Ever since Marx we know that religious world is nothing but a reflection of the real world. The omnipotent “Allah” of the religious world is the dominant, wealthy, powerful man of this world. The headscarf does not bind women to Allah, but ties them to men. The headscarf is the crudest and most obvious announcement of patriarchy as the basis of gender relations and of the subordination of women to men; it is the expression of women’s incorporation of this same subordination as the supreme value.
The century-old struggle of women in Turkey to free them from this subordination, to transform their lives is now facing a heavy attack from the holy alliance of the barracks-mosque-marketplace-sects-gray wolves.
Is turban the banner of freedom?
It is the irony of history that the final leap of this relentless offensive by the single-party government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan –who labels the women’s liberation as the “adoption of Western immorality”- for driving women from the streets, from the public sphere, from the workplace to home is launched under the banner of “freedom for women”.
The great reaction aroused among the liberated women by the government attempts to lift the ban on wearing headscarves in the universities is due to their comprehension of the meaning of this Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) far better than the “liberal professors” who greet the move as a further step towards “academic freedom”.
The debate on lifting the ban on headscarves in the universities appears as a moment of overall conservatisation, a moment of the process which goes hand in hand with the obliteration of the women identity in the public sphere, the social, economic and cultural losses the women suffer in education, daily life and the work life.
Presenting the headscarf, the symbol of male domination, as “freedom for women” is actually an example of a classic strategy of psychological warfare. During the power struggle among Muslims after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, Muaviye –the leader of the Sunnite sect- in the Siffin War had masterfully surprised the warriors of his foe Ali by hanging pages of the Koran on the spears of his soldiers. Their beliefs turned into a weapon against themselves, the perplexed army of Ali was defeated.
Now the coalition of the AKP and the pro-fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) having neutralized the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) is expanding their onslaught on women by attaching pages of “freedom” on their spears. Now the quiz goes: “Answer, are you for freedom of education for women with headscarves?”
Looking at the relatively greater number of “wise” people who accept taking this “law quiz” which has only two options of “yes” and “no” implies that they to might be the believers of a certain religion- the “religion of freedom”. The fear from “sinning against freedom” inevitably draws them in the power game of the AKP.
A “history problem”, not a “law quiz”
There are others who see the issue as a “win-win” situation – Erdogan’s favorite motto. “If we say ‘yes’ for lifting the ban on headscarves in the universities, they may say ‘yes’ for broader freedom of expression” their reasoning goes.
However, endorsing all government actions as the implementation of “human rights” leads nowhere but imprudence. For, the government is least interested in broadening human rights but bases all of its attempts on the political supremacy it has gained through the election victory; there exists no trace of a government intention for such a “win-win” game in this case; the dynamic of EU membership bid -the sole dynamic that pushes the AKP for the so called “legal reforms- is in its death throes under the pressure of the European right. A “win-win” situation is only an illusion, generated by the “love for freedom”.
We are not posed with a “question of law”, nor are we in a school-debating club. We are posed a “question of history”: The new block of AKP-MHP, formed with the passive consent of the army represents a threshold of freedom? Is the struggle to allow women the “freedom to go to university with headscarves” a priority in the programme of the social opposition?
“Nationalist-Laicist front” wrecked
It is clear that the nationalist-laicist front in which the Turkish Armed Forces played a central role prior to the general elections has collapsed with the landslide victory of the AKP. And the army now behaves in accordance with the necessities stemming from its top priority –“territorial integrity”, or in other words eliminating the Kurdish Question.
The army, under the new shift of the balances has decided to consolidate it “cross-border operations” in the Iraqi territory with the “Islamic operations of the AKP” in the Kurdish areas on this side of the Turkey-Iraq border. Faced with a bitter choice, the army had to say “yes” to AKP’s Islamist control in Turkey’s southeastern areas vis-à-vis PKK’s popular support.
The army had to wage a fierce fight to gain Washington’s consent for cross border. Turkish establishment released all it had in hand to squeeze the USA, it had to tolerate all sort of “nationalist provocation” in order to unleash the anti-American sentiments among the public, which in turn revitalized dormant “gangs” of retired secret security personnel. Two years of a bloody campaign comprising series of attacks, sabotages and even murders (e.g. that of journalist Hrant Dink), supported by a network of connections within the NGOs, parties, and the media reached its climax prior to the July elections.
Now this apparatus is being liquidated under an obvious consensus between the government and the army. The US consent for the cross-border operations is gained. There is no room for army-backed anti-Americanism. The recent operation directed at the ultra-nationalist gangs, which has employed scores of retired officers, is sweeping out the trash remaining from the two-year campaign. General Büyükanit, in his recent statement to the press has openly accepted that “those [soldiers] who have committed criminal acts should be punished in accordance with the law”.
The army is no pillar for the rights of women
The AKP-MHP coalition for lifting the ban on wearing headscarves in the universities thus, fills the power-vacuum arising out of the collapse of “nationalist-laicist front” after it is deserted by the armed forces. The disappointment and depression expressed by opposition leader Deniz Baykal of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) best sums up the consequences: “Now we have only the judiciary left.”
Yet the women, the most sincere participants of the motley crowds of the “Republican rallies” of last summer, are there, out on the streets. It is not surprising to see them pouring into the streets. As turban ironically gains the status of “banner of freedom.” They are there, because the social, cultural and economic policies of the AKP are aimed at pushing the women, with or without headscarf, home in order to make children and serve the men.
When women realize that this AKP policy towards women is a common product of the neo-liberal blueprint on women’s employment, social security and health, that they are not faced only with the issue of secularism but with that of social liberation, and when they realize that this is a struggle which cannot be won without fighting neo-liberal reaction, their anger will be poured into revolutionary channels.
The army, the CHP and the AKP are no use for women. Women need to realize that they cannot protect what they have achieved so far by siding with soldiers, fascists or fundamentalists; they also have to rid themselves of the illusion that laicism will be protected if women wearing headscarves are banned from university.
Socialists, socialist feminists and social rights activists cannot sit on the fence when women struggle against male dominance and against the imposition of religion. If the women’s struggle for liberation is not supported, then the liberation of workers is impossible; as long as half of the labor force is enslaved, you cannot even imagine the freedom of the other half. (EK/EÜ/AG/EK)
