The Worldwide Headscarf Controversies: Civilization vs. Barbarism
Turkish students shout slogans in support of wearing head scarf, in front of Istanbul University, which does not allow headscarfs, Istanbul, Turkey.
Cross posted from Radarsite
Turkey Steers into a Dangerous Identity Crisis
By Ferda Ataman and Jürgen Gottschlich
Turkey’s highest court in Ankara ruled on Thursday that a law passed by Erdogan’s government easing the ban on headscarves at universities was unconstitutional. The ruling is a precursor to a dramatic confrontation likely to emerge in the coming months between Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AKP party and the country’s secularist forces, led by the powerful military.
The atmosphere on Thursday afternoon in Turkey was fraught with anticipation. It seemed as though the country was waiting for the high court decision. And the justices didn’t disappoint: The government’s reform of a law regulating the wearing of the headscarf, the court decided, was unconstitutional.
The court delivered the verdict following an unusually short proceeding — and left little room for compromise. The constitutional amendment — passed by the Turkish parliament in February with the support of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the nationalist MHP party — is null and void. The headscarf ban repeal, the court said in a brief ruling, infringes on the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.
It is a verdict that went well beyond what observers had been expecting. Politicians and analysts alike had thought the court would merely request a supplementary law limiting the headscarf reform to the universities — which would have maintained the ban in schools and for those working in public service positions.
Instead, Turkey’s high court has handed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party an important political defeat. More than that, however, the verdict is a message. Turkey’s high court will soon be hearing a case aimed at banning the AKP due to its presumed roots in religion and intention to break down the barriers between church and state. Thursday’s verdict seems to indicate that the justices are not going to back down.
The battle over the head scarf is a skirmish in the war currently being fought over the very identity of Turkey. The prevailing bureaucracy and military, the opposition — stubbornly loyal as it is to the ideas of founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatärk — and a big chunk of secularist Turks see the governing AKP as a threat to their way of life. They fear the government of Erdogan, along with President Abdullah Gül, who is also from the AKP, wants to strengthen the role of religion in the country. In AKP’s rise, they see a creeping Islamization of Turkey.
There is evidence that they may be right — that under AKP the balance of power is shifting in Turkey, and that the country is becoming more conservative and religious. There are new laws placing restrictions on the way alcohol is consumed and the sight of women wearing headscarves publicly has become more prevalent. In addition, the country’s directorate for religious affairs published an article putting the onus on women to refrain from sexually stimulating men. Still, critics say it’s questionable whether the developments can be effectively stopped through court rulings or official institutions.
The AKP showed its dissatisfaction with the ruling on Thursday. An AKP spokesman decried the ruling as anti-constitutional, calling it a political rather than legal ruling. “This is interfering with both democracy and parliament’s legislative authority,” the vice president of the AKP’s parliamentary group, Bekir Bozdag, told reporters. “The decision opens the way to controlling every constitutional amendment that parliament would want to make.”
But it’s clear from the decision that the country is also moving towards a ban of the AKP. And that will create political turbulence for the country at a time when it is aiming toward membership in the European Union. This new verdict might not increase the country’s chances. Europe has repeatedly criticized Turkey’s heavy handed judiciary for standing in the way of freedom of opinion and true democracy.
The question is whether AKP will accept a ban without mobilizing its supporters. Speculation is already brewing of massive street protests and the possibility of early elections in the autumn. AKP, many suspect, would like to use the protests to build support for a referendum to install a new constitution that would strip the current court of its power.The military will now be tracking AKP’s moves closely. And if it has to, it will defend the country’s secularity with any means necessary. Turkey, in short, appears to be on a dangerous path — and one that may end in confrontation.
* For the latest update on these mounting tensions in Turkey click here http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,564631,00.html
* For the headscarf vontrovesry in Germany see here: Muslim Headscarves Test the Limits of German Tolerance
* The French government has passed a law banning the wearing of Islamic headscarves in schools, which comes into effect at the start of the new school year on 2 September. BBC News Online examines the controversy surrounding the ban, which will affect millions of Muslims. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3328277.stm
* etc, etc, etc…
A note from Radarsite: As the above links so amply demonstrate (and there are many more which could have been added to this list), that ominous Clash of Civilizations is no longer a matter of academic conjecture; it is rather a very real and ferocious battle for the identity of our Western world and beyond. A mere two decades ago this present day crisis would have been all but inconceivable, perhaps even laughable. How could we in our comfortable and successful Twenty-First Century Western civilization possibly find ourselves being torn between our vital world of freedom and democracy on the one hand, and a brutal Seventh Century cult of darkness and negation on the other? How could this preposterous choice between our vibrant and successful capitalist democracy and a backward-looking failed theocracy ever have become a legitimate contest? Where did we go wrong? What did we fail to see and comprehend about this world we were living in?
Are we too generous in our acceptance of the Other? Are we too innocent and naive to recognize Evil when it shows its ugly presence so plainly at our door? Are we dumbfounded at the very concept of naked Evil? Our multiculturalist mentors did not prepare us very well for this inevitable eventuality, did they? On the contrary, they zealously erased all those disturbing chapters from all of our textbooks in the name of their superior vision of cultural relativism.
