Turkey made headlines a week or so ago when the government eased the ban on headscarves in universities. I think many people are bewildered about why this is such a big issue because, well, it’s headscarves. Part of the reason is that Turkey has always had a very public struggle to beat back the forces of religious governance, which headscarves supposedly represent. When the current republic was founded in 1923, the decision was made to break from the past and form a secular, Western-inspired nation. Ever since, it has been difficult upholding the secular identity of the country with the military stepping in several times when they thought it was in danger.
A few years ago, the Islamist AK Party gained power with a strong mandate – which they strengthened in recent elections – and secularists began to fret that the government was going to turn into an ulema. What happened instead was that AKP was able to stabilize a country with huge problems, set the economy on the right path, start EU membership discussions (which I oppose) and win a huge chunk of the Kurdish vote away from the pro-Kurdish DTP. Certainly, the AKP has many missteps (specific examples of which I can’t remember because admittedly the AKP kind of owns the Turkish press) but I think that’s more politics than religion. Everyone in power helps their friends. But now the headscarf issue has secularists in a frenzy about an Islamic revolution, sparking huge demonstrations and pathetic protests from university rectors. But here’s why getting rid of the ban is a good idea:
1. The ban was instituted in the 1980’s. It’s not one of the cherished tenets from the birth of the republic – like the ban of the fez, which is stupid, and women’s suffrage, which is not.
2. Banning headscarves discourages many women from seeking higher education. For a nation to evolve and succeed in the modern world, it must have an educated female population. An educated woman is more likely to be independent and free from familial and religious pressures than an uneducated woman.
3. Banning headscarves is a violation of a basic human freedom – expression of religion. While I would happier if organized religion went the way of Zeus and Gilgamesh, it is not the prerogative of government to expose restrictions on a person’s belief.
4. Banning headscarves reeks of elitism: certain social strata generally look upon covered women as poor and uneducated. It’s almost as if many are scared that their way of life is being infiltrated. It’s important to keep Turkey secular, but headscarves are a convenient and irrelevant scapegoat. There are bigger battles to be fought.
Look, I’m not downplaying the threat of Islamism (that is, fundamentalism) in Turkey. It is a very real and very potent problem. What I’m saying is that getting rid of the headscarf ban in universities does not aid a rise in fundamentalism and may even help retard it.
Anyway, I apologize if this bored anyone but it is a topic that has been on my mind for a while now. Now, for some links and a youtube video:
1. Turkey has been hogging headlines lately by sending troops into northern Iraq. Did anyone seriously think this would not happen as soon as the worst of winter was over?
2. The NY Post has a morale-sapping article about my IBM project. As if I had any morale left.
Wired has a pretty cool list of chemistry videos. My favorite one is the amazing chemical reaction between potassium chlorate and a gummy bear. Even better than Mentos and Diet Coke.
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