great Turkish headscarf war

Turkey’s increasingly Islamic Government wants to relax a ban on the Muslim headscarf as traditional secularists fight to maintain it – and Turkish women are caught in the crossfire

Zeynep tugs the knitted cotton hat down over her headscarf. “Secular!” she says. Then she pulls off the hat, leaving just the orange fabric around her pale, earnest face. “Now, not secular!” I’m relieved that she is laughing, sees the funny side of having to look like a Smurf to complete her MA in history. The headscarf war in Turkey is so grave and bitterly entrenched that it has brought angry millions onto the streets. It is why the country’s constitutional court this month decides whether the democratically elected AKP Government should be removed from office. A square of coloured silk may yet cause a military coup.

Even so, the code that dictates what Turkish women may or may not stick on their heads when they study at universities or take government jobs has a comic absurdity. In the wig shops that have sprung up across Istanbul, the Christina Aguilera-ish blonde dos are worn by the clubbers and transvestites who party in bars around polyglot Taksim Square, but the bestselling model is a mouse-brown, fringed bob of synthetic hair, bought in the thousands every September by devout Muslim girls, to be pulled from bags and on to heads to replace the scarves that must be removed before they can pass through college doors. Turkey, always a gateway between Europe and Asia, is the nexus of our most fervent global dialogues: East v West, secularism v religion, state v the individual. Turkey poses the question: can an Islamic nation be truly democratic? And how the West longs for an affirmative answer. In the middle, strafed by ideological crossfire, dragged between camps and paraded by each in triumph like Helen of Troy, is the Turkish woman. Who has control over her body? The imams, the State or the woman?

It is best to be honest and say that, as a Western, secular feminist, I abhor the headscarf. In London, I feel anger and dismay at eight-year-old British Muslim girls in hijab. If this is an act of sexual propriety, why is it now so often extended to prepubescent children, other than to render women hamstrung and invisible, almost from birth? Loose clothing, the covering of legs and arms, I can better understand. The invocation to Western women to look perpetually “hot” and up-for-it is depressing, too.

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Hijab Battles Around the World

Tayyibah, St. Paul Minnesota. Fatima, Creil, France. Samira, Algiers, Algeria. What do these women have in common? They are all Muslim, and they’ve all had a run-in with the law.

Their crimes, you ask? Wearing Hijab, or the Islamic head scarf. Worldwide there seems to be a growing consensus that a few yards of cloth on a woman’s head, especially if it covers part or all of her face, is a threat to education, women’s rights, public security and even to freedom of religion itself.

MUSLIM COUNTRIES NOT IMMUNE TO THE TREND
Amazingly, countries whose populations are predominantly Muslim are not immune to this trend. Indeed, it seems they have led the charge.
For many years, Turkey, followed more recently by Algeria and Tunisia, has had a prohibition on wearing Hijab.
Egypt, up until a few weeks ago, also forbade women students to wear scarves. Morocco forbade its citizens living in France to join protests against Hijab strictures there.
Women who defy the bans may be arrested, denied jobs and education, fined or even thrown in prison. More recently, moves against the Hijab have been made in European and American countries.
THE CASE OF HIJAB DISCRIMINATION IN FRANCE
This September in France, the national minister of education issued a directive that effectively banned head scarves from the classroom. On October 3, police were called in to prevent 22 Muslim girls from entering their school wearing the Hijab.
Since then polls have shown that 86 percent of the French populace supports the education minister’s decree.
The general perception is that Hijab is a threat to secularism and the separation of religion and state. In particular, there was concern that Hijab is responsible for dividing Muslim and non-Muslim students.
Some even claim that it is an Islamist plot to “demolish the secular public system” (Le Point Magazine).
Others worry that head scarves introduce religious influences into the public school and places undue strain on other students to conform to Islam’s dress or moral code.
HIJAB: A VIOLATION OF A WOMAN’S RIGHTS?
Another claim is that Hijab constitutes a violation of the female’s human rights because it is a form of discrimination.
Yet, it is common in France for students to wear crosses or yarmulkes (the Jewish skullcap) and for Jewish students to be exempted from Saturday classes. Defending his discriminatory decision, [French education minister Francois] Bayrou declared, “My instructions to school heads will be very clear. We will continue to accept discrete religious signs, as has always been the case. But we cannot accept ostentatious signs that divide our youth.”
BENAZIR BHUTTO ON THE HIJAB
Visiting Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto added insult to injury, when addressing the French Diplomatic Press Association on November 3.
[She]said that Muslim girls who want to wear head scarves perhaps “want to make an identity of their own and to observe what they consider to be their traditions,” and declared “luckily my father did not ask me to wear a veil, otherwise I might not be here before you today.”
HIJAB DISCRIMINATION IN AUSTRALIA
Sociology professor Gary Bouma, of Melbourne’s Monash University, who authored [the] Australian Bureau of Immigration and Population Research’s report, says wearing the Hijab “clearly sets a woman aside as different and as a serious Muslim,” adding “that wearing the Hijab made it difficult for them to get jobs.”
The report, which said that many of Australia’s 150,000 Muslims have experienced harassment and bigotry, was released by Immigration Minister Nick Bolkus on November 4, just days after his government announced new laws carrying jail sentences for inciting racial hatred.