The increasingly bitter battles over the wearing of headscarves or veils by Muslim women in the West is becoming , or most certainly should become a major issue, for it is intensely emblematic of this monumental struggle for the hearts and souls of our freedom-loving nations and for the future of our children. There can no longer be any doubt as to their tremendous symbolic political significance; they are as meaningful and disruptive and confrontational as a Nazi swastika armband.
This, then, must be our proverbial line in the sand. This is where the West must make its stand. This must be the symbol of our resolve, our strength and our will to survive. These Islamic headscarves are the virtual flags of our enemies, and we cannot, we must not, allow them to be planted in our soil. It is a matter of cultural honor and ultimately a matter of our very survival. – rg
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Posted by Roger W. Gardner on July 12, 2008 4:28 am
» Filed Under Islamicfascism, Multiculturalism/PC
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7 Responses to “The Worldwide Headscarf Controversies: Civilization vs. Barbarism”
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Syndicate Me
If you dye a skunk’s white stripes, it will be difficult to recognize at a safe distance, subjecting innocent bystanders to unnecessary risk of being coated with an indelible stench.
If you amputate a rattle snake’s rattles, you8 make it difficult to recognize, subjecting innocent bystanders to the risk of a painful and potentially lethal bite.
Likewise, a Muslim’s hijab or turban is a warning sign, while part of a uniform, it serves to alert us to the presence of an enemy.
You don’t make skunks or rattlesnakes safe to be around by concealing their identity. The same principle holds true for Muslims.
It is time to quit fixating on the superficial and pay attention to the substantive issues which nobody has the courage to confront.
Are we too innocent and naive to recognize Evil when it shows its ugly presence so plainly at our door?
Sadly, yes.
Thank you Jay.
And Ben — I disagree. Fighting back against Muslim headscarves is the first step in fighting back against Islam. We have to start somewhere, and this potent symbol of our enemy is a good place to begin. There is nothing I would like better than to purge Islam from the West entirely, but unless there’s a drastic change in our political will this just isn’t going to happen anytime soon. But we can keep the enemy from making anymore headway into our civilization, and then slowly roll it back. First, outlaw headscarves, eventually outlaw Islam.
Besides being symbolic & peripheral, Roger, attacking the hijab, because it is a form of harassment, plays directly into their victim card strategy.
“You people are such pawns. Wake the [edited] up.”
I admire your novel use of the English language Jeremiah. Did it take you a long time to create that sentence or was that a quotation?
I actually lived in Amish country for a while and I can assure you that they have no intentions of destroying Judeo/Christian society and subjugating the Western World to their particular belief system. The mere fact that you brought up this ludicrous analogy to support your delusional point is evidence of your ignorance, might I say, of your arrogant and self-satisfied ignorance?
As for sharing Prof. Huntingtons’s views on the battle of cultures — Yes, I have read them and Yes, I do agree with him. Our enemies have taken great pains to describe the battle in exactly these terms: Their civilization against our civilization, Islam against the Judeo/Christian West. Perhaps if you had taken the time to study some of their pronouncements you, too, would have a better understanding of what we are up against.
As for that putting me in the company of others, I suppose one could argue that by my accepting the laws of gravity that somehow puts me in the company of Rasputin.
Your Hitler remark is too repulsive to respond to.
And as for your final dramatic and self-serving admonishment for us to “Wake the F. up”, I believe this is your rather crude attempt at condescension — suggesting, of course, that you, Jeremiah, are awake to what’s going on in the world while us “pawns” are asleep. Somehow I tend to doubt this, Jeremiah. Somehow I don’t think that you are all that aware.
There is, I suspect, a massive and rather nasty ego at work here that has little or nothing to do with this discussion and everything to do with self-promotion.
Good night, sweet Jeremiah. I will respond to you no more.
Dear Roger,
Do you have any Muslim friends? Have you ever tried to talk to a Muslim? You are making generalizations about 2 billion people, and this is quite brave, and stupid. This is like saying, all Germans hate Jewish people. They DONT. You are just talking over your head, you don’t have any idea how those people feel. What would they want with your Judeo/Christian west? You probably didn’t even look at the holy book of Islam. You didn’t even try! Yet you have the nerve to talk about this subject like you are talking about a sport.
“You probably didn’t even look at the holy book of Islam. You didn’t even try!”
Once again the insults are the same. Arrogant, presumptuous and crude.
My Koran has a total of 434 pages of which 288 contains some form of violence, invariably directed at the infidel or the apostate. I will not list here all of the supporting Islamist literature and related reading material I have accumulated. However, as I mentioned earlier, most importantly, I have read our enemy’s own words, and they leave us in no doubt whatsoever of their intentions.
No matter how enthusiastically you attack me you cannot change the basic horrors of Islam and the hegemonic goals of the Islamists.
Actions speak louder than words.