A Veiled Future: The Headscarf’s Role in the Turkish Republic

Chloe Bash We trailed our way through the cobblestone streets of the Old City, stopping to caress a silk carpet or examine a glazed tile. The call of “Allah Akbar” or “God is Great” rang out from the minarets of the Blue Mosque, the smooth undulations of the imam’s voice echoing off the winding clay alleyways. Istanbul was just as I had imagined, trapped in the time of sultans and crusaders that we had studied in European History. Sitting down to our first dinner together with the students from a local high school, I was not surprised to see that the girl across from me was wearing a headscarf: it seemed to fit in with our location, a stones-throw from the Blue Mosque, and the echoing call to prayer. Though our setting was historical, our conversation was anything but. We discussed our college aspirations, the latest music video by Lady Gaga, and the meaning of water imagery in Beloved, which she was reading for an AP English literature course. I searched for her in the crowd of students at her school the next day. As I was looking for another jewel-toned scarf, I had trouble recognizing the girl with dark cropped curls and retro glasses who approached me. We fell into conversation while looking over a giant metropolis that seemed so foreign to the city I had viewed the night before. Gone were the curving city walls and ancient buildings, replaced instead with towering concrete offices and walls of glass. I asked why she was not wearing a headscarf, and she replied that she was not allowed to wear one on school grounds. “Or in public buildings,” she quickly added. It took me the course of my two-week stay in Turkey to realize the import of her simple response. She was not barred from wearing tube tops or mini-skirts, like I was at school; she was unable to fully express her religious belief as part of a national debate concerning the role of religion in a secular government. I went into

Turkey with a basic knowledge of its history and political structure, but without recognizing the delicate balancing act required of secular government with a primarily Islamic populous. I now ask, how have political bodies in Turkey worked to reconcile the desires of their religious population with the traditions of their secular past? And, almost more importantly, how have their decisions affected her ability to wear a headscarf?

It is impossible to discuss Turkish politics without recognizing the contribution of

Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk. As the founder and leader of the fledgling Turkish Republic,

Ataturk’s transition to a Western- style democracy redefined the relationship between government and religious institution. Mustafa Kendal first garnered international attention during the First World War, when he fended off the attack of British, French, and ANZAC forces at

Gallipoli, a key campaign and one of few Ottoman victories. He went on to lead the resistance in the War of Independence, founding the new Turkish Republic in 1924 and serving as its president until 1938.1 Throughout his tenure, Ataturk turned to the west as a model for political and cultural reform. Under Ottoman rule, the Sultan had served as the Caliph, or Islamic spiritual leader. He implemented secular law in state affairs and Shari law in civil affairs, allowing milletler, or non-Muslim religious groups, to occupy “separate and autonomous” roles.2 Ataturk, in contrast, created a secular government without religious affiliation. The government dismantled Islamic institutions that were seen as a threat its hegemony and assumed control over seminaries and religious endowments.3 As part of his further effort to modernize the nation, the government adopted a western alphabet, legal codes, and calendar, and granted women the right to vote. 1 The use of the fez was another potent symbol for Ataturk, as he described in a speech

1 “Ataturk Kemal”

2 Olson, 163

3 ibid., 164 in 1927, two years after he banned its use: “… [The fez] sat on the heads of our nation as a symbol of our ignorance, negligence, fanaticism, and hatred of progress and civilization…” 4

Though his “Hat Law” banning fez and turbans did not specifically address women, his family and administration toured nationally without covering their heads5 and the headscarf gradually fell out of use.5

Throughout the 60s and 70s new political groups rose to challenge the supremacy of

Ataturk’s political party, resulting in the formal restriction of the use of the headscarf. The

Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) remained in power and virtually unopposed into the late 1940s, which saw the rise of the Democratic Party (DP). Leaders of the new party came from the Kemalist elite. They used Islamic religious symbols to gain support for their resistance to the hegemony of the CHP, alienating the military, which was both politically powerful and extremely opposed to religious governance. After speaking out against the military and its affiliation with the CHP, DP members were thrown out in a military coup. The Justice Party

(AP) took up the flag of the DP, continuing to use the openly religious identification of its members to define itself but maintaining Kemalist political reforms.6 Socialism gained popularity and influence during the boycotts and labor strikes of the 70s, with the United States’ global support of anti-communist governments leading to increasing military power in Turkey.

