Saturday, October 6, 2007
Turkey's Big Dilemma: Headscarf Ban
ODTÜ rector says they will go to the European court if the headscarf is allowed in universities
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
University rectors have mobilized against the possibility of the new constitution allowing students with headscarves to enter university facilities, saying that they intend to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, reported the daily Hürriyet yesterday. The Rectors' Committee, an advisory board of all university rectors, will meet today to discuss the amendments proposed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The committee will be chaired by fiercely secularist Higher Education Board (YÖK) Chairman, Professor Erdoğan Teziç, who has quarreled over the issue with the government in the past. Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) Rector Professor Ural Akbulut criticized the government's handling of the efforts to create a new constitution, and said, “it could have been more democratic.” He said there was no urgent need to change the Constitution and called for a broader reflection on the necessary amendments. The headscarf is a religious symbol and should not be allowed in educational institutions, and once allowed in universities, those who do not wear headscarves will feel pressure, he added. “We have seen it everywhere in the region. In Libya, there is no law about not covering oneself. However, over 20 years, all girls in universities covered themselves due to pressure,” he said. Any incremental sacrifice on secularism will bring about bigger changes, said Akbulut, adding that there are no gray areas when it comes to secularism. İnönü University Rector Fatih Hilmioğlu told Hürriyet that there had been a headscarf problem in the past but it was now solved. “Students got used to it. Any change will drag Turkey to chaos,” he said. Member of YÖK, Enver Hasanoğlu, said he did not believe there will be any changes concerning the dress code at universities, adding, “we will discuss the issue if anything changes.”
The Republican People's Party (CHP) opposes any changes on the issue and its Istanbul deputy, Professor Nur Serter, said once the headscarf is allowed Islamists will increase pressure on girls.
Source: http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=83798
Labels:
human rights,
secularism
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20 comments:
Dear Fellows,
I thought this might be a good topic to reunite us. Headscarf issue became popular recently again. The current government wants to change the law whic prevents women with headcarves to attend university.
Usually universities are the most liberal places in state systems which
would ask for more liberty in such situations. However, in turkey YÖK, the High Education Commision is the first one to oppose for such law change.
How is it possible that a state is afraid of their own people who simply want to go to university to integrate with the system?
With which criterias, headcsarf is called a "political symbol" so it cannot be allowed in any official place?
How can a state (consider the state/government difference in Turkey) deny and raise hatred for women wearing headscarves? (Please note that more than 65 percent of women in Turkey wear headscarf)
The defense so-called liberal people takes here to maintain the ban is that if they go to the university, they will put pressure on other women to put it on as well.
As I am a member of this society and citizen of this state, it becomes very difficult to make sense of some arguments. Your opinions and relevant information you'd like share are appreciated.
I still remember not getting an answer to a question I posed to one of our lecturers, regarding the existence of "liberal intellectuals" in Turkey, meaning by that those who do not act on behalf of the religious, but purely profane values of freedom and plurality. Where are those kind of intellectuals in Turkey today? Obviously, the issue of the headscarf very much depends on the way how it is being represented or framed in the public discussion.
In my mind, framing this issue in the context of the basic human rigths is the responsibility of liberal intellectuals in the first place. Otherwise, it will be represented as a statement of political islam as a revolutionary anti-state practice by the military structures, or as a statement of resurgence of religious conservativism by the those religious ones. In both cases, no good can come out of the final result; in both cases, the headscarf will be an ideological, instead of cultural or individual matter; in both cases, individuals will be supressed by some "higher values" and hence prevented from enjoying full civic rights.
So, the behaviour of liberal thinkers and acitivists in this case in Turkey is of the utmost importance for a democratic way to resolve this "crisis". If they fail to act, if they continue to dwell in their self-sufficient conformism, Turkey will, I am afraid, face not so bright political future.
But, still, I write this without knowing if a real liberal democratic sphere of thinking and acting exists in Turkey, or the country is simply divided by two streams of ideological and conservative movements. I haven't got an answer to this from the professors and lecturers we met there. I do not want to rush to conslusions that this sphere does not exist in Turkey. Still, I am trying to figure out. I really look forward to future political development in Turkey, and I urge to young people like Selma and Gulcen and others to continue fighting for democratic liberalism.
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