The government's decision this week to lift a ban on women wearing head scarves in universities raised a troubling question: Is Islam starting to erode Turkey's secular democracy?
But in Turkey, looks are often deceiving. A majority of Turks see the measure -- submitted on Tuesday to Parliament, where it is expected to be approved -- as good for both religion and democracy.
Here, the most observant citizens have been the most active democrats, while the staunchly secular old guard -- represented by the military and the judiciary -- has acted by coup and court order.
The paradox goes to the heart of modern Turkey, a vibrant Muslim democracy of 70 million between Europe and the Middle East. Its elected governments have never fully run the country. They are watched by a coterie of generals and judges who inherited power from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the brilliant, autocratic former general who created modern Turkey in 1923 from Ottoman remains.
The system he set up was secular but divided by class; the urban elite has intervened when it thought political leaders elected by the poorer, observant heartland were veering off course.
Now, for the first time, that underclass, represented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, is challenging the old order. His proposal on head scarves is likely to have broad support.
"It should be known that we are not working for anything else other than to stop the unjust treatment against our girls at university entrances," Erdogan said on Tuesday.
The leader of the secular opposition party, Deniz Baykal, played on familiar fears.
"Moves to end the head scarf ban are aimed at the very foundations of Ataturk's secular republic," Baykal said.
He added that the head scarf is "not part of our nation, history, traditions or culture."
For Hilal Kaplan, a graduate student who wears one, the talk sounds woefully outdated.
"It's like the ground cracked open and people from the 1930s crawled out," Kaplan said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS