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For Hilal Kaplan, a graduate student who wears one, the talk sounds woefully outdated.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.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS