[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Naked politics

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Naked politics
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1205082300.shtml


   Despite the lifting of the headscarf ban, Turkey continues to
   [1]debate the issue:

     Leading academics have warned there could be clashes on campuses
     and a boycott of classes by some female academics. Since the bill
     approved by the President Abdullah Gul the universities are divided
     over lifting the ban. Observers say legal uncertainties further
     complicate the already sensitive and controversial matter, adding
     the annulment ruling will help to ease tension.

     Legal experts are also divided over the issue. Some say the
     amendment of two articles of the constitution would be enough to
     lift the ban, but the rest disagrees, saying the ban was put in
     place not by a law but by a verdict of the Constitutional Court and
     a top court and they interpreted that the lifting the headscarf ban
     in universities will harm Turkey's secular system, which is defined
     in the 2nd article of the Constitution.

   A [2]mass rally is planned:

     It will be the second large-scale demonstration against easing the
     ban - imposed after a 1980 military coup - after a February 2
     protest that drew more than 125,000 people...

     ...But the reform has angered secularists - among them the army,
     the judiciary and academics - who see the headscarf as a symbol of
     defiance against the strict separation of state and religion in the
     mainly Muslim country.

   In Turkey, more than in the United States, wearing the headscarf is
   not just a sign of Muslim identity, it's a sign of sympathy with
   political Islamism, an ideology that's committed to the destruction of
   the separation of church (or mosque) and state. Most of the population
   in Turkey is Muslim, but most women, at least in Istanbul, do not wear
   headscarves.

   During a ride down the Bosphorous, on a crowded ferry, a woman wearing
   a headscarf was looking for a seat. I shifted a little to give her
   some space, but everyone around me stayed still. She gave up and
   looked for a seat somewhere else. Another woman, without a headscarf,
   came by a few minutes later. Everyone moved over to give her room.

   In Comment is Free, [3]Agnes Poirier says:

     On paper, Turkey is a modern country where women enjoy equal rights
     with men but in reality, traditions are still ruling the way we
     live and interact: a woman who chooses not to wear the headscarf is
     still considered by many as a traitor. Men often don't shake your
     hand, or simply refuse to acknowledge your presence. Since 1923,
     the Republic has allowed public places where we're free from the
     weight of religion but outside of these places, women's life is
     still very much a daily fight." What does she reply when told that
     a group of Turkish women who wanted to wear the headscarf had to
     flee to the UK, and the London School of Economics in particular,
     in order to study freely, as [4]Madeleine Bunting wrote last week?
     "The London School of Economics is well-known for its links with
     Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist Hodja, and those students represent
     but a marginal group.

   [The London school of Economics has [5]more Islamists than Guantanamo]

     And since when was wearing a veil a sign of women's freedom?
     Liberals in Europe should support us, women, who try to make Turkey
     a modern society, rather than support religious people out of some
     old-fashioned Oriental romanticism."

   Accusing [6]Madeline Bunting, who said:

     What Islam is, inadvertently, doing across Europe is exposing the
     precarious assumptions by which the vast majority of Europeans
     believed they had dealt with religion - they thought they had got
     the genie back in the bottle.

   ..of old-fashioned Oriental romanticism? That's got to hurt.

References

   1. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/turkey/8412060.asp?gid=231&sz=42636
   2. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/09/2158587.htm?section=world
   3. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/agnes_poirier/2008/03/a_veiled_agenda.html
   4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/25/turkey.islam
   5. http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1132716843.shtml
   6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/25/turkey.islam