In Context: 5 Web Perspectives On A Story In The News

Turkish MPs plan university headscarf reform

(BBC) Two major parties in Turkey say they will submit a joint plan to parliament to ease a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities. The Islamist-rooted governing AK Party and the nationalist MHP say it is an issue of human rights and freedoms. The two parties have enough votes in parliament to overturn the constitutional ban on headscarfs. Headscarves were banned in schools and universities in 1980 after a coup by the pro-secular armed forces. This is a controversial matter in a mainly Muslim country whose secular elite - including the military - sees the scarf as a symbol of political Islam. The move has been criticised by judges and university officials. Chadors, veils and burkas will not be allowed - no-one will be allowed to use headscarfs as political statements against the state Devlet Bahceli, MHP leader.

1.

No headscarf? No human rights

Human Rights Watch - Independent Human Rights Organization
This website gives the summary of Human Rights Watch report from 2004 arguing restriction of headscarf in Turkish universities violates students’ rights and that the military interferes too much in academic affairs. The report details how the 1980 military coup in Turkey changed the way universities operated, placing more control over academic affairs in military hands with the creation of the Higher Education Council. The military assigned the council to protect Turkey’s strict nationalism and punish students and faculty who wear the headscarf or question nationalist rhetoric. Amnesty’s position is that the headscarf ban is part of a larger issue of Academic and political freedom.

2.

Even suburban Muslim women want to hide their faces

Counter Punch - Political discussion magazine based in California
“Ghosties!” is what Michael Dickinson said when he was three years old and saw Muslim women wearing full-body dresses or chadors for the first time. That was decades ago in Kuwait. Now, Dickinson lives in Turkey and has commented on the growing movement to make it legal for women doctors, politicians, teachers, etc. to wear headscarfs and chadors in public. Dickinson gives a balanced insight to the issue: he reminds us that more than 90 per cent of Turkey is Muslim and that there are many middle-class suburban women who want to be concealed in public. On the other hand, Islamic extremists also support the move to the headscarf, going as far as raiding a meeting of a high court and killing one judge who supported banning chadors.

3.

Headscarf debate shows West still doesn't get Turkey

The Bosphorus Watch: Geopolitical Analysis of Turkey and the Region
This blog site looks at geopolitical events in and around Turkey. In his blog posting just after Turkish Parliamentary elections in summer 2007, author BlastingCloud argues Western media focuses too much on the headscarf ban instead of factoring in people’s satisfaction with economic growth and the gradual easing of army-rule. BlastingCloud says western media, particularly the American brand, did not focus on parliamentary elections being scandal and violence-free, instead playing up the differences between “secular” and “religious” forces. The rest of the blog features narrative analysis of Turkish current affairs. This site is run by BlastingCloud, an un-named man who says he graduated from the University of Chicago in 2006 with a degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He says he’s studied the Turkish language and now works in Istanbul for a publisher of political-economy reports.

4.

Are religious thugs bullying women to cover up?

American Chronicle - online news and opinion magazine based in California
This opinion article from American Chronicle criticizes Newsweek journalist Fareed Zakaria and an article he wrote in spring supporting the legalization of the headscarf in Turkey. Muhammad Megalommatis’s language is inflammatory and extreme at times, but if you can get past that, he does point out legitimate flaws with the campaign to promote the headscarf in Turkey. He says political forces in Turkey who want to legalize the headscarf have built support for their cause over the years by pressuring and occasionally threatening women in public places who do not wear the headscarf.

5.

Then there's the controversy of wearing headscarfs in Canada

ScienceDirect - online article database
This site has a study of how Muslim women in Canada see the headscarf or veil as a symbol of their religion. This is a good study to read online because understanding the political controversy surrounding the headscarf in Turkey requires Canadians to look at their own attitude toward the veil. The study looks at definitions of the headscarf in Islamic teachings and how western countries take offence to the headscarf in public places, such as hospitals and schools. Muslim women old and young recount how various organizations, from nurses’ unions to school boards, have banned use of the veil by Muslim women in the work place and ridiculed those who wear it. The two best parts of the study are called "The hijab, body, and gaze" and "Western Perceptions of the hijab".