DAMASCUS - The constitutional amendment
passed recently which allows young girls to wear
head scarves at university has hit Turkish society
like an earthquake. Turkish women, after all, were
given the right to vote, own property, run for
political office - and the freedom to choose
whether or not to wear a veil - shortly after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, under
president Kemal Ataturk.
Effectively, the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lifted
a 1989 ban on the hijab that applied to
institutes of education. Tens of thousands of
protesters - mainly seculars - have spoken out
against the new laws, claiming that it trashes the
legacy of Kemalist Turkey and leads to
"disintegration of the nation".
One person
described it as a "Black Revolution", saying that the
head
scarf is a political symbol and that "we will
never allow our country to be dragged back into
the dark ages".
Nisrin Baytok, a lawmaker,
addressed the government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, saying: "You are not opening the
door for freedom; you are shutting it forever for
the girls ... [whose] heads are shaved by their
brothers to force them to wear head scarves."
Speaking on the new law, Erdogan said, "It
ends the suffering of our girls at university
gates," referring to pious girls who are stopped
at the gates of their colleges and university and
forced to take off their veil when they enter
campus.
When compared to hardline Islamic
states, however, Turkey is like Disneyland -
although it has become more "conservative" under
Erdogan. It does not have religious police, as is
the case in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan when
it was under the Taliban, that forces people to
dress in a certain fashion. Nor does it persecute
Christians or promote jihad against the West. Many
Turks are actually defending the law, claiming
that above everything else, it is democratic and
upholds the freedom of religious belief and
expression.
Secular officers in the armed
forces and political establishments think
otherwise, and have accused Erdogan of pursuing a
hidden Islamic agenda. For a period this is what
many people in the West thought as well, including
the United States.
This debate has been
ongoing for several months - on what Erdogan has
in store for Turkey - and climaxed with the
election of Erdogan's ally, Abdullah Gul, as
president of the republic, in 2007. Gul - a member
of Erdogan's AKP - is a firm believer whose wife
is covered with the hijab.
His
predecessor, Ahmad Necdet Sezar, once said
"religious fundamentalism have reached dramatic
proportions" in Turkey and argued that Islamic
fundamentalism "is trying to infiltrate politics,
education, and the state; it is systematically
eroding values". Understanding the message loud
and clear, Erdogan snapped back in defense,
saying, "Religious people also have a right to
politics. If you want to keep the faithful out of
politics, the people will never forgive you."
Erdogan has been an earthquake - a
civilized one - in Turkish society. When serving
as mayor of Istanbul he did not prevent the sale
of alcohol (although he does not drink and like
Gul has a covered wife), but rather, increased the
tax on alcohol. This led to a sharp reduction in
the consumption of alcohol throughout Turkey.
He established links with people like
Khaled Meshaal of Hamas, who was received as a
guest of state, and met with Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The man might be conservative
and pious - but at least he does not hide or
sugarcoat his Islamic orientation. He speaks a
moderate Islam, arguing that an Islamic fanatic
would not be working relentlessly to bring his
country into the European Union - a coalition of
Christian states.
And regardless of what
the seculars think, he won the elections with
thundering success and his party now legitimately
controls the Turkish Parliament, with a historic
victory in the 2002 elections, taking 34.3% of the
votes. Thanks to Erdogan, the AKP won an overall
majority in the Grand National Assembly. His
greatest legacy is a booming economy; average
annual growth rate reached 7.3% and per capita
income almost doubled thanks to his reform
process.
One would think that with so much
trouble from Kurdish military operations on
Turkish territory coming from Iraq, that Erdogan
would want to minimize problems at home. In 2007,
after all, military leaders delivered him an
unusually sharp message - a warning - saying, "We
want neither sharia [Islamic law] nor another
coup, but a democratic Turkey."
Erdogan
should take the officers seriously since they have
a history of dealing aggressively with issues and
taking the law into their own hands through
military coups. The Turkish military has carried
out no fewer than four coups in recent history; in
1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. They were seemingly on
alert to do it again last year.
The
military had been very opposed to the election of
Gul, and Erdogan's rising popularity both within
Turkey and the Muslim world. The only thing that
pacified them was the common threat of a Kurdish
enemy coming from Iraq. There is no disagreement
at any level of the political spectrum, from
radical secularists to ultra-conservatives, on the
need to root out terrorism on Turkey's border with
Iraq. By taking a tough stance against the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Erdogan brought
disgruntled secularists and the military under his
wing.
By lifting the ban on the
hijab at universities, he may cause them to
rebel against him again. Meanwhile, the Kurdish
wolf is still at the door. Why lift the ban now?
An will the controversial decree improve or
threaten his popularity?
A casual observer
sitting in a heated office in a cold European
capital might argue that this move will ruin
Erdogan, believing that Turkey is made up of 71
million Ataturks and only one Erdogan. That is not
true. Erdogan is popular and so are his policies.
The West only sees the secular Turks who appear on
CNN. There are millions who admire and support his
"conservative" agenda. Islam - and religiousness
on the whole - is increasing in the Arab world.
Such action as lifting the head-scarves ban
endears Erdogan to his constituency, rather than
alienates him. The seculars are already opposed to
him - the hijab story just added insult to
injury.
