Flags, veils and sharia

Tag : Leisure Blouses

Yet the real struggle “is between Islam and modernity”,says Ismail Kara, a respected Islamic theologian. Adapting to themodern world without compromising their religious values is adilemma that has long vexed Muslims. For Turkey the challenge isalso to craft an identity that can embrace all its citizens,whether devout Muslims, hard-core secularists, Alevis or Kurds. Ifthe generals had their way, everyone would be happy to call himselfa Turk, all would refrain from public displays of piety and nobodywould ever challenge their authority. But the Kemalist straitjacketno longer fits the modern country. Opinion polls suggest that mostTurks now identify themselves primarily as Muslims, not as Turks.The AKP did not create this mindset: rather, it was born from it. The caliph of Istanbul
Islam has been intertwined with Turkishness ever since the OttomanSultan adopted the title of “Caliph”, or spiritualleader, of the world’s Muslims almost six centuries ago. WhenAtaturk abolished the caliphate in 1924 and launched his secularrevolution, he did not efface piety; he drove it underground.Turkey’s brand of secularism is not about separating religionfrom the state, as in France. It is about subordinating religion tothe state. This is done through the diyanet , the state-run body that appoints imams to Turkey’s 77,000mosques and tells them what to preach, even sometimes writing theirsermons.
In the early days of Ataturk’s republic, the façade ofmodernity was propped up by zealous Kemalists, who fanned out oncivilising missions across Anatolia. They would drink wine anddance the Charleston at officers’ clubs in places like Kars.“My grandmother, she told me about the balls, the beautifuldresses. Kars was such a modern place then,” sighs ArzuOrhankazi, a feminist activist. In truth, life outside the citiescontinued much as before: deeply traditional and desperately poor.
A big reason why Anatolia seemed less Islamist in the old days isbecause it was home to a large and vibrant community of Christians.But this demographic balance was brutally overturned by the masskillings and expulsions of Armenians and Greeks in the late 19thand early 20th centuries. Take Tokat, a leafy northern Anatoliantown where Armenians made up nearly a third of the populationbefore 1915. The only trace that remains of a once thrivingArmenian community is a derelict cemetery overgrown with weeds anddesecrated by treasure-hunting locals.
Much of this history is overlooked by the secular elite. Pressedfor evidence of creeping Islamisation under the AKP, they point tothe growing number of women who wear the headscarf, which isproscribed as a symbol of Islamic militancy in state-runinstitutions and schools. Mr Erdogan’s attempt to lift theban for universities, which was later overturned by theconstitutional court, is a big part of Mr Yalcinkaya’s caseagainst him and the AKP.
Yet surveys suggest that, except for a small group of militantpro-secularists, most Turks do not oppose Islamic headgear, leastof all in universities. Its proliferation probably has little to dowith Islamist fervour, but is linked to the influx of ruralAnatolians into towns and cities. The exodus from the countrysideaccelerated under Turgut Ozal, a former prime minister wholiberalised the economy in the early 1980s. For conservativefamilies, covering their daughters’ heads became a way ofprotecting them in a new and alien world.
Once urbanisation is complete the headscarf will begin to fade,says Faruk Birtek, a sociologist at Istanbul’s BogaziciUniversity. Bogazici was always refreshingly unbothered by studentswith headscarves. But the rules were tightened in the 1990s. Andaround the time the constitutional court in June overturned the newAKP law to let women with headscarves attend university,Bogazici’s liberal female director was squeezed out.
Like many, Summeye Kavuncu, a sociology student at Bogazici, hasbeen caught in the net. She complains that her stomach “getsall knotty each time I go to university. I no longer know whetherto keep my scarf on or to take it off. The secularists look upon usas cockroaches, backward creatures who blot their landscape.”Few would guess that Ms Kavuncu belongs to a band of piousactivists who dare to speak up for gays and transvestites.
