The headscarf ban effective in Turkish universities was taken up at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and approved. The Court, in its decision, concluded that the ban is not in violation of the European Human Rights Convention, nor is it in violation of the protocol envisaging the state guarantee the right to an education. The ECHR noted the headscarf ban is interpreted as a “guarantee of democratic values” and the ban at issue, the Court emphasized, is a precautionary measure for the protection of secularism in the country. It was also pointed out that the headscarf is used as a political symbol; as well as having a religious meaning, the Court’s statement about the decision noted.
It is fair to accept that democracies should be able defend themselves
against any attempts targeting a totalitarian social order. Legal
arrangements are the final resort to apply controls and regulations to
defend democracy. Democracies, however, in order not to sabotage their
own targets should consider the reasons why women choose to wear
headscarves, their lifestyles, and their social functioning are the
requirements of pluralism. It cannot be said that every female student
at university that wants to wear a headscarf does so for the purpose of
establishing an Islamist regime. Most of them only wear a headscarve in
the hope of living their lives in line with their religious beliefs.
For this reason, if the ECHR in making its decision had recommended
taking such a distinction into consideration, at least in the case of
Turkish legal procedures, in addition to the recommendation of
approximating the Turkish legal procedures to Western European
countries, this would have been praiseworthy.
The ECHR ruling will not bring an end to discussion on the headscarf
issue either in Turkey or in other European Union countries. When
different traditions of different nation-states are considered, it
cannot be said that there is a common “European Model” in regard to the
attitude of the state against religious symbols and the headscarf. On
the contrary, female police officers in Britain have the freedom to
wear a headscarf, yet in France, there is a ban on state civil servants
wearing any religious symbols while on duty (since the enforcement of a
related law about the separation of state and religious affairs). Since
2004, female students attending public schools in France were also
banned from wearing headscarf while at school.
Points pro-banners fail to see...
Advocators of the headscarf ban in Turkey appear to miss one important
point; the headscarf included, private schools are exempt from the
blanket ban on wearing or displaying religious symbols. As in the case
with the pro-banners in Germany as well, they overlook the case that in
France, any form of religious symbol – either hanging a cross on a wall
or wearing it on a chain around the neck - are included in the scope of
this ban. As with the application that is partially in practice in some
German provinces that allows Christian symbols, the implementation of
the law banning the headscarf in France will definitely be virtually
impossible, due to the failure of individuals to remain neutral with
regard to religious symbols.
One of the important points of discussions in Turkey is that none of
the Western Europe countries implemented a law banning female
university students from wearing a headscarf. In Turkey, it is just the
opposite with teachers and some civil servants, such as judges included
in the headscarf ban, as opposed to most of the European countries. It
is impossible to compare the legal regulations in Turkey with that of
France because the headscarf ban that exists is a legal regulation that
covers limited areas in France. In Turkey, a general headscarf ban is
in practice in all public domains such as schools, universities, and
state offices. This ban sometimes causes strange circumstances to
arise. For instance, a mother who wants to attend her daughter’s
graduation ceremony may be banned from entering the university if she
is wearing a headscarf. Such implementation of the law encourages
thoughts suggesting that ultra-secular Jacobeans in Turkey are no worse
than some Islamist fanatics with marginal tendencies.
The situation is not good at all: Young women attending universities
remove their headscarves and wear wigs in an effort not to lose their
right to an education, which is their most natural right. Prime
Minister R. Tayyip Erdogan and some ministers are unable to take their
wives to official ceremonies; and President A. Necdet Sezer has on
occasion invited them to attend official functions without the
accompaniment of their wives. These facts are not right for a
democratic state of law. Turkey has a realist perspective, such as one
day becoming a member of the EU member ahead of it. Citizens of such a
Turkey-women or men- today deserve their state’s confidence in them
more than they before. What holds society together today is not Islam
or its values, but rather, the national culture. It is already known
that the symbiotic relationship between religion and society that is
claimed to exist in many other Muslim countries does not exist in
Turkey. The modernization process will further remove the
secularization of society in Turkey, but this process does not mean the
abrogating of religion as experience shows.
For social peace, not the EU...
The process of Turkey’s integration to the EU is to ensure Turkey
reaches a position where it has completely rid itself of the classic
reflexes particular to newly forming nation-states. This includes
overcoming of the fear of a theocratic state, which has no reasonable
grounding, and to provide religious freedom to Christian minorities,
Yezidis, Alevis and also the Sunni majority who do not accept their
state’s commentary on religion. Jan Philipp Reemtsma indicated a point
often ignored, which he termed the honor of a secular state in the
discussion of headscarf in Germany: The state must not allow a
religious belief to determine its approach to its citizens’ way of
dressing. In this sense, Turkey, too, must have the honor of not being
oriented by fear.
The ban of the headscarf in Turkey, of which there is no other example
in Europe, must be reassessed and eased, and the relevant legal
amendments must be made to bring it in line with Western European
standards. This arrangement must be made not because the EU asks it-
the EU has not requested this as yet- but because the social
disagreement on the very issue of the headscarf continues to prevent
social peace. A social consensus reached on this issue will also
reinforce the democratic model of Turkey, the majority of whose
population is Muslim. The intellectual struggle relating to the meaning
and meaninglessness of women wearing the headscarf must take place in
theology faculties, in discussion forums at universities and
newspapers, and not by the means of severe bans.
At this point, we want to make it clear that we are against making
political use of any religious symbol. When we make a comparison to
European countries, we see the relationship between various situations
in respect to the headscarf, the handling of events in their own
contexts or the expression of opinions change between different
countries. However, in Turkey, the private religious lives of people
are inconsiderately trimmed, without any differentiation. The EU
Commission placed its finger one again on the restrictions of religious
freedom. Among other things, especially with regard to the situation of
religious minorities that were touched upon, it is clear that the
restrictions are not only a problem for the minorities, as the head
scarf ban in universities clearly shows. Muslims are still facing
oppression.
In EU member countries, it is always a matter for complaint that EU
citizens do not identify themselves wholly with the Union. Turkey is
now on its way to becoming a member of the EU and the Turkish people,
the majority of whom are Muslims, support their government’s policy on
EU membership. Therefore, if the ECHR had made its decision towards a
relaxation of the ban on the headscarf, as in the case of asking for a
legal arrangement according to the French model, in which the state is
not involved in the administration of universities and private schools-
such a decision would have sent a very positive signal strengthening
more positive attitudes towards Europe.