PULSE of TURKEY No 51...........THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER17th 1998
HOTTEST TOPIC IN ELECTION CAMPAIGN – HEADSCARVES
Amidst a number of national and international problems and an economic crisis, the election campaign is revolving around the headscarf issue. A certain subversive centre is keeping the issue alive and an unwise politician, Tansu Çiller, has jumped into the fray, while Erbakan followers are six times shy having been bitten three times. The headscarf issue embarrasses ANAP as Mesut Yılmaz is frustrated in his wish to be “flexible” about it.
The campaign for the elections in April 1999, presuming (most probably wrongly) that they will not be postponed seems to be revolving around the headscarf issue. The main reason is the exploitation of this issue by a certain centre engaging in subversive activities, as well as the determination of the reformist forces not to allow headscarves in schools and Government offices.
In the past, Necmettin Erbakan’s parties, the defunct MNP (Milli Nizam Partisi), MSP (Milli Selamet Partisi) or RP (Refah Partisi), used to exploit this issue. Today’s FP is in two minds about it, but it seems that even though the party centre may decide against it the decision would not have much value in practice.
At the last election campaign in December 1995 Necmettin Erbakan said to the girls who were not allowed into schools and offices because they were wearing headscarves, “When we come to power after the elections, the officials who are shutting the door in your face today will bow to you when you enter these places with your headscarves.”
Erbakan did come to power after the elections and remained there for exactly a year, but even his moderate attempts to make small changes to the rules concerning headscarves, let alone officials bowing to girls wearing headscarves, resulted in the February 28th, 1997 NSC resolutions and he was ousted from power.
Today Erbakan’s successor, Recai Kutan, admits that Erbakan’s remarks in 1995 were a mistake and tries to steer clear of this thorny issue as much as he can. But no matter how careful Kutan may be, there are activists in his party who do not follow his instructions of moderacy and he also has a friend and ally in the election campaign, Tansu Çiller, who perfectly suits the Turkish proverb, “It is better to have a wise enemy, than an unwise friend.”
The unwise friend, Tansu Çiller, made an election tour in the Kütahya area last week and her election theme in this rather conservative corner of Anatolia was composed of religion and headscarves. At the DYP rallies in the region the quite sparsely filled squares witnessed that there were two huge posters hung up, one the indispensable Atatürk poster and the other that of Tansu Çiller, probably making Atatürk turn in his grave as she was wearing a white headscarf in the poster.
At the Simav rally Tansu Çiller said, “Headscarves are your honour, your dignity, hold on to them.” She also said, “The forthcoming elections will be the elections of the overwhelmed ones. These elections will be the elections of those who cannot send their daughters to university because they are wearing headscarves. These elections will be the elections of the faithful who are labelled fundamentalists and we will make them account for it.” And she went on boasting of her courage. “No one can scare me even if they hang me,” she said with a sort of cheap heroism.
Çiller’s election speeches about the headscarf were inoffensive by any western standards and her photographs with a headscarf are more sexy than religious. They do not conform to the religious rule that not a single hair should be seen by the public. Nevertheless, they were diametrically opposed to the efforts of the Atatürkist forces who are trying hard to save Turkey from falling into Iran’s or most other Islamic countries’ plight. They were also diametrically opposed to Çiller’s election campaign in December 1995. She was at that time the most fiery advocate of the dangers, not only for Turkey, but for the entire world, of voting for Erbakan. “Have pity on this nation and don’t be a tool of the RP,” she was publicly pleading with Mesut Yılmaz at that campaign because ANAP was more understanding towards the people’s religious feelings. In 1995 Çiller declared Mesut Yılmaz the force behind religious fundamentalists and today she calls him an “outright leftist” guided by Ecevit.
Çiller’s Kütahya speeches were full of accusations of the Government about religion. “They are trying to muzzle the ezan (calling to prayer) sound”, “They are working against headscarves”, “They are closing down the Koran courses”, “They are eliminating Hafız’s (persons who recite the entire Koran off by heart)”.
As expected, the strongest reaction to Tansu Çiller’s exploitation of the headscarf by equating it to “honour” and “dignity” came from within her own party, the DYP. The Atatürkist majority and officials of the party began to grumble and even speak out, “You cannot mix politics with religion. It has no meaning to provoke people with such speeches. It does not become our party.”
These criticisms, coupled with the charges of corruption of the Çiller family, took their toll on her and once again she made a volte-face. During her election canvassing in the Black Sea area the next week, Çiller put on her Atatürkist appearance and with posters of her without a headscarf she spoke of how Atatürkist the DYP is.
Why is the headscarf so important in Turkish politics?
It seems that as the elections draw nearer, Çiller’s quiverings between religious politics and western democratic beliefs will continue. So will the exploitations of the headscarf issue by a certain subversive centre. Only two days ago, a young man hijacked a THY aircraft to Trabzon with a toy gun with the claim of protesting against anti-headscarf activities. He was neither a religious fanatic nor did his family have anything to do with headscarves. His sister had never worn a headscarf. It was obvious that he had been bought off by a certain centre to keep the headscarf issue alive, risking 15 years’ prison sentence. The security forces have begun to bring to the daylight the network of these reactionary activities. A certain centre is keeping it on Turkey’s political agenda, as it is a touchy question especially for ANAP.
