the entire face could be
seen, but not a single strand of hair. Often there was evidence of a
bun beneath the scarf, which was often made of very fine silk.
4) Women wearing the turban in those days also wore coats that reached
almost to the ground. In the beginning they were made from a heavy
material that must have caused great discomfort during the summer
months, but over the years, the uniform has changed. The heavy coat
changed first to a lighter coat, and more recently to an even lighter
jacket. Shades of beige have given way to brilliant pastels and
expensive-looking prints.
5) When the Refah party first decided to "send" covered women into
universities, there was an immediate outcry. Many secularists felt as
if the very temple of secularism had been invaded, and this, of course,
was just the sort of response the Refah party had hoped to provoke. It
was distressing for the women who were pawns in this struggle; when
today’s secularists predict that they will be bullied by
headscarf-wearing women if the ban is lifted, it may be because they
fear the headscarf women will want to get even with them, after being
spat upon and cursed in the street by secularists during the 1990s.
6) Though the state organ has made it next to impossible for
turban-wearing women to attend university since 1997, it has done
nothing to keep out Islamist men.
7) Not all universities have gone along with the ban. The rector of
Bogazici University, for example, has consistently welcomed
turban-wearing students and supported their right to an education. She
is not an Islamist. She is a scientist and a feminist who believes that
a university should welcome students of all ethnic and religious
backgrounds.
8) She is not alone. Though the staunchly secularist Inter University
Council did issue a statement this week condemning the lifting of the
headscarf ban in the strongest language, another group of 297 academics
signed a counter-statement calling for universities to take a
"libertarian stand" on "fundamental human rights" and declaring
"freedom of dress" to be one of them. Some of the signatories belong to
the Islamist AKP. Many others belong to the democratic networks that
have had such a bashing in recent years from Turkey’s ultranationalists.
9) The real question, then, is not where the lifting of the headscarf
ban will lead to, or even what the role of religion should be in a
secular state, but who will decide what that role should be. Will the
question be resolved by the Turkish people, or will it be imposed from
above? If democracy does not prevail, will it be the Turkish military
reasserting its tried and true brand of secular authoritarianism, or
will it be an equally authoritarian regime with an Islamist face?
10) It’s too soon to tell. But while we wait, remember that Turkish
women have more than one thing to worry about. This was reflected in
the banners some took with them this time last year, when they went out
to march for their rights. It said: "No to the sharia. No to military
coups."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress