TURKEY: This Turban Could Bring Trouble

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas

ANKARA, Feb 11 2008 (IPS) - Thanks to an alliance between the ruling Justice and Development (AK) and Nationalist Action (MH) parties, the Turkish Grand National Assembly has approved legislation to lift the ban on wearing the Muslim headscarf for female students at universities.

The move, voted 411 to 103 on Saturday, had been expected since the August 2007 election of President Abdullah Gul, an AK leader with an Islamist past. But concrete steps towards its materialisation started only at the end of last year after Gul put at the helm of the Higher Education Council (YÖK) Yusuf Ziya Özcan, an outspoken supporter of abolition of the ban.

The matter may sound trivial, but it deeply divides Turkish society. In a nation that has adopted secularism for the past nine decades, any attempt to revive religious symbolism in public life is considered by many as drifting away from republican values and returning to the dark ages of superstition and underdevelopment which preceded the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

Although 99 percent of Turks are nominally Muslim and about half say they are practising Muslims, many subscribe to the secularist doctrine of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. They support a clear division between state and religion, pretty much on the French model.

AKP, successor to the Welfare Party, which was banned at the end of the last century as reactionary because of its Islamist focus, won 47 percent of the votes cast in the July 2007 elections. The party had spoken in support of freedom of expression of religious beliefs in public areas.

Contrary to popular belief, the ban on the headscarf was not imposed by Ataturk. He promulgated in 1925 a "Hat Law", which forced male citizens to replace the traditional oriental fez with the western bowler hat, as symbol of modernity.

While simultaneously promoting enhanced rights for Turkish women, whom he wanted to reach the standards of their European counterparts, Mustafa Kemal did not touch their attire. Most amongst them, particularly in the eastern provinces, continued to wear a basortusu, or headscarf, which covered their hair.

Wearing of the headscarf in public establishments became a political issue in the 1980s, when educated girls from provincial towns and rural areas started applying for admission to universities. Until then, higher education had been a de facto privilege for middle class secularist urban residents, who willingly dressed as westerners did.

But the gradual influx of veiled young women into universities sparked political controversy and led rectors to forbid enrolment of female students who adopted such gear. In order to preserve social peace, the parliament passed a law in 1989 that allowed such students to wear the basortusu on campus. The gear is commonly referred to as the turban, although purists insist that the word is inappropriate in the context.

The academic world did not swallow the defeat. The case was brought before the Constitutional Court, which repealed the law on the ground that it violates the constitutional principles of the republic. The decision served as the legal basis for a ban on the headscarf in all schools and universities.

Now the opposition Republican People&#39s Party (CH) claims that lifting of the ban cannot be legislated by simple parliamentary law-making procedure, and needs a new Turkish Constitution.

The government has tried to find a short-cut by getting the Parliament to modify two relevant articles of the Constitution. The changes adopted consist of adding to article 10 the sentence: "In all their actions, state institutions and administrative bodies shall observe the principle of equality before the law." Article 42 will be amended to include: "No one shall be deprived of the right to education because of their apparel."

But CH leaders and several constitutionalists insist that these changes are invalid before the law because they contradict the founding principles of the Constitution.

Article 2 of the Constitution provides that "the Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law…loyal to the nationalism of Ataturk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble", which emphasise secularism as a core principle.

Moreover, article 4 specifies that "the provisions in Article 2 on the characteristics of the Republic…shall not be amended, nor shall their amendment be proposed."

The judicial body of the country seems adverse to any attempts to touch secularism. Hasan Gerçeker, new head of the Supreme Court of Appeals, warned the Parliament "not to erode the secular order" of Turkey, and promised a secular vision during his term.

The majority of people polled, however, downplay the opposition&#39s scaremongering about the entry of the headscarf in the university amphitheatres. They say that in a democracy expression of religious beliefs should not be hindered.

CHP sees the basortusu on campus as a Trojan horse aimed at eroding secularism from the inside. It finds this the first step in the government&#39s hidden agenda to gradually transform the Turkish political system into an Islamist regime governed by Sharia law, in the image of, at best, Malaysia, or, in the worst scenario, Iran.

A recent incident seems to partly justify such concerns. At the end of January, Husnu Tuna, an AKP member of Parliament, said in public that his party&#39s longer-term goal was to extend removal of the ban on the Islamic headgear to female high school pupils, academics and state officials, who are not at present allowed to be veiled.

Prime Minister and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered an investigation by his party&#39s parliamentary board against "dissident" Tuna.

It is quite certain that CHP will oppose any amendment to the Constitution before the Constitutional Court. The question, however, is what the Armed Forces (TSK) will do. In April 2007, when the prospect of an Islamist president seemed imminent, head of the General Staff, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, issued a statement insinuating that a military coup should not be ruled out.

Gul has in the meantime moved into Ataturk&#39s former apartments at Cankaya Palace. The AKP-dominated parliament gave the Army the task of pursuing the separatist Kurdish Workers&#39 Party (PKK) within Northern Iraq, which should keep the officers busy for the years to come.

The chapter is, nevertheless, not closed. Over the weekend, more than 100,000 people demonstrated at Antikabir, Ataturk&#39s mausoleum in Ankara, against the Parliament decision. Similar rallies were held in 13 other provinces.

Academics are also deeply divided. About 1,300 professors and instructors have signed a public declaration in favour of lifting the ban. But all the rectors and other staff have either opposed the move or remained silent. The latter claim that the new law will create chaos, even violence, in higher education establishments, and subject secularist female students to peer pressure and hostile behaviour by Islamist male students.

The ban on the headscarf has since 1981 resulted in 1.5 million female students quitting higher education.