Scarves are more than Turkey can
bare By Hilmi Toros
ISTANBUL - Turkey's Islamic-rooted
governing party is moving ahead with hotly
contested constitutional amendments that would
lift the ban on headscarves at universities.
Opponents see it as a danger-laden step
undermining the currently rigid secular regime by
introducing Islamic principles that may extend far
beyond higher learning.
Critics of the
government express the fear that Turkey, while
aspiring for full European Union membership, may
actually slide into a restrictive, religious
society. On the other hand, advocates of lifting
the ban see it as a step towards freedom of
expression of the kind Western universities enjoy.
The ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP), with its leaders
originally from an Islamic
party that was banned, have linked up with the
Nationalists Movement Party to make the amendments
lifting the ban. The two parties have enough votes
to do so - 410 - while 367 are required. The bill
is already in a parliamentary commission on
fast-track motion. It could be adopted within 10
days.
The main opposition Republican
Peoples Party (CHP), founded by creator of secular
Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, has
announced it will seek annulment of the changes
through the Constitutional Court.
Over
100,000 people marched in the capital Ankara on
Saturday against proposed changes to lift the ban.
The proposed changes would lift
restrictions only on what Turks call the
basortusu, a small headscarf worn by
millions of women across the country of 70
million. It would not apply to a headscarf like a
turban, considered a symbol of Islamic
fundamentalism. Most wives of AKP members wear the
"turban".
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, once a firebrand member of an Islamic
party and now heading a party and government on a
platform of conservatism, had promised the party's
devout Muslim powerbase it would lift the ban. He
said the changes are aimed only at ending
discrimination against female students at
universities, and restoring their rights to
university education.
"No basic human
rights pose a threat to democracy or the
fundamental values of the Republic," Erdogan
declared. "The AKP government is a safeguard of
our secular order."
"This is not a
religious matter," said opposition CHP leader
Deniz Baykal. "It is highly political." He accuses
AKP of trying to pass the turban off as
basortusu, and says the turban is "not
Turkish, but a foreign import" coming from the
Wahhabi sect in the Arab world.
AKP member
Husnu Tuna has said "the target is to lift the ban
everywhere", leading to criticism that the AKP may
have a hidden Islamic agenda despite claims to the
contrary.
"The real problem is the danger
of this freedom [of wearing the headscarf]
spreading to all public areas, and also
contaminating primary and secondary schools,
hospitals and the judiciary as time passes," says
Mehmet Ali Birand, a liberal commentator on
Turkish affairs for the widely circulated Posta.
"The real danger is to breed turbaned male
and female judges, prosecutors or doctors, and to
be confronted with instances of female doctors
refusing to examine male patients or female
patients refusing to be examined by male doctors."
The academic world, directly affected, is
divided.
"We are warning those who support
this measure and those who remain silent that it
would erode the gains of the republic and that the
secular order will come to an end," president of
the Inter-University Council and head of the
Akdeniz (Mediterranean) University, Professor
Mustafa Akaydin, said after an extraordinary
meeting of the council. "It would inevitably
transform the Turkish Republic into a religious
state."
The senate of Istanbul University,
the largest in the country with 50,000 students,
issued a statement, "Political interests and
choices, disguised as freedom of religion cannot
be allowed to threaten scientific freedom in the
universities. Turkey will not be a scene for
sharia games and abuse of religion. We cannot turn
a blind eye to those who voluntarily or ignorantly
undermine our social order."
Ural Bulut,
rector of the prestigious Middle East Technical
University in the capital Ankara, said in an
interview with CNN Turk, "If adopted, radical
Islamists will put pressure to have the ban lifted
in lower schools and other fields. Those who don't
wear the headscarf will come under pressure."
But his faculty member, Ihsan Dagi,
disagreed with him in a joint television
interview. "Universities should be concerned not
with bans but freedoms and education," he said. He
has launched a petition to lift the ban, and said
it was supported by more than 600 faculty members
in universities across the country within 24
hours.
The powerful Business and Industry
Association and the Women's Entrepreneurial
Organization both oppose a lifting of the ban on
the grounds that the government is focusing on the
headscarf issue at the expense of broader reforms
on human rights issues demanded by the EU. There
are also fears that a perceived erosion of secular
values may supply further ammunition to the
anti-Turkish mood in the EU.
Ilter Turan,
former rector of Istanbul's leading private Bilgi
(Knowledge) University and professor of political
science, told Inter Press Service (IPS)that "there
will be confusion, and further polarization, with
the possibility of the conflict escalating".
The military, which has overturned four
civilian governments, one of them an Islamist one,
since 1960, and sees itself as the guardian of a
secular regime, has issued no comment, saying its
position on the subject is well known. This was an
apparent reference to a statement in April last
year when the military called itself "an
interested party" in the secular debate, and vowed
to take action to defend secularism when
necessary.
"The military will keep a low
profile if things don't get out of control - and I
don't see any danger of that now," Istanbul-based
French analyst Jerome Bastion told IPS.
The ban came into force in 1989 when a
court ruled that the headscarf violated Article 2
of the constitution on the unchangeable secular
nature of the republic. Before then, most women
came to university campuses with their head
uncovered, or wearing a minimal basortusu.
But through the wave of conservatism in the 1990s,
female students contested the ban. Those not
complying with it were barred from university
campuses.
Rather than complying with the
ban, Erdogan sent his daughters to schools abroad.
President Abdullah Gul's daughter covered her
headscarf with a Western-style wig. His wife, now
the first presidential spouse of the secular
republic to wear a headscarf, once sued the
Turkish state at the European Court of Human
Rights over the right to wear a headscarf. She
withdrew the case after her husband became a
leading figure in the government.
In a
separate case, the EU court has ruled that
Turkey's ban is in compliance with its laws.
Millions of Turkish women cover their
heads now, and the practice is more and more
visible even in swank Istanbul, a city of 12
million. Veils are also more to be seen. The
burka covering most of the face and flowing
down to the feet, as worn in some Arab countries,
Iran and Afghanistan, is still rare.
The
amendment motion goes as far as to define the
contours of an admissible headscarf. It has to be
small enough to leave the face uncovered for
identification purposes, with a knot under the
chin.
If the amendments take effect,
university administrators dealing with admissions
may have to inspect headscarves first.
"Are we to employ fashion designers at
universities to check on students?" constitution
expert Ergun Ozbudun said in a television
discussion. Columnist Fatma Diski of the pro-AKP
daily Zaman, who has a photograph wearing the
turban-style headgear accompanying her columns,
says government definition of allowable
headscarves through legislation is "state
interference" in attire.
As things stand,
neither the first lady nor the prime minister's
wife would qualify for admission into a Turkish
university. Their headgear is not tied under the
chin, it wraps back to the neck.
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