Social and class snobbery may partly drive the secularists’contempt for their pious peers. But it is ignorance that drivestheir fear. Bridging these worlds can be tricky, “becauseIslam is not like other religions, it’s a 24-hourlifestyle,” comments Yilmaz Ensaroglu, an Islamicintellectual. “Devout Muslims pray five times a day.” Wine, women and schools
The biggest fault-lines in Turkey’s sharpeningsecular/religious divide concern alcohol, women and education. WhenWelfare rose to power in the 1990s, one of its first acts was toban booze in restaurants run by municipalities under its control.Party officials argued that pious citizens had the right toaffordable leisure space that did not offend their values. Some AKPmayors have pushed this line further. They want to exile drinkersto “red zones” outside their cities. A newly prosperousclass of devout Muslims is creating its own gated communities, anda growing number of hotels boast segregated beaches and no liquor.A survey shows that the number of such retreats has quadrupledunder the AKP. Taha Erdem, a respected pollster, says the number ofwomen wearing the turban, the least revealing headscarf of all, hasquadrupled too.
All this is feeding secularist paranoia about creeping Islam. Arethese fears justified? In the big cities conservative Anatoliansare expanding their living space. But this is not at thesecularists’ expense. Life for urban middle-class Turks, andcertainly for the rich, continues much as before. It is in ruralbackwaters that freewheeling Turks fall prey to what Serif Mardin,a respected sociologist, calls “neighbourhoodpressure”. For instance, Tarsus, a sleepy easternMediterranean town (and birthplace of St Paul), made headlinesrecently when two teenage girls were attacked by syringe-wieldingassailants who sprayed their legs with an acid-like substancebecause their skirts were “too short”.
Habits in the workplace are changing too. Female school teachershave been reprimanded for wearing short-sleeved blouses. During theRamadan fast last year the governor’s office in Kars stoppedserving tea for a while. Secular Turks contend that Islam willinevitably wrest more space from their lives and must be reined innow. With no credible opposition in sight, many look to the army assecularism’s last defender.
So do many of Turkey’s estimated 15m Alevis, who practise anidiosyncratic form of Islam: they do not pray in mosques, they arenot teetotal and their women do not cover their heads. Thegovernment has not kept its promise formally to recognise Alevihouses of worship, called cemevler . Nor has it heeded Alevi demands for their children to be exemptedfrom compulsory religious-education classes that are dominated bySunni Islam. “There is a systematic campaign to brainwash us,to make us Sunnis,” complains Muharrem Erkan, an Aleviactivist in Tokat.
The battle for Turkey’s soul is being waged most fiercely inthe country’s schools. Egitim-Sen, a leftist teachers’union, charges that Islam has been permeating textbooks under theAKP. Darwin’s theory of evolution is being whittled away andcreationism is seeping in. Islamist fraternities, or tarikat , continue to ensnare students by offering free accommodation. Thequid pro quo is that they fast and pray, and girls cover theirheads.
Yet the biggest boost to religious education came from the armyitself, after it seized power for the third time in 1980. Communismwas the enemy at the time, so the generals encouraged Islam as anantidote. Religious teaching became mandatory. Islamicclerical-training schools, known as imam hatip , mushroomed.
Another example of how army meddling goes awry is Hizbullah,Turkey’s deadliest home-grown Islamic terrorist outfit.Hizbullah (no relation to its Lebanese namesake) is alleged to havebeen encouraged by rogue security forces in the late 1980s to fightseparatist PKK rebels in the Kurdish south-east. The groupspiralled out of control until police raids in 2001 knocked it outof action. But not entirely. Former Hizbullah militants are said tohave regrouped in cells linked to al-Qaeda, and took part in the2003 bombings of Jewish and British targets in Istanbul.
Banning the AKP could strengthen the hand of such extremists, whoshare the fierce secularists’ belief that Islam and democracycannot co-exist. If instead the AKP stayed in power, that wouldbring Islamists closer to the mainstream. “Six years ingovernment has tempered even the most radical AKP members,”comments Mr Ensaroglu. True enough. AKP members of parliament wearZegna suits and happily shake women’s hands; their wives getnose jobs and watch football matches; their children are morelikely to study English than the Koran.
Had Mr Erdogan made an effort to reach out to secular Turks,“we might not be where we are today,” concedes a seniorAKP official. He missed several chances. The first came last autumnwhen the AKP was trying to patch together a new constitution toreplace the one written by the generals in the 1980s. Mr Erdogannever bothered to consult his secular opponents. He ignored themagain when passing his law to let girls wear headscarves atuniversities. Critics say that his big election win turned hishead. “Erdogan accepts no advice and no criticism,”whispers an AKP deputy. “He’s become a tyrant.”
Maybe he has. But that does not mean he deserves to be barred frompolitics, and his party banned.