It was a tense week for the Turkish parliament during the headscarf amendment debates. Despite massive demonstrations organized by secular Kemalist institutions, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) took action to resolve the deep-rooted headscarf dilemma in Turkey by ending the headscarf ban in universities.
However, the AKP needs to balance the demands of all its constituents – those who are politically secular and those who are politically religious.
In January 1998, the Constitutional Court banned the headscarf in universities on the grounds that, as a perceived political and religious symbol, it violated the secular spirit of the constitution. The AKP pushed to lift the ban, and the proposed amendments, backed by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), were approved by an overwhelming majority in parliament last week.
However, the Kemalist Republican People s Party (CHP) declared that it is determined to counter the ruling by bringing the amendments before the Constitutional Court, upon approval by the president. The Court, as the highest judicial body free from any kind of political interference, has the authority to abolish the amendments on the grounds that they jeopardise the secular structure of Turkey.
According to a survey completed by Turkey s leading policy think tank, the Turkish Economic and Social Research Foundation (TESEV), more than half of the women in Turkey prefer a conservative lifestyle. As such, they cover their hair either on traditional or religious grounds, and believe that female students should not be deprived of the right to higher education because they cover their hair.
It is necessary to distinguish between the two types of headscarves in Turkey: one type has been a historical cultural and traditional symbol for women in the Turkish region of Anatolia; the other has been promoted as a symbol of political Islam over the last two decades after its popularity in South Lebanon and post-Revolutionary Iran spread to Turkey. The religious headscarf, known in Turkey as the turban , leaves hair completely unexposed and is tied tightly around the neck in a different style, making it distinguishable in appearance from the traditional headscarf.
Yet despite the rise of politicized Islam in the region, most Turkish women still prefer to cover their hair for cultural, not religious, reasons.
The headscarf issue has been more ardently debated in the past several years than before, not merely due to the rising power of religiously oriented AKP, but also to changing domestic factors such as urbanization, social mobility, and the growth in middle class.
A 2005 UNDP human development report for Turkey showed that 20.4 percent of the total female population over the age of 15 is still illiterate. The percentage of women who feel deprived of the right to higher education because of the headscarf ban constitutes a minor segment of the female population, however, making the removal of the headscarf a stipulation for pursuing higher education is wrong.
Some argue that opening the doors of universities – centres for scientific freedom and critical reasoning – to women who wear headscarves will stop the marginalisation of such women. The argument is that higher education will help liberate them from religious conservatism and from those extremist religio-political movements that aim to establish Islamic law in Turkey, while still preserving pluralism in universities.
The majority of the Turkish population, although practicing Muslim, does not support the idea that political parties should pursue policies rooted in Islam. The AKP s stance on the headscarf issue may be due to pressure coming from a specific religious segment of its electorate.
The AKP enjoyed 47 percent support of the total electorate in the last elections and a religiously conservative constituency still constitutes the backbone of its political support. Therefore, the AKP leadership cannot just disregard their demands and devalue the religious headscarf issue.
Ideally, the AKP should have presented this change as part of the expansion of freedoms in Turkey. It could have been a component of the Turkey modernisation project – a comprehensive reform package that would re-evaluate many other issues concerning the rights of minorities.
Many people think that the changes will likely extend beyond the university to other public institutions, if indeed the AKP is looking to satisfy the demands of its electoral base. At this point, the AKP may encounter some difficulties to sufficiently dispel doubts that its real intention is not the transformation of Turkey into a religious state.
Instead, the AKP should inspire public confidence that it is also the guarantor of a secular political system in Turkey. The AKP must maintain a balance of power while still meeting the demands of both its conservative Muslim constituency and its secular, pro-Western base.
Kaya Arslanis an attorney, Secretary-General of the Cyprus Policy Centre and advisor to the rector at Eastern Mediterranean University. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
