Turkey lifting headscarf ban

« Chinese tourists heading out

Advances against malaria »

Trends

Posted by Justin Long ⋅ January 1, 2008 ⋅

Email This Post ⋅

Print This Post ⋅ View comments

Turkey’s parliament lifted a ban on Saturday on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf at university, a landmark decision that some Turks fear will undermine the foundations of their secular state. Turkey’s powerful secular establishment, which includes army generals, judges and university rectors, sees the headscarf as a symbol of radical Islam and believe it threatens the country’s secular order. Turkey is 99 percent Muslim.
The headscarf issue cuts to the heart of Muslim but secular, Western-oriented Turkey’s complex identity. Reuters reported that Erdogan, a pious Muslim whose own wife and daughters cover their heads, has long argued that the headscarf ban is a violation of individual and religious freedoms. But Turkey’s old secular elite regards the headscarf ban as vital for maintaining a strict separation of state and religion.

The headscarf ban in universities dates back to the 1980s but was significantly tightened in 1997 when army generals, with public support, ousted a government they deemed too Islamist. Opinion polls show a majority of Turks back an easing of the ban. Even after the reforms, women professors as well as civil servants will still be prohibited from wearing the headscarf (ANS).