Turkey: Parliament Set to Mull Lifting Headscarf Ban at Public Universities

Turkey's parliament is set to begin debate on February 6 on ending the country's decade-long ban on female students wearing headscarves at public universities. The issue has already enraged secularists and disappointed just about everybody else.

The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been under pressure from its conservative base to make the change since it came to power in 2002. The proposal to alter two constitutional articles was the result of a deal that the AKP struck in late January with the opposition Nationalist Action Party, or MHP. Barring a veto from the Constitutional Court, which analysts see as quite likely, the amendment is almost certain to be ratified in time for the start of the new university semester on March 3.

Between them, the AKP and the MHP have more than the two-thirds of parliamentary votes required to change the constitution. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP foreign minister whose headscarfed wife briefly contemplated taking Turkey to the European Court of Human Rights for violating her right to education, also backs the amendment. "Universities should not be places of political controversy," Gul said on January 25. "Beliefs should be practiced freely."

Opinion polls suggest the majority of Turks agree with him. Based on a 1989 Constitutional Court ruling, but only strictly enforced since the military-led expulsion of an Islamist party from power in 1997, the ban is widely seen as unjust.

Controversy has always been fuelled by the fact that university rectors have considerable leeway in enforcing the ban. While a handful turned a blind eye to covered girls, others have banned students who tried to sidestep the issue by donning wigs when they arrive on campus. In 2005, a university in the northeastern city of Erzurum sparked outrage when guards refused to allow mothers wearing headscarves to attend their children's graduation ceremony.

In a country where politics rotates as much around symbols as it does around realities, few things have the capacity to stir discord as successfully as the headscarf.

At a February 1 meeting, university rectors warned that the change "will undermine the principle of secularism, and [it will] inevitably turn Turkey into a religious state." On February 3 in Ankara, meanwhile, 150,000 people staged a rally near the mausoleum of Turkey's secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The potential beneficiaries of the changes do not seem entirely satisfied either.

The first source of discontent is the technique the AKP and MHP have used to likely overturn the university ban. Until now, Turkey's constitution made no mention of headscarves. But if the amendment is pushed through, it will. And that will create a precedent that could make it more difficult to phase out headscarf bans in, for instance, secondary education or public sector jobs. "The government is opening one door, but risks closing lots of others," says Fehmi Koru, chief columnist for the pro-government daily Yeni Safak.

Others are unhappy at the government's decision to include a paragraph in legislation on higher education permitting only headscarves that are tied under the throat with scarf ends hanging down over the chest. In late January, government spokesman Cemil Cicek defined the style as the baci model, an almost untranslatable word used to describe older Anatolian women. "Do they want me to look like my granny," fumed Neslihan Satici, a second year student at Istanbul University.

For Sibel Eraslan, a lawyer who headed of the women's branch of the Islamist Welfare Party in the mid-1990s, this nit-picking over style is emblematic of the place women have in Turkish politics. "For 80 years Turkish women have been handed down rights and told to shut up," she says. "The AKP is carrying on the patriarchal tradition. I find it insulting and demeaning."

The apparent shoddiness of AKP's solution stems largely from the haste with which the legislation has made its way to the floor of parliament. The trigger appears to have been comments made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 17. "Even if wearing a headscarf is a political symbol, can you ban such a political symbol?" Erdogan asked in front of reporters in Madrid.

The remarks were almost certainly off-the-cuff. But the MHP took the premier at his word, and presented a specific plan. Not wanting to be perceived as following the nationalists, whose core supporters are similar to its own, the AKP had little choice but to go along with them. "The tail has wagged the dog," says Rusen Cakir, author of a book on Erdogan. "The party has succumbed to what is basically blackmail."

What concerns liberals, whose support for the government since 2002 has done a lot to boost Ankara's international image, is that, in its sudden haste to rush through headscarf legislation, the AKP seems to have forgotten other reforms. Ready six months ago, a draft of a new "civilianized" constitution that would have resolved the headscarf issue has yet to be publicized. In addition, an article on "insulting Turkishness" remains in the penal code, a year after the government pledged to change it.

The bane of Turkey's record at the European Court of Human Rights, legislation permitting state confiscation of non-Muslim foundation property still awaits the sort of comprehensive rewrite that will satisfy minorities, and Brussels. "What sort of freedom is it that allows you to free headscarves without thinking of changing discriminatory and assimilatory policies against [non-Sunni Muslim] Alevis and non-Muslims," asks Yildirim Turker, a columnist with daily Radikal.

AKP deputy Egemen Bagis insists the government is sympathetic to everybody, "whether they wear miniskirts or headscarves." But critics are now saying actions will speak louder than words.

If the AKP wants to convince people of its democratic credentials, "it has to outspokenly defend the lifestyles of those different from its own people," argues Soner Cagaptay, director of the Washington Institute's Turkish program. He is unsure Erdogan's party is capable of doing that. "This is a man who said that individuals cannot be secular, only states can," Cagaptay says, referring to a January 24 speech. "For him, people are religious, full stop."