The conflict between the socialist movement and the powerful military came to a head in 1980, when General Kenan Everen led a coup that destroyed leftist “political networks, unions and

4 Olson, 164

5 Delaney, 159

6 Bora and Çalişkan, 142 organizations.”7 The new government introduced the “Dress and Appearance Regulation” in

1980, preventing female government employees from wearing short skirts, headscarves, and low cut necklines and men from wearing mustaches and beards.8 The implementation of such a law seems bizarre – both stereotypically western, revealing clothing and typically Islamic religious garb were banned. The law can be interpreted, however, as an attempt to return to Kemalist policy. The nation had undergone two government coups within 30 years, and the new government, might have seen the ban on religious clothing as a way of connecting their leadership with that of Ataturk.

If the law seemed bizarre in it contrasting application, much more so was the dichotomy I saw on the streets of Istanbul. Students with bared navels walked next to girls with covered heads. Women swathed from head to toe in black burkas toted luxury bags with European labels.

Simply looking at a woman’s manner of dress, I could see the dual influences of east and west.

The two contrasting cultural influences were not so evenly represented at Didem’s school.

Didem was the only member of the cohort of girls I spoke with that wore a headscarf. She asserts, however, that though her school follows a Kemalist ideology, her peers “live and [are] educated more comfortably with their faith, compared to the recent past.” As these girls go onto to pursue a higher education, they will have a greater opportunity to express their faith than women just twenty years ago.

Because the Turkish government has historically controlled the nation’s universities, the

“Dress and Appearance Regulation” limited the academic opportunities of female students and intellectuals. In one instance, a female student from the University of Ankara was prevented

7 Bora and Çalişkan, 143

8 Olson, 163 from making an address traditionally given to the top student because she wore a turban. Soon after, students were suspended from Uludag University for wearing headscarves to their exams.

The conflict garnered international attention upon the release of an article discussing the precarious situation of female professors, particularly Dr Koru Izmir, Assistant Professor of

Chemical Engineering at the Aegean University in Izmir. Dr Koru had been warned by her rector that she could be dismissed from her position because of her headscarf. She argued that that the violating other aspects of the dress regulation would not have had the same consequences. The conflict, then, was not based on “Dress and Appearance Regulation,” but rather on freedom of religious expression. She sued the school on the basis that the administration had abridged her constitutional rights. The court results were printed in Milliyet, an Istanbul-based newspaper, reads as follows:

The court, examining her suit, declared that the sanctions applied by their university were ‘legal’ and that Dr Koru has found no legal basis for her claim that “under the constitutional guarantees of religious belief and freedoms, wearing a headscarf was an established freedom, a right”9

The validity of her claim was largely dependent on the role of headscarves in Islamic practice. In responding to her court case, MDP Deputy Işilay Saygin argued that there is disconnect between religious devotion and the choice to adopt a headscarf: “Thank God we are Muslims. But no matter what, to say, ‘I will wear a scarf...’ this has nothing do with being a Muslim. Man must make his feet fit the current moderate path…”10 His comments highlight one of the greatest concerns of Dr Kim Shively, professor of cultural anthropology and author of “Taming Islam:

Studying Religion in Secular Turkey.” She suggests that the government continually assumes

9 Olson, 161

10 ibid., 162 that Islam can be defined as a faith separate to its religious practice, which can be “discarded without harm to the practitioner,” when practice and faith are completely intertwined.11 The importance of adapting to a “current moderate path” recalls Ataturk’s decision to turn to Europe as a model for the Turkish nation. Other officials referenced Ataturk’s reforms directly, such as

Erdine Deputy Kurkan Arikan, who proclaimed that, “there can be no concessions that violate existing laws or Ataturk’s principles.” 12

No concessions that violate Ataturk’s reforms? When I had read about Turkey before leaving for my trip I pictured Ataturk’s place in Turkish culture as that of Lincoln or

Washington. I expected to see the occasional “Ataturk Library” or “Ataturk Lane,” not his image in every taxi, shop and boat. His mausoleum recalled a Greek temple, complete with towering marble columns with life size dioramas of his famous military victories. His deification recalled the cult of personality present in communist Russia or China rather than the respect garnered by our founding fathers. The obvious loyalty to Ataturk at both personal and public levels, however, has not prevented religion from infiltrating government agencies, violating his ideals of secularism.

