Secularism in Turkey #
In case you hadn’t heard, Turkey’s ruling party is being taken to court in the hopes of making it illegal. This struck me as both odd and blatantly partisan, but Anne Applebaum offers some relatively reasonable explanations for why it may not be.
Fairly or not, in certain Turkish communities, a head covering in fact marks the wearer not just as faithful but as a believer in a particular version of Islam. Fairly or not, the head scarf carries with it, at least in Turkey, partisan connotations, as well as a suggestion of the wearer’s views of women. Political scientist Zeyno Baran pointed out to me that most of the wives of the current Turkish political leadership wear head scarves, that most of them donned the scarves after their marriages, and that most of them never worked or studied again after they wed. You can see why women who want something different might feel threatened.
In fact, the Turkish ban was first instituted in the 1980s precisely to protect these bareheaded women, as well as the secular students who wanted to remain so. For 20 years or so, the ban was relatively successful. After a few initial protests, it was widely accepted—how else can a deeply divided society survive, unless it creates zones of neutrality?—at least until the current government tried to get rid of it again this year.
More details about the situation are offered by The Economist.