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Teacher ‘insulted Muslim pupil’

A teacher forced a Muslim pupil to remove a headscarf and then said her religion was a “big joke”, a court has been told. Hazel Dick, 43, of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, is accused of scratching the 15-year-old girl’s chin with a pin holding the scarf in place as she removed the garment.

Stuart Alford, prosecuting at Peterborough Crown Court, said Ms Dick also insulted the Islamic religion by saying: “Islam is all a big joke”.

The teacher denies a charge of religiously aggravated common assault.

On Monday jurors were told the incident occurred last March at Bretton Woods Community School in Peterborough, where Ms Dick was head of science.

Mr Alford said the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was a Muslim pupil who chose to wear a hijab – a headscarf tied around her head.

On 26 March the girl arrived at school wearing a black hijab instead of the school uniform hijab.

The (girl) says… that Ms Dick became annoyed and she pulled the scarf from her head forcibly Stuart Alford, prosecuting

He said Ms Dick asked the girl to change the headscarf for a uniform version when she came to class.

“It was whilst she was changing her scarf that this incident happened,” said Mr Alford.

“(The girl) was unfastening the pins which held the scarf in place … (she) began unfastening the pins under her chin.

“(She) says it was at this point that Ms Dick became annoyed and she pulled the scarf from her head forcibly.

“As she did so the pins … particularly the one under her chin, opened up and became undone and scratched across her neck.”

Concerned teacher

He said Ms Dick also insulted the girl’s religion.

He told the court Ms Dick said: “‘Doesn’t your religion teach you any respect? Would you look at your father like that? The amount you respect Allah. That is the amount I respect your shoe. Islam is all a big joke.’”

Mr Alford said two other pupils witnessed the incident.

However, he said Ms Dick told police during an interview the girl unpinned the scarf and “just slid it off at the back”.

The teacher also told officers she was concerned as the girl was changing her scarf in public.

The hearing continues on Tuesday.

BBC News 

Legal action in Muslim dress ban

Legal action in Muslim dress ban

A teenager is taking a local education authority to court claiming a ban on her wearing full Muslim dress has effectively excluded her from school.

The 15-year-old, who had not been to school for more than a year, said wearing the ankle-length jilbab was as important to her as praying.

Her Luton school has banned the outfit, as it contravenes uniform rules.

Her lawyers say the LEA has failed to provide her with an education – a claim which is denied.

The case is moving to the High Court in London on Friday, where lawyers will seek a judicial review, alleging Denbigh High School has unlawfully excluded her.

I planned to become a doctor because I like science a lot, but now I just think there’s no future in me Denbigh High School pupil

A legal team from the Children’s Legal Centre at the University of Essex, which is behind the case, also claims the ban breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.

The teenager told BBC Look East she just wanted to get on with her education.

“I sometimes just sit down and think ‘what am I going to do in the future?’,” she said.

“Am I going to live on benefits or something? Am I going to get a life?

“I’m not going to be able to go into further education as I had planned to.

‘Not excluded’

“I planned to become a doctor because I like science a lot, but now I just think there’s no future in me.”

The school has denied discrimination and Luton Borough Council, the education authority, said it would fight the claims.

Stuart Moore, assistant head teacher at Denbigh School, said the girl had not been excluded, but had taken the decision to be absent.

He said: “We would love for the girl to come back to school, and it’s very sad that she’s taken the decision to absent herself from the school.

Second incident

“There are issues about this style of dress – there’s concern about its length and health and safety issues.

“We also have issues of where to draw a line in terms of uniform.

“We have met with the pupil several times, with her family and the Education Welfare Service has been in touch with the family to try and resolve the issue.”

It is the second time a Bedfordshire school has been criticised for its uniform policy.

Icknield High School was in the spotlight for its ban on headgear – including the Muslim headscarves, hijabs.

Governors at the school were reviewing the policy.

 BBC News