EU-DIGEST

Divided Turkey sweats in a political heat wave - by Bernard Bouwman

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party is furious because the Constitutional Court has decided to reinstate the ban on headscarves at Turkish universities. Rarely have the Turkish government and judiciary been so much at loggerheads. Is there any way out of the crisis? MK Party MPs cheered as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attacked the Turkish Constitutional Court in a speech on Tuesday. In February, MPs voted to abolish the ban on headscarves at Turkish universities, but last week the Constitutional Court revoked the decision. The religious headscarf is again outlawed on campus. And like many others in his party, Mr Erdogan is furious. In his speech to parliament he asserted,
"The constitution clearly says that legislative power belongs solely to elected parliaments" - not, therefore, to the Constitutional Court. "No one can take away the power the constitution grants to the respected parliament." Mr Erdogan's speech is indicative of the degree of political tension in Turkey. The secular camp (the CHP Party, the army and the judiciary) bitterly complains that Mr Erdogan and his supporters are striking at the roots of the secular system in Turkey.They claim only religious people are being appointed to top positions, and the AK Party is doing its best to push Turkey in the direction of Islam. The headscarf at universities is the thin end of the wedge, say secular Turks.

Note EU-Digest: A headscarf like a yamaka is a symbol of religious belief. If the constitution is changed , whereby the wearing of religious symbols is enforced and thereby indirectly undermines the secularity of the state, as seems to been the case in Turkey, it can only be seen as an attempt by the government of Mr. Erdogan to change the secular status of Turkey.

Labels: Headscarfs, Secularism, Turkey

Turkey and Islam - Veils of half-truth

To Turkey's secular elite it is a step back to the dark ages; to its conservatives, an overdue right. Either way, the constitutional changes approved by parliament to ease the ban on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in universities will trigger a new battle between the mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his secular opponents.

So what is all the fuss about? One answer is that the battle over headscarves is not really about religion at all. Rather it is a power struggle between a rising class of observant Turks from the Anatolian hinterland and an entrenched elite of secular “white” Turks, backed by the generals and the judiciary. “Women with scarves used to be our maids, now they have become our neighbours,” sniffs one Istanbul socialite.

The bigger worry is that Turkey has not yet devised a system of checks and balances that can protect the rights of all individuals, be they secular or pious, Turks or Kurds. As Abdullah Gul, the pro-European Turkish president, argued this week, EU membership could offer a panacea for Turkey's ills. If only Mr Erdogan (and existing EU members) would agree.Er

Labels: EU, Headscarfs, Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey