Word: turkeys
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...part of the mildly apathetic global Gen X brigade, but like many an urban Turk, I was raised on a solid diet of modernist mantras. The secular zeal of Turkey's nation-builders runs in my blood. As an air force pilot, my grandfather fought alongside Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's founder, in the country's war for independence. After it was won in 1923, his job was to help build Turkey's first fleet of biplanes. My grandmother was what's called an "Ataturk girl" - like many others, she was put on a train to Germany...
...that generation of reformers, the West was the shiny future, progress the ultimate good. English and French were spoken round the dinner table, and the women gathered to knit the latest Paris fashions. These children of a revolution dreamed of a westernized Turkey, and naively believed a little social engineering would get them there. Modernity was their religion...
...great-aunt, died recently in Ankara. In her lifetime, the capital's population went from 75,000 to 4 million, swelled by inflows of rural migrants looking for a better life. In time, a pious and conservative urban middle class emerged, and with it a different vision of Turkey's future. Ataturk's palace is now occupied by a former Islamist, whose wife wears a head scarf...
...most Americans and Europeans, the head-scarf issue is a no-brainer. In a functioning democracy, an 18-year-old has the right to attend university dressed however she chooses. That much is indisputable. By lifting the ban, Turkey will have righted a wrong that has been a thorn in its side for far too long...
...first step to increasing Islam’s influence on society and a serious threat to a non-religious public life. While the ban may seem anathema to Western liberal countries that prioritize freedom of religious exercise, the unique political and demographic characteristics of Turkey have made the ban quite appropriate, especially as the headscarf has become a political symbol of religious conservatism. The issue here is not simply the rights of individual women to don the headscarf in the classroom, but what impact the repeal will have on women’s rights and secularism in the broader context...