TURKEY'S CONSITUTIONAL DEBATE Not without my Headscarf By Annette Grossbongardt in Istanbul
The Turkish government is currently considering adopting a new constitution that would lift a legal ban that prevents women who wear the headscarf from attending college. But the country's staunch secularists are outraged, saying it threatens to create a "religious pressure" in the country that could have a snowball effect. Fatma Benli is a lawyer. The official accreditation from the bar association hangs on the wall of her Istanbul office in a gold frame next to her university diploma. Despite her impeccable qualification, the 34-year-old is limited in the extent to which she can practice her profession. She isn't allowed to appear in court because of the yellow and brown headscarf she uses to cover her hair for religious reasons. In strictly secular Turkey, women wearing headscarves are not allowed to work as either judges or doctors. Nor are they allowed to work as civil servants -- or attend university. Getty Images Headscarf-wearing Turkish students: Part of the stringent ban may soon be lifted. For her part, Benli has had better luck than many. She went to college during the early 1990s -- a time of lax enforcement of the headscarf ban in Turkey. But that changed in 1997, when the Turkish military forced the Islamist government of Necmettin Erbakan out of power. "Suddenly, guards stood by the university gate and refused to let us in," Benli recalls. At the time, Benli was working on a dissertation that she would never complete. "I would have had to remove my headscarf during the oral examination, which was something I couldn't do," she says. Instead, the devout Muslim opted to relinquish the prospect of a doctoral title. A professional attorney today, she's also found a workaround for court appearances, where lawyers are forbidden from wearing headscarves -- she sends a partner who doesn't cover up. Turkey, though, is currently debating the details of a possible new constitution, which, if passed, may partly lift the ban. The country's existing constitution, which was ordered by the military after the 1980 coup, is expected to be revamped. One possible change that is being hotly debated is permitting universities to once again open their gates to women who wear the headscarf. Early language in a draft of the constitution, created by a commission of legal experts convened by Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, AKP, and presented to the prime minister on Sunday, explicitly states that no one can be refused the right to a higher education because of one's clothes. An alternative formulation of the same text reads: "There are no restrictions on clothing or appearance at higher education institutions." Softening the ban on headscarves -- which was introduced to keep the influence of Islam on the state and the public in check -- would represent a historic landmark for strictly secular Turkey. The debate over the headscarf is one of the most contentious issues in contemporary Turkey, and any change to it has been taboo since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded modern day Turkey in 1923, introduced the division of church and state. The country's secular elite fear that if the ban is lifted, it will shift the societal balance in Turkey -- pushing it in a more conservative religious direction. Conscious of the powder keg nature of the debate, Prime Minister Erdogan has erred on the side of caution and avoided stating that his party will definitely lift the ban as part of the new constitution. Nevertheless, he makes no secret of the fact that he personally believes the ban is wrong and that he would like to see it changed in the future. "Freedom of religion and conscience is a part of democracy that cannot be neglected," Erdogan said this week in an interview (more...) given to reporters from SPIEGEL, the Financial Times and the New York Times. "The same applies to the right to obtain an education. I believe that anyone who calls himself a democrat thinks that a person cannot be denied a university education simply because that person wears a headscarf." Still, despite lengthy discussions within the AKP and with the party's legal experts, Erdogan was unable to present a draft of the constitution to the public this week. More work is needed, he announced. Erdogan also lashed out at the journalists for their excessive focus on the headscarf issue, which comprises just one of over 120 paragraphs in the draft document. "There Is No Islamist Threat in Turkey" Religious Turks aren't the only ones pushing for the change. Many liberals have joined them. "Denying a woman the possibility of attending a university simply because she wears a headscarf is a violation of human rights," says Cam Paker, the director of the renowned Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV). "The ban must be lifted," he adds. Tolerance of women wearing headscarves is one of the democratic liberties Turkey must grant its citizens along the path to European Union (EU) membership, Paker believes. He also feels the decision wouldn't pose a threat to Turkish secularism: "Our studies show there is no Islamist threat in Turkey." Only a small and continuously shrinking minority of Turks dream of transforming the country into an Islamic state that observes Shariah law. Still, such figures have done little to calm Turkey's staunchest secularists, who are still in the process of recovering from the shock of openly religious Abdullah Gül's election as president. Now, it's the draft constitution that is provoking their ire. Lifting the ban on the headscarf would create a "religious pressure" whose effects could go well beyond clothing and appearance, warns Hikmet Sami Türk. The left-leaning former justice minister says it would also endanger the "freedom and independence of university teaching." That, some fear, could have a snowball effect. Pollster Turhan Erdem even goes so far as to predict that female students who eschew the headscarf could become a thing of the past within a year. "In the end we will have to introduce separate classes for men and women," he believes. Others are already speaking of the "end of the republic." The Turkish daily Sabah printed a caricature showing a man digging a grave for the Turkish constitution and wearing a vest featuring the letters "AKP." The gravestone in front of the grave features the words: "Secularism Rest In Peace, 2007." Critics of the headscarf feel the European Court of Human Rights is on their side. The court turned down a 2005 case pleaded by Turkish medical student Leila Sahin, who tried to sue the Turkish state to allow her to attend university wearing a headscarf. The court ruled that the ban on headscarves doesn't violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The Strasbourg judges went even further, expressing support for Turkey's "legitimate goal" of protecting the liberties of citizens who have other beliefs or are not religious. By upholding the principle of secularism, Turkey protects its democratic system, the judges found. Protecting Non-Muslims? According to TESEV director Paker, the judges in Strasbourg "wrongly assumed that an overwhelming Muslim majority is oppressing a minority in Turkey." Still, he is also calling for the new constitution to guarantee the protection of non-Muslims and maintain the ban on headscarves for those exercising public functions. AKP, which promised to deliver a new constitution during its election campaign, has not yet formulated a position on the draft constitution penned by the commission of experts. During his first term as prime minister, Erdogan avoided openly calling for an end to the ban on headscarves, a reform measure the AKP is principally in favor of and which the majority of the party's voters is expecting. The wife of the new president, Hayrünnisa Gül, was also unable to attend university because of her headscarf. Erdogan always argued that a social consensus needed to be established before changes in legislation could be introduced. Now his overwhelming electoral victory could make him feel the time is ripe for daring to take such a step. Turkey's citizens are to decide on the reform in a referendum. Addressing public fears of creeping Islamization, Erdogan's justice minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, has said that such concerns are unfounded. The planned change to the constitution, he argues, will strenthen the secular system rather than weaken it.
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