Turkey – The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism & Freedom of Religion – Turkey’s First Ladies

Abdullah Gul’s election in 2007 sparked controversy in Turkey
over the first lady’s headscarf, writes Elver [AFP]

The concept of the “first lady”
is unusual for Turkey. This changed in 2007 when the 11th president,
Abdullah Gul, and his wife, Hayrinnusa Gul, moved into the presidential
palace. In an earlier period, presidential wives were passive, virtually
invisible presences, limited to presidential palace protocol, and there was
no social interest in their lifestyles, political or social activities.

In the early years of the republic, most
of Turkey‘s presidents were selected by the parliament from
among the top military leaders, emphasising the clear link between them and
control of the Turkish state. There was also an implicit understanding that
the Turkish military was the guardian of Kemalist secularism and that their
lifestyle set a standard for Turkey‘s westernised image. Eliminating the headscarf was
high on the secular agenda both to achieve a Europeanised modernity and to
release Turkish women from their patriarchal bondage in Ottoman Turkey.

Every year during National Victory Day,
marked on August 30, the president celebrates the holiday by hosting a
western style ball to which high level governmental elites are invited. The
main purpose of such an event is to show that Turkey is part of the western club, and the presence of
highly placed Turkish women wearing a headscarf would spoil the desired
impression.

Icon of new Turkey

The founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was married to Latife Hanim, a sophisticated
western-educated woman who quickly became an icon of the new Turkish
society.

Although their marriage lasted only two
years, her image brought a western face to the new republic. Deferring to
her husband’s wish, she agreed to shed her headscarf so as to serve as a
model for modern Turkish women. Although Ataturk never banned the headscarf
as he did the wearing of the fez by men, he was conscious of the deep
cultural values of Turkish society, and understood the disconnect between
his view of secularism and the headscarf.

The election of Abdullah Gul in 2007
created intense political turmoil in Turkey centred on the first lady’s headscarf.
Tabloids, serious secular newspapers, state institutions, and university
presidents, all supported the campaign of the Republic People’s Party
(CHP), Turkey‘s main opposition party, against the supposed
impropriety of a Turkish first lady wearing a headscarf.

Especially in the early years of Gul’s
presidency, Mrs Gul was humiliated by the secular elite on every public
occasion. They claimed that her mere presence tarnished the secular image
of Turkey. Even fashion designers tried to find an acceptable outfit for the first lady.
When the Guls visited Oxford
University, a Turkish student insulted the first lady at a public
event solely because she was wearing a headscarf. In this particular
incident, the insult shocked the non-Turkish audience. Mrs Gul handled
these attacks gracefully. She even shielded her husband, perhaps
unconsciously, so that he did not receive nearly as much criticism as she
did.

Insulting the first lady

Turkish newspapers compared Mrs Gul with
other Muslim leaders’ wives, such as Mrs Assad of Syria, Mrs Mubarak of Egypt, and even Mrs Hussein of Iraq, praising their western-style wardrobes, and in the
process insulted their own first lady.

In the early years of the Justice
and Development Party (AKP) leadership, there was anxiety in the urban secular
sector that Turkey was at risk of becoming a theocracy like Iran, or at
least an Islamically oriented country like Malaysia. More importantly, there was a fear that the AKP
government’s unprecedented electoral success would deprive the formerly
dominant elites of their political and economic power. The frustrated
hardcore seculars came together in 2007 to organise anti-government
republican demonstrations nationwide.

This fearmongering campaign did not stop
there. It went all the way to the

with an attempt to have the ruling party declared
illegal because the parliament amended the controversial 1982 post-military
coup constitutional provision that had been relied upon to impose the
headscarf ban. The AKP government narrowly survived this judicial
challenge, gaining in strength with each successive election.

Since then, with a popular mandate, the
administrative regulations have gradually been relaxed allowing women who
wear the headscarf to attend universities, get jobs in government, and to
become members of parliament. At every stage of these changing rules, the
first ladies of Turkey have played a major role simply by reminding the
discontented seculars that the majority of Turkish women wear the
headscarf. Contrary to the widespread popular claim, as Mrs Gul explains:
“There are not more headscarves than before; the headscarf-clad women
have begun to be more active and as a result of this, more visible in
social life.”

Now those days are behind us. Turkey is entering a new era, as the 12th president of the
republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, emphasised after his election. It is
telling that newspapers have stopped making critical comments about the new
first lady and the new prime minister’s wife, Sare Davutoglu. These ladies
wear headscarves, and are often pictured in newspapers, TV programmes,
magazines, but these days, are rarely subjected to criticism. Has this
finally become a non-issue in Turkey? Not exactly.

In spite of the paranoia from staunch
secularists, it is important to point out that the AKP did not act to
breach the principles of secularism. There have been no policies put
forward to intimidate those who choose not to wear the headscarf.

Absurd rules

This is certainly a “new Turkey” for the majority of Turkish citizens. These
ladies fought hard, each in her own way, to benefit the more than
two-thirds of Turkish women who were previously not allowed to participate
in the state apparatus. Mrs Gul and Mrs Davutoglu both suffered from Turkey‘s absurd rules against wearing a headscarf at
university. Mrs Gul brought a headscarf suit against Turkey that went all the way to the European Court of Human
Rights – albeit, she withdrew the case after her husband was appointed
foreign minister.

Sare Davutoglu faced similar difficulties
in medical school. After graduation, she was not permitted to stay within
the university to become an academic specialist, and was unable to work in
public hospitals. Yet, this did not stop her from having a brilliant
career. Despite her public role in Ankara, she continues her medical practice in Istanbul. In addition, she has raised four children and is
active in civil society activities. For many years, she has been heavily
involved with the NGO Doctors Worldwide. She volunteered as a
doctor during the 2010 flood in Pakistan, and visited the troubled Arakan community in Myanmar and went with Turkish leaders to Somalia when the country was on the verge of collapse. Mrs
Davutoglu prefers to stay out of the public eye, but this is likely to be
difficult now that her husband has become Turkey‘s new prime minister.

Mrs Erdogan is well known nationally and
internationally for her passionate commitment to humanitarian causes
in Somalia, Gaza, and Myanmar. Her emotional speech after the 2008 Gaza attack was widely reported. It was an unusual act for
her to visit the families of those who lost their lives during a
controversial Turkish air operation in Uludere in December 2011.

After much courage and persistence, even
these secular opponents of headscarved women, have fallen silent. More
importantly, these ladies have served as role models for many young women
in Turkey who have been mostly liberated from the headscarf
barrier.

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