HEADSCARF POLITICS IN TURKEY

PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS

Siyasetin Oyunu [The Game of Politics] (2008)

Ortunun Altinda Kalanlar [Hidden Under the Veil] (2008)

Bati’da Musluman Olmak [To Be Muslim in the West] (2008)

Dunyanin Guzel Insanlari [Beautiful People of the Earth] (2008)

Basortusuz Demokrasi [Scarf less Democracy] (2004, trans. to: Arabic and Persian)

HEADSCARF POLITICS IN TURKEY

A POSTCOLONIAL READING

Merve Kavakci Islam

Foreword by John L. Esposito and Afterword by Lord Eric Avebury

Palgravemacmillan

HEADSCARF POLITICS IN TURKEY

Copyright © Merve Kavakci Islam, 2010.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2010 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN®in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kavakçi Islam, Merve. Headscarf politics in Turkey : a postcolonial reading / Merve Kavakci

Islam ; foreword by John L. Esposito and afterword by Lord Eric Avebury. p. cm.

1. Hijab (Islamic clothing)—Turkey. 2. Hijab (Islamic clothing)—Law and legislation—Turkey. 3. Muslim women—Clothing—Turkey. 4. Islam and politics—Turkey. I. Title.

HQ1726.7.K38 2010305.48�894350090511—dc22 2010013863

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: October 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Transferred to Digital Printing in 2011

ISBN 978-1-349-29028-4 ISBN 978-0-230-11394-7 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/9780230113947

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10665-9

To her;who cared,

fed,smiled,and left;

My grandma.

CONTENTS

List of Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Foreword by John L. Esposito xiii

List of Abbreviations of Political Parties in the Study xvii

Chronology of Significant Events xix

1 Introduction 1

2 Women in Nation-Building 13

3 Politics of Religion (1938–2000s) 41

4 Social and Political Implications of the Ban on Headscarf 99

5 In search of Education, Employment, and More 131

6 Conclusion: The Road Ahead: What’s in Store

for Başörtülü Kadınlar? 145

Afterword by Lord Eric Avebury 155

Notes 157

Bibliography 179

Index 193

FIGURES

Cover Image A junior high school student amidst male and female

police officers (2001). Photo by Ibrahim Usta for Zaman Gazetesi

3.1 DSP members jeering at the oath ceremony in

the parliament. Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 77

3.2 Students protesting the ban. Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 94

3.3 Student holding a sign: Do not touch my friend. Above,

pictures of two women, a Turkish woman with a headscarf

and an African American woman from Alabama.

Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 95

3.4 A student adjusting her wig at the school entrance.

Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 96

3.5 Parents who wear wigs over their headscarves at

the graduation ceremony at Atatürk University.

Photo by Sabah Gazetesi 97

4.1 The valedictorian of nursing school at

Sivas Cumhuriyet University attacked by a classmate,

1990s. Extracted from news clip at Star broadcasting channel 101

4.2 Junior high school students taken into police custody

because they wait at the school gate. Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 102

4.3 A junior high school student amidst male and

female police officers (2001). Photo by

Ibrahim Usta for Zaman Gazetesi 103

4.4 Lieutenant General Aslan Güner leaving the protocol to

avoid First Lady Gül. Photo by Anadolu Ajansı 115

4.5 İmam Hatip students breaking under the stress of

the ban while hoping to go into their classrooms.

Photo by Vakit Gazetesi 121

4.6 Police blockade on the way to school. Photo by ÖNDER 121

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Dr. Mervat Hatem, Dr. Jane Flax, Dr. John Cotman,

and Dr. Sulayman Nyang for their support, guidance, and encourage-

ment during my research. I am indebted to Dr. Nyang for sharing his

invaluable insights and helping me find my niche in Washington, D.C.

to pursue my academic aspirations. In fact, one day in late Spring 2004,

during a meeting at his office, the very first seeds of this process were

inadvertently planted that eventually led to the production of this book.

Dr. Flax and Dr. Cotman, both beacons of their f ield, walked me through

the worlds of political theory and comparative political analysis respec-

tively, guiding me through the plethora of knowledge on a wide range

of issues from rights dilemmas to challenges of nation-state building. In

this process, last but not least, I am grateful to Dr. Mervat Hatem, who

was my immediate advisor. She was my teacher, my mentor, my senior

colleague, and my guide who walked with me every step of the way that

led to this day. Without her assistance I could not have produced this

book. I also thank Dr. Zahid Bukhari for providing his constructive

critique at the end of my research.

