Headscarf Politics

Living in Muslim countries for over a year and a half has made me very interested in Islam, especially women in Islam. To me, a scarf is something I wear when I'm cold. However, Islam has given a simple square of fabric magic powers to create controversy. Does the Koran call for women to cover themselves? How much should they cover? Legs? Arms? Hair? Face? What type and colour of fabric do they cover themselves with? At what age do they begin to cover their hair? Whose decision is it that a woman covers her hair? Should a politician be judged, based on whether his wife covers her hair? Should a female in politics be allowed to wear a headscarf? Should the law be able to decide if and when a woman must/should/can't cover her hair? What punishment is just when a woman is inappropriately covered or dressed? None of these questions have easy answers.

At work I get an English newspaper called Today's Zaman. It is a conservative and religious newspaper so it is great fun for me to read as a non-conservative and definitely non-religious person. Most of the time I skip the articles on Turkish politics because it's all pretty boring to me, but since yesterday was International Women's Day, there were lots of articles about the plight of Turkish women. I wanted to share a few to show the current controversy over headscarves in this country. Headscarves are a hot subject in Turkey these days. Read about it on wikipedia, that way I can just sum up. Women are banned from wearing headscarves in educational settings, so this includes teachers, professors and students. Many foreigners who write on this subject applaud Atatürk for banning them and making Turkey more secular. These two articles show the opposite viewpoint, which definitely sounds like a legitimate argument against the ban. Working with a dozen women who have to take their scarves off to teachI've often wanted to broach the subject and hear their opinions, but the language barrier makes that impossible.

Dogs, not covered women, allowed in military housing
What was your fault in being a woman?

Also check out my friend Liz's blog post about the headscarf controversy in Crimean Ukraine, where she is currently doing a Fulbright.



I couldn't find this article on the website but I just found this amusing and it certainly broke up the pages and pages of anti-US articles resulting from the Armenia resolution that the House of Representatives is trying to pass.


Court sentences pop singer to write out lines

A Turkish pop star has been sentenced to write out Turkey's lengthy national anthem along with a five page critique of it after a court found her guilty of casting ethnic slurs at a concert. Seven businessmen from the primarily Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, in the impoverished southeast which has been troubled for years by separatist violence, took pop star Demet Akalin to court over comments she said were an attempt to liven up her audience. "What? Are you all from Diyarbakir? Did you come from the mountains? I don't understand where you people can be from all of you sitting there staring like morons," she allegedly said at a concert in the Aegean resort city of Bodrum in 2008. A court found her guilty of breaking a law banning public insults based on regional differences, social class or sexuality. But media said on Sunday that Akalin liked the idea and that she had memorized the national anthem in her school years.
(from Today's Zaman, Tuesday, March 9, 2010)