On October 14 The New York Times ran a story entitled "Youthful Voice Stirs Challenge to Secular Turks" that discussed how Turkish youths are redrawing the lines between both freedom and devotion and modernization and tradition in a country that already blurs the existing distinctions between East and West. An accompanying online video presentation featuring the article’s protagonist, Havva Yilmaz, also alluded to the issue of respect for minorities, particularly Kurds. Although the article did not address the effects of greater religiosity upon minority groups in Turkey, the redrawing of normative lines by Turkish youths raises important questions about Turkey’s direction and the issue of tolerance, whether for minorities or for greater visibility of religion in public life. These questions are of course, inseparable from Turkey’s status as both a secular “democratic experiment that is unique in the Muslim world” and a state engaged in efforts to fully accede to the European Union.
While Turkey is run by the AK party, which has its roots among observant Muslims, the country has built its modern identity on secularism, a combination that places Turkey in a somewhat precarious transitional status. The debate discussed in the article relates to whether or not an Islamic headscarf may be worn at the universities in Turkey or in other public institutions. It is an issue that once again draws attention to the issue of tolerance in Turkey and what threats looser restrictions on religion pose for Turkey’s unity and identity. The Times article notes that for youth today in Turkey, freedom is defined by the right to practice Islam, and self-expression means covering up their hair. The headscarf battle certainly has set off a stimulating debate about the role of personal freedom and choice within a secular society. While Turks discuss whether or not the repeal of the 1988 headscarf bill earlier this year was warranted in order to enhance freedoms, many wonder how in a secular society the headscarf can become depoliticized. The New York Times argues that “in poor, religiously conservative areas in rural Turkey, girls wear scarves from young ages, and many Turks feel strongly that without state regulation, young women would come under more pressure to cover up.” While this may be true, this past February, 60 percent of Turks polled favored ending restrictions on Islamic headgear, a figure that would be impossible without the support of at least some women.
The manner in which Ms. Yilmaz explicitly links the headscarf issue to minority rights illustrates how the broader issue of Turkey's varying traditions and groups coexist uneasily, and how this has affected the country's democratic development. According to Freedom in the World 2008, Turkey has held the status of Partly Free for the past 10 years, while Countries at the Crossroads scores Turkey relatively highly compared with many of its developing country peers, and well above any country in the Middle East. These two rankings show that as Turkey continues to improve its overall performance on democratic governance, religious and minority rights become paramount as a major stumbling block to achieving an even fuller democracy. A particularly controversial feature is Article 301 of the penal code, which has marred Turkey's record on freedom of expression issues and remains unchanged even though the government has made several pledges to amend it. This ambiguity matches the murkiness surrounding Turkey’s EU bid. On the one hand, improved minority rights have largely moved forward only due to efforts to appease the Europe Union; on the other, greater prominence of Islam in the public square may scare other EU members and add new complications to the accession bid.
So, as Turkey continues another round of accession talks with the Europe Union, a tug-of-war wages onwards between greater and less religiosity in society and government, with major implications for Turkey’s overall direction. For the secular Turkish establishment, the rise to power of the AK party has been difficult to come to terms with. Thus, another question is how fast Turkish citizens can expect to move in redrawing normative lines, especially considering past resistance to granting religion greater visibility and minorities greater rights. One of the only certain things is that these issues are going to remain at the very heart of both what it means to be Turkish and whether the country can successfully straddle the great divide that geography and history have imposed upon it.
Photo Credit: Flickr user nicolas