I am thankful to Dr. John Esposito for writing the foreword for this

work, my first book in English. To have received his support, as a lumi-

nary in many of the areas covered here, is an invaluable contribution. I

am grateful to Lord Eric Avebury for writing the afterword. His contri-

bution as someone who is known for his commitment to empowerment

of the disenfranchised, the minorities, and women all around the world

is indispensible. I am thankful to Ambassador Swanee Hunt, an academic

and ex-politician like myself, for her support throughout the years. She

encouraged me, a former student of hers, to continue to stand up for

what I believed in and always to remember that nothing is impossible. I

am elated that she spared the time to read the manuscript and shared her

thoughts in a blurb. To Dr. Noam Chomsky, a legend in the world of aca-

demia and more so in the empirical world of human rights and civil lib-

erties, as a former teaching fellow of his, I pay my heartfelt appreciation

for offering his comments in the blurb. I cannot take his contribution for

xii AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S

granted. I am thankful to Dr. Ümit Cizre for her support through her

constructive comments. To have received her endorsment is a great honor

in of itself. I also thank Richard Peres for his assistance in the editing

process of the manuscript and the creation of the index.

In addition to the strength I received in the academic world through

the contributions of the aforementioned luminaries, I am also surrounded

by a familial support group that deserves recognition and to share the

fruits of my endeavor. I am indebted to my parents—my mother who is

my role model and my father who has always been there for me, listened

to my naggings, and responded with a glimpse of hope and a smile. As

usual Ravza, was instrumental to ensure that the deadlines were met

without respite during the publication preparation process. Elif, shared

most of my motherhood responsibilities and managed the background. I

am grateful for their sisterhood support. My special thanks belong to my

daughters, the light of my life, Fatima and Mariam, for being who they

are and for being mature and patient enough to support their mom on

this strenuous road. Without them, I would not be where I am.

Alhamdulillahi Rabb- al-Alemin (praise be to the Owner of the universe)

for situating me at the right institution, among the right people, and

increasing my knowledge.

Merve Kavakci

February 28, 2010,

Washington, D.C.

FOREWORD

John L. Esposito

The veil, or hijab, has been a symbol of faith and freedom for many

women, but also a symbol of oppression and gender inequality as

well as the object of politics and power. In recent years, the emergence of

Islamic political and social movements, sometimes indiscriminately con-

f lated under the term “Islamic fundamentalism,” has led two secular

countries as diverse as France and Turkey to demonstrate the anti-reli-

gious character of their unique brand of secularism and the extent to

which many establishment elites’ almost paranoid fear of Islam is driven

by their “secular fundamentalism.” The net result has been their shared

perception of the hijab as a dangerous political symbol, which has led to

its banning in certain government contexts.

An appreciation of Turkey today requires an understanding of the

emergence of modern Turkey and the place of Islam in Atatürk’s poli-

cies. The post-independence period witnessed the emergence of modern

Muslim states whose pattern of development was heavily inf luenced by

and indebted to Western secular paradigms or models. Saudi Arabia and

Turkey ref lected the two polar positions. Saudi Arabia was established

as a self-proclaimed Islamic state based upon the Shari’ah (Islamic law).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Atatürk (Mustafa Kamal) created

a secular Turkish republic. The vestiges of the Ottoman Empire—the

caliph/sultan and its institutions, the Shari’ah, Islamic institutions, and

schools—were replaced by European-inspired political, legal, and edu-

cational systems.

Turkey provided the secular paradigm for those who viewed with

alarm the resurgence of Islam in Muslim politics and society. Whatever

seemed to be happening in other parts of the world, pundits agreed that

Turkish secularism was immune from the “threat” of political Islam.

Indeed, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, many, fearing the Islamic

inf luences of Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan and the dangers of Islamic

F O R E WO R Dxiv

activism in the newly independent Central Asian states, advocated the

Turkish secular model, sometimes referred to as “Muslim secularism” or

“secular Islam.”

Two factors seemed to preclude Turkey’s being swept up by the Islamic

wave that seemed to be moving across much of the Middle East and

broader Muslim world: (1) the revered memory and legacy of Atatürk

(1881–1938) with its strong secular (laic) tradition and institutions and

(2) the self-proclaimed role of the army as the “guardian of the secular

republic,” defenders of the secular ideology and stability of the state. To

the astonishment of many in Turkey and in the West, in 1996, secular

Turkey had its first Islamist prime minister, Dr. Necmeddin Erbakan.

More than 28 cities had elected Islamist mayors in elections in which

the Welfare (Refah) Party, an Islamic party, garnered up to 21 percent of

the vote. By 1997, Erbakan had been forced out of office by the Turkish

military, the so-called defenders of Atatürk’s legacy and its secular state.

The military and secular political and social establishment’s understand-

ing of secularism was and is not simply about separation of church and

state but in fact a “secular fundamentalism” that saw religion as a threat,

a source of backwardness, and an obstacle to modernization, and feared

that Islamists had a hidden agenda to create an Islamic republic. For hard-

line secularists, the hijab became a symbol of the “Islamist threat,” as

women wearing forms of Islamic dress became more widespread and vis-

ible in major cities and urban areas like Istanbul.