PM Mesut Yılmaz has been calling for flexibility on the headscarf issue in the universities and wants the authorities to refrain from hurting genuinely religious quarters over this question. Bülent Ecevit used to support Yılmaz about it, but the DSP’s Education Minister, Hikmet Uluğbay, and YÖK (The Higher Educational Board) recently took a different course. They said laws and rules cannot be enforced arbitrarily. They either exist and are to be enforced or chaos would reign in the country.
As for the question: what is the legal situation about headscarves, it is a bit confusing because new rules were passed by politicians over the years and most of them were repealed by the Judiciary as unconstitutional.
To put an end to this confusing legal situation, the Law Faculty of Istanbul University issued a report about the background of this dispute and distributed it to the press. According to this report, up until 1982 there has been no legal rules about whether or not university students could wear headscarves in the university. In 1982, shortly before the September 12th, 1980 interregnum ended, YÖK issued a circular banning the headscarf within university premises.
When the Aegean University management gave a one-month suspension penalty to a girl student for wearing a headscarf despite the ban, the matter came up with Danıştay, the Administrative Court, which has the power to repeal the Executive Power’s rules and actions. Danıştay’s verdict on December 13th, 1984 was to reject the appeal by underlining:
“Exceeding the limits of an innocent wish of what to wear, the headscarf has taken the nature of a world outlook concerning women’s emancipation and against the basic rules of our Republic… It is unthinkable that our educational institutions charged with the duty of teaching and embracing the basic rules of the Republic should compromise on these rules.”
As the dispute continued despite this ruling and the confusion in the applications of various universities, a provision was added to the Higher Educational Disciplinary Bylaw in 1987 to ban entering the indoors of universities with headscarves or similar headgear. On July 7th, 1989 Danıştay again rejected, on the same grounds, the lawsuit filed for its repeal.
Shortly after this ruling, the ANAP majority passed an amendment to the YÖK Act and freed headscarves at universities on the grounds of freedom of religion. But before the year (1989) was out the Constitutional Court quashed it as a law against the principle of secularism. The Constitutional Court ruled that issuing a certain rule on the basis of religion would go against the principle of secularism in a secular country.
Viewing this matter as potential votes, the ruling power once again passed a bill in 1991 to the effect that “Dressing in higher educational institutions is free, so long as it does not violate the laws in force.” The same year the Constitutional Court ruled that the freedom of dress cannot go as far as violating the rule of secularism and that attires indicative of a religious affiliation cannot be permitted in the university.
In 1993 the Third Administrative Tribunal of Istanbul rejected the plea of students who were not admitted into the Florence Nightingale Nursing School because they were wearing headscarves.
Again in 1993, the European Human Rights Commission turned down, on the same grounds, the plea of two Turkish girl students on the headscarf issue. It was an international confirmation of the legality of the Turkish judicial rulings.
Thus both national and international rules confirm that headscarves worn by students can be banned in official institutions and universities.
Dispute continues among politicians and men of religion
Still the dispute over headscarves is going on both among politicians and religious quarters. Six well-known professors of theology recently wrote a book entitled “The Islamic Reality”.
These professors who include Hüseyin Atay, Yaşar Nuri Öztürk, Beyza Bilgin, Rami Ayas, Arif Güneş and Hasan Elik wrote in their book, “Attires may change in the course of time. What should never be changed in Islam is the rule that decency of the human being should be preserved.”
The book also affirms that certain quarters are dividing the people as believers and unbelievers and that religion is being used as a tool for this fight.
A man of religion, Naim Gölleroğlu advocated that girls could go to school without wearing headscarves, but religious writer Mehmet Şevket Eymür promptly retorted in his column: “Tesettür (the tight dressing of women) is a categoric rule of Islam. Rejecting Tesettür is tantamount to rejecting Islam.”
While this squabble was going on in Turkish politics, another shock reportedly hit the Erbakan mentality from Europe. The European Human Rights Commission in Strasbourg decided, according to a press report, not to include on its agenda the former Justice Minister Şevket Kazan’s appeal for a verdict against the Turkish Constitutional Court about outlawing the RP. (Issue No :29). But Kazan rebutted this dispatch and said that a subcommittee is Strasbourg would decide on this issue by September 30th.
Kazan, in his application to the European tribunal on May 22nd, claimed that the party ban was against Articles 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 18 of the European Human Rights Convention. Both Erbakan and Kazan urged in Strasbourg the European Commission to tackle this issue with urgency.
The Erbakan followers had been saying that they only wanted freedom of religion as much as the USA and Europe. But time is proving that the measures Turkey is taking against religious fundamentalism are not against European norms either. Recent proof of it was when Recai Kutan appealed to the President and said that by announcing to the public his indictments against the RP and the Mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Chief Prosecutor, Vural Savaş, was violating Turkish and European laws. Savaş announced that he was doing it in accordance with the rules of the Eurpean Human Rights Tribunal, so that justİce was served best. uras@ada.net.tr, September 17th, 1998