To better understand the reasoning
behind the hijab decree, consider the story
of the owner of a posh restaurant in Damascus. The
cafe sold alcohol until the owner went on the
hajj pilgrimage in Mecca and returned a
changed man. Overnight he trashed all the whisky
bottles and placed a big sign on the door which
read, "Dear Customers, we no longer serve alcohol
in this restaurant." I told him: "This scares off
your foreign customers [and there were many
because of the excellent food]." He replied, "Yes,
but trust me, it's a magnet for many others - much
more than the ones being scared away."
That is the case with Erdogan's Turkey.
The ones put off by the hijab decree will
be much fewer than those who are attracted by it.
All other forms of nationalism have failed
for Muslims since the downfall of the Ottoman
Empire in 1918. They tried local nationalism (in
Syria and Iraqi, for example) but it led nowhere.
They then turned to Arab nationalism in the 1950s,
which was combined with secularism, and it also
failed to answer their numerous political and
social grievances.
Political Islam
returned to the limelight after Arab nationalism
died out as a result of events like the
Arab-Israeli war of 1967, and the visit by
Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat to Jerusalem in
1977. Then came the Islamic revolution of Iran in
February 1979. It spoke of hope, and promised
salvation from the West through Islamic
indoctrination.
The Islamists were given
another push - this time by the United States -
after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
December 1979. By 1981, the Islamists had
assassinated Sadat for signing peace accords with
the Israelis, further endearing themselves to
grassroot Muslims. Then came the invasion of
Beirut in 1982, which gave birth to groups like
Hezbollah, and the first Palestinian uprising of
1987, where Israeli officers were given orders to
"break the bones" of Palestinian rebels - thus
giving birth to Hamas, yet another Islamic group.
The same trend carried on, producing radical
Islamic fundamentalist groups like al-Qaeda, and
moderate and progressive ones like the AKP in
Turkey.
The veil and
Turkey Consider just where Turkey falls in
line with other Islamic states around the world.
In neighboring Syria, for example, the secular
government does not encourage the veil - nor does
it frown on it - because covering a woman's head
has become a popular trend over the past 20 years.
The government cannot say "no" to such a
popular fashion, although in the early 1980s, when
the fanatic Muslim Brotherhood was waging war
against the Syrian government, then-Syrian
strongman Rifaat al-Assad had his paratroopers
storm the streets of Damascus to yank the veils
off the heads of women. The move caused huge
outcry and forced then-president Hafez al-Assad to
explain that this was not a policy of state and
express his faith, support and appreciation of
Islam.
In Afghanistan, the post-Taliban
leadership canceled all laws imposed on society in
regard to Islamic conduct (like growing beards or
wearing the veil that covers the face and head).
Despite these moves, veiling remains a very strong
practice in Afghanistan, although it technically
is optional.
The same applies to India, a
Hindu-majority secular democracy. No Indian law
enforces hijab for Muslim women but it is
de facto in certain districts with a Muslim
majority. The same kind of social pressure applies
to Muslim states like Pakistan, Indonesia and
Jordan.
In cases where a theocracy is in
power, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, the veil is
obligatory and not observing it can lead to severe
punishment. In Iran, prosecutor general Abolfazl
Musavi-Tabrizi once said, "Anyone who rejects the
principle of hijab in Iran is an apostate,
and the punishment for an apostate under Islamic
law is death." Under the Taliban in Afghanistan,
it was claimed that "the face of a woman is a
source of corruption" and therefore, it should be
covered.
The first example in the 20th
century of a philosophical attack on the veil was
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, the Bengali writer, in
her 1905 book Sultana's Dream. Other
prominent examples include Huda Shaarawi in Egypt,
and Naziq al-Abid in Syria (who took off the veil
and went to fight against the French in 1920).
Modern examples of veiled woman who are
very active in their careers are Khadija Bint
Ganna, anchorwoman on Doha-based al-Jazeera, Maha
al-Gunaidi, the founder and chief executive
officer of Islamic Networks Group, Ingrid Mattson,
a Canadian professor of Islamic studies and
current vice president of the Islamic Society of
North America, and the late Benazir Bhutto, former
prime minister of Pakistan who was the first woman
in modern times to lead a Muslim country (although
her veil differed from the one worn in the Middle
East).
Firm believers in democracy should
respect a woman's right to wear a veil. This is
the matter of choice being upheld by Erdogan. One
of the major principles brought into this part of
the world by Christian missionaries in the 19th
century was freedom of belief.
This
freedom should be honored by Islam and
Christianity. This was beautifully expressed by
Daniel Bliss, the founder of the American
University of Beirut (then named the Syrian
Protestant College), in 1866 when he said, "A man,
white, black, or yellow, Christian, Jew,
Mohammedan or heathen, may enter and enjoy all the
advantages of this institution for three, four or
eight years; and go out believing in one God, in
many gods, or in no God. But it will be impossible
for anyone to continue with us long without
knowing what we believe to be the truth and our
reasons for that belief."
Erdogan is a
leader who believes in the truth, regardless of
how correct that truth is or whether the Western
world appreciates it or not.
Sami
Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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