Kemalism’s singular definition of modernity had imposed a model of

the modern Turkish woman and banned the headscarf in government

and educational institutions. Secular elites’ fear of Islam was dramatically

ref lected in their charge that a Muslim government and the loosening

of restrictions on wearing the hijab would result in all Turkish women

being forced to wear a headscarf. Their concerns glossed over the status

quo ban on the headscarf as a violation of human rights: Turkish women

who wear the hijab are banned from serving in parliament, from entering

or working in government buildings, and from attending university. In a

celebrated case, Merve Kavakci Islam, the author of this excellent study

who was elected to parliament in 1999, was prevented from taking the

parliamentary oath because of her hijab She was subsequently stripped

of her Turkish citizenship on the pretext that she had not disclosed her

United States citizenship.

In 2001, key leaders of the former Welfare Party established the Justice

and Development Party (AKP). Though its founders, Recep Tayyip

Erdoğan (prime minister) and Abdullah Gül (foreign minister and now

president of Turkey), were key figures in the Islamic Welfare Party and

its successor, the Virtue Party, the AKP chose to create a more reformist

F O R E WO R D xv

and inclusive pluralistic (non-Islamic) party that was Turkish, Muslim,

and Western in orientation, with a strong emphasis on economic devel-

opment and social conservatism. The AKP is a moderate party that advo-

cates a liberal market economy and Turkey’s membership in the European

Union. Its history and performance demonstrate that the realities of poli-

tics can lead former Islamists to learn from experience, broaden their

vision, adapt to multiple constituencies, and govern effectively.

The AKP won a landslide victory in the 2002 elections. Of the eigh-

teen political parties that competed for seats in the parliament, only two

obtained 10 percent of the nationwide vote in order to seat representatives

in the assembly. The AKP won 34.26 percent of the popular vote and 363

of the 550 seats in parliament, while the long-established Republican

People’s Party won only 19.4 percent of the votes. In July 2007, PM

Erdoğan was reelected with a stunning victory in which the AKP took

47 percent of the vote. The AKP’s electoral victories in Turkey are espe-

cially remarkable in that it won a parliamentary majority in a Muslim

country long regarded as a symbol of secularism in the Middle East.

The AKP-led government has proven more successful than its pre-

decessors internationally, working with Europe on Turkey’s admis-

sion to the EU and other shared concerns involving the United States

and Muslim countries, while still upholding Turkey’s independence.

Domestically, fears expressed by the military and secular opposition that

AKP would create an “Islamically oriented” or Islamist government have

proven unfounded. The AKP leadership has reaffirmed its commitment

to Turkish secularism. However, their notion of secularism—separation

of state and institutional religion—contrasts strongly with hard-line sec-

ularists’ anti-religious approach.

An even more glaring example occurred when the AKP came to

power. The wives of the prime minister and of the majority of cabi-

net and parliament members were unable to attend an annual reception

given by the “secular-oriented” president of Turkey because they wore

headscarves. Moreover, the prime minister’s daughters could not attend

university in Turkey because of their headscarves; instead, they studied

in the United States.

Women’s dress remains a contentious issue in Turkey, symbolizing

an alternative moral/social order that many Muslim women seek within

modern secular Turkish society. The choice is not seen so much as one

between Islam and modernity or Islam and secularism as it is an effort

to define an alternative Islamically informed model for being a modern

Turkish woman, to build an Islamic way of life within a secular order.

Many Islamically oriented women embody their own brand of “femi-

nism,” wishing to liberate women from the constraints of patriarchal

F O R E WO R Dxvi

society and an excessive dependence on Western cultural norms and to

redefine the role of women so as to combine their central role in the

family with the right to education, employment, and political activism.

Because the status and role of Muslim women remains not merely a reli-

gious question but a significant political and social issue, Merve Kavakci

Islam’s Headscarf Politics in Turkey, which combines both her impressive

scholarship and draws on her personal experience, is essential reading.

ABBREVIATIONS OF

POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE STUDY

ANAP Motherland Party

AKP Justice and Development Party

AP Justice Party

CHP Republican People’s Party

DP Democrat Party

DSP Democratic Left Party

DYP True Path Party

FP Virtue Party

MHP Nationalist Movement Party

MNP National Order Party

MSP National Salvation Party

RP Welfare Party

SHP Social Democratic Populist Party

SP Felicity Party

CHRONOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

1876 First constitutional period

1908 Second constitutional period (Constitutional

Revolution)

1912 First Balkan War

1913 Second Balkan War

1914 World War I

1918 Outset of Milli Mücadele (National Struggle—War of

Independence)

April 23, 1920 Opening of Turkish Grand National Assembly

1922 Revocation of sultanate

October 29, 1923 Establishment of the Turkish Republic

1924 Revocation of caliphate

Reform in education

Closure of religious educational institutions

1925 Passage of Hat Law

Acceptance of Christian calendar

Passage of Swiss civil code

Acceptance of Latin alphabet

“Islam” removed from the constitution

1930 Women granted the right to elect and be elected in

local elections

1934 Women granted the right to elect and be elected in

general elections

1937 Secularism adopted officially

1938 Death of Atatürk

1946 Passage to multi-party system

1960 Military coup

1980 Military coup

1981 Banning of the headscarf for public servants and

university students

1997 Post-modern coup