Islamic Headscarves and Slippery Slopes, Cardozo Law Review, 30/6, June 2009 (original) (raw)
Related papers
From 1989 onwards, the Turkish Constitutional Court justified the headscarf ban in universities by citing laicism. Interestingly, in 2014, the Court found the headscarf ban in courts unconstitutional and revoked it by again citing laicism as the main reason. How can this seemingly paradoxical practice be explained? This article traces the trajectory of the headscarf issue in Turkey by analysing and contextualising the Constitutional Court decisions. In order to explain how and why the Constitutional Court issued two opposing views of the headscarf ban, this article focuses on the changing political climate and legal developments that took place in Turkey between 2008 and 2014.
In earlier articles, we presented the consequences and the repercussions of the nefarious Western support to Turkey's undemocratic, duplicitous, anti-Western, and heinous premier; we demonstrated how contradictory it is to demand the military to stay in the barracks, when the threat comes from a minority-shown-as-majority parliamentary episode, namely that of Erdogan's, that is strongly reminiscent of Hitler's rise to power. Many in the West portray themselves as innocent questioners mendaciously demanding why the military want to intervene because of the eventuality of the Turkish President's wife wearing the so-called 'Islamic' headscarf. They know very well why, but they try to diffuse confusion among the otherwise terribly misinformed Western public opinion. 'Islamic' headscarf is not compulsory in Islam The West had always a very inaccurate representation of the Islamic World, and contrarily to what many believe, Orientalism and Islamology contributed greatly to the continuation of this misunderstanding and ignorance. As a matter of fact, the Islamic headscarf is not Islamic; it is Islamist. First published in Buzzle on 3rd May 2007 Republished in Islam Daily on 5th May 2007
The Gordian Knot of Turkish Politics: Regulating Headscarf Use In Public
South European Society and Politics, 2008
ABSTRACT: The Justice and Development Party of Turkey passed two constitutional amendments in 2008, in order to lift the headscarf ban in higher education. This act of Parliament stirred up Turkey's perennial debate over the role of religion in a secular republic. This article attempts to clarify the sides of the debate, and present an accurate account of their arguments. It places this topical issue in a historical context by discussing briefly the evolution of political Islam in Turkey, and the legal background of the headscarf issue. Finally, the article draws connections between the current headscarf debates and the endemic problem of gender inequality in Turkey. Keywords: Turkey; Justice and Development Party; Political Islam; Headscarf; Gender Inequality
Beyond the Headscarf: Secularism and Freedom of Religion in Turkey
TPQ – Turkish Policy Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 4, (Winter 2013): 91-99., 2013
The continuing stalemate in the headscarf controversy in Turkey stems from a mutual distrust about the way the concepts of secularism, democracy, and religious freedom are understood. Both Kemalist secularism, which defends the headscarf ban for the sake of protecting the secular regime, and liberal secularism, which opposes the ban for the sake of protecting the freedom of religion of Sunni Muslims, are short of offering a truly secular perspective that can come to terms with patriarchy in both its secular and Islamic varieties. This article argues that this impasse caused by fears about either top-down Islamization or secularization can be overcome only when women's rights and freedoms at large become the main concern for all parties in the debate.
Unveiling the Veil Ban Dilemma: Turkey and Beyond
Journal of international women's studies, 2012
This article examines Turkey's veil ban policy, which has been in place since the 1980s. The dilemma is whether Muslim-veil bans impinge on the rights of expression and religion at both national and international levels or, whether states may legally justify a ban on the basis of secularism and women's rights. Even though the idea of freedom "from religion" in Turkey has been closely linked to the European notion of secularism during most of Turkey's republican history, more recently, secularism and veil bans in Turkey and in the West have been construed quite distinctly. This shows an increasing gap between European and Turkey's politics and values. Keywords: Human rights, Muslim-veils, secularism, Turkey, women's rights. Introduction Scholars and practitioners of international law have recognized the obstacles that human rights must overcome to conflate individual and collective rights into a cohesive system. More specifically, the collective nature o...
In a series of earlier articles, we deplored the Western European ignorance and immorality as regards the current political crisis of Turkey, and the existing political options. The pathetic and criminal Western European attitude risks generating an Islamist chain reaction that will cause a Kurdish genocide in Turkey, a war in the Balkans, and riots-turned-rebellion in Western Europe. Acting in a way that brings closer their end, the bogus-democratic, highly manipulated from unelected centers of power, and deeply corrupt Western European elites contribute – because of their blindness - to Islamic Terrorism proliferation, by comically supporting the bogus-Islamic headscarf fanatics in Turkey. Or is it all well calculated, and in full concordance with societal developments in Europe and America? Bogus-Islamic Headscarf: the Embodiment of Gender Discrimination First published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 7th May 2007 Republished in Aram Nahrin on 7th May 2007