The growing power of Islamic political groups from the nineties until today has offered new opportunities for women to receive a higher education while still maintaining their religious practices. The change, however, has been met with strong resistance. In the 1995 the Islamist

Welfare Party, led by Necmettin Erbakan, came to power. Erbakan proclaimed that radical changes would sweep the country in either “a bloody or peaceful way.” In response to the increasing religious presence in government, the National Security Council issued a warning that

11 Shively, 686

12 Olson, 162 the growing power of Islamicism would “[shake] the foundations of the republic.” The Islamist

Welfare Party interpreted the statement as a threat of military intervention, leading Erbakan to dissolve his government.13 Following this dissolution, or “soft coup,” the new government strictly enforced the previous ban on headscarves in universities and high schools, forcing many female students to go abroad.14 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of Erbakan’s primary supporters, formed the Justice and Development Part (AKP) in the wake of Islamist’s party’s dissolution. He became prime minister two years later, in 2003,13 when “signs of Islamic identity [were becoming] more and more associated with a prosperous middle class.”15 The popularity of secular Kemalist policies was decreasing, but Kemalist leaders still wielded power through the military and judiciary.16 In 2008 President Abdullah Gül, a former member of the Welfare Party, signed an amendment guaranteeing the right to education that would, in effect, have allowed women to wear headscarves into universities: “Except otherwise stated in the laws of the

Republic, no one can be prevented from pursuing the right to university education.” 17

Proponents said that the amendment allowed for greater freedom of expression, a principle in keeping with their bid for admission into the European Union, while opponents argued that it was an attack on Turkey’s secular tradition.18 The constitutional court annulled the amendment on the basis that it went against the constitution’s secular principles.14 Despite the ruling of the constitutional court, AKP government continued to pursue new policies. In 2010 the President of

13 Bora and Çalişkan, 144

14 Toprak and Uslu, 47

15 Shively, 690

16 ibid.

17 Bora and Çalişkan, 141

18 “Two Turkish Opposition Parties” the Higher Education Council, Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, announced that students could no longer be forced from classes for wearing headscarves and that investigation would be launched on any professors who did so. He framed the issue as a matter of the students’ right to education, as the amendment had. Recognizing the fear of increasing Islamic influence in universities, he gave a personal promise those women who chose not wear the headscarf will not feel pressure to don one: “I give my person guarantee. Just as we made it possible for students wearing headscarves to enter class, students who do not wear headscarves will also be under our protection.” His personal promise, not surprisingly, is not enough to assuage the fears of all female students. 19

According to Didem, the student I spoke with in Turkey, the Kemalist conception of youth culture is central to the conflict over the headscarf’s increased popularity. She believes that the popularity of religious practice among educated youth is contrary to historic expectations:

“You have to understand that the founding fathers of the republic had in mind a very different kind of youth, which they called "modern" who had western values and life styles where Islam did not have a role…” She asserts that that Kemalist politicians are disturbed not only the popularity of Islamic practice, but by the type of women who adopt it:

In my opinion, the reason why certain people are bothered is because the pious Muslim girls, who wear scarves and pray and have moderate relation with opposite sex, are becoming more and more active in overall community. If we were sitting at home taking care of our younger siblings, washing dishes and waiting for a husband in utter ignorance of the world and the religion, I assure you nobody would complain how many of us there were.

In her view the headscarf has not become more popular, but rather more visible on highly educated and affluent women. These women, rather than those living in rural communities or engaged in domestic activities, have the opportunity to shape public opinion and political policy.

19 “YOK Head Gives Guarantee” She emphasizes that this new generation has chosen to adopt religious practice because they want to, not because they feel pressure from their society or from their parents: “[There are] more religiously informed people who live by Islam not just because [it is] what their parents taught them, [because] it is the tradition, but because they know and submit to Islam as a way of life. The new government needs to serve these people as well, “[taking] into account the pious

Muslim and his/her way of life when creating policy.” Didem is exactly the type of woman that she says Kemalists fear. She has been educated in the Western model, attending a school that she describes as fiercely secular, but embraces her religion and its practices. The issue is a political one, used as a rallying point for both Kemalist and Islamic groups and by the nation’s founder to establish his party’s hegemony. But it is also a very personal one, and my side in the debate has been colored by her acquaintance.

Purchase any guidebook on Istanbul, or on the nation as a whole, and its singular position between east and west will be emblazoned on both covers. Its description as a “bridge” or

“crossroads” may be aimed at ticket sales, but I have found that the phrases apply to all facets of the cultural identity of the nation. I am drawn to its history, and to its current political situation, because of the possibility for conflict and collaboration. The controversy over the use of the headscarf is representative of much greater political unrest that results from the meeting of multiple cultural and religious perspectives. Upon first talking with Didem I might have said that she should have the right to freedom of expression, no matter the consequence. I could have drawn conclusions from my experience and her personal perspective alone and determined that the government’s recent action is necessary and appropriate. Instead I am faced with a wealth of policy and history that make such a simple judgment an impossibility. I am still unsure of how the Turkish government will reconcile the religious needs of its modern populous and its secular past. So are the citizens Turkey, and arguably the members of the government itself. Maybe, then, I have placed myself in the same limbo as the people I’ve aimed to study. Thousands of miles away, I am filled with the uncertainty experienced by a whole nation.

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