No. 100 7

INTERVIEW

Veiling has been the main politicalissue for over a decade in Turkey. Overthis period it has become the emblemof Islamisation not just in Turkey, butin Europe as well. In France, the basicdiscussion on French secularism wastriggered by the demands of Muslimhigh school girls to put on the headscarf. It is labeled ‘the head scarfdispute’ in France. In almost all non-western Muslim countries,certainly in Turkey, the women’sissue is a basic issue, it is notsecondary epi-phenomenon. Itis almost a marker to understandthe history of modernisationand to understand the Islamicmovement today as well. Wehave to put at the centre of ouranalysis women’s symbolicmeaning, the meaning ofwomen’s bodies and alsowomen’s agency. It is more thana matter of modern versustraditional dressing.

Do Turkish women have atraditional head scarf?

Yes and it has nothing to dowith this modern Islamic headscarf. At the beginning it wasless colourful and totally cov-ered the hair and shoulders.

(fathers, husbands, brothers) to wearthe burka, the majority were not forced.Suddenly the Islamic movement usedthe symbol of the headscarf to increaseits visibility. I’m trying to understandthis movement from the inside, not justfrom the external indicators. Who arethese women who put on the veil? Inthe Turkish case, they come from mod-est social origins. The bulk of the

movement’s support comes notfrom the main cities, but from themore peripheral cities and smalltowns with a conservative back-ground. What is interesting isthat the women from these back-grounds put on this headscarfafter they arrive in the big cities.Veiling is an urban phenomena.

And women in the country-side?

Women in the countrysidewear the classical headscarf, butnot this new item of dress, whichis a more militant symbol. As Imentioned earlier, veiling is partof an urban movement of edu-cated girls. These girls have suc-ceeded at the university entranceexams. These exams are very,very difficult in Turkey, very se-lective, and very competitive. It

In India, some Muslim men havenever been content with the tradi-tional head scarf. They insist on thefull burka, where the woman’s wholeface and body is covered. Do menpressurise women in Turkey to wearsomething similar?

In Turkey as well, as my researchhas shown, there were always somewomen who were forced by their men

N ILOFER Gole is a professor of sociology at the Bogazici University, Istanbul. She was educated in France,where she worked with Alain Touraine on new social movements in Europe for 10 years. Since then shehas been working on issues related to women and politics in Turkish society. Her most recent book is on

Islamic veiling. In this interview with Manushi, taken during one of her visits to India, she talks about the centralityof this issue of veiling to women’s lives. Many of the questions she raises regarding the secularist handling ofreligious issues in Turkey have direct bearing on the Indian situation. - Ed.

Lifting the VeilReform Vs Tradition in Turkey

An Interview with Nilofer Gole

A

Nilofer Gole

8 MANUSHI

requires real skill to score well in them.I have also found that most often, thoseyoung women who not within the Is-lamic movement, are not as well-edu-cated as compared to the urban veiledgirls. The image of the Islamic move-ment as made up of uneducated, rural,or marginal women is inaccurate. Thesewomen are an upwardly-mobile group,who are making new radical politicaldemands. They are not just going backto religiosity, or an Islamic way of liv-ing, but they are making a politicalmovement out of Islam, and religion.What is paradoxical is that thesewomen who are participating in Islamicmovements are, at the same time, leav-ing the domestic space, the privatesphere. They are distancing them-selves from traditional women’s rolesthrough education and throughpoliticisation, because now they arewriting in the newspapers and acquir-ing public visibility as professionals,as writers, as intellectuals, and evenas political activists.

Thereby gaining visibility thatthey didn’t have before?

Yes, they didn’t have this visibilitybefore. They are just starting to par-ticipate in the public sphere of life.Their participation has come througheducation, mastering of modern edu-cation and knowledge, writing in thejournals and newspapers and evenspeaking in public debates and on pub-lic television. This is a new phenom-enon. The image of the traditionalMuslim woman is that of a docile crea-ture, one who is much more engagedin her basic family traditional roles, asmother and wife. But these militantIslamic women are bringing about achange in the role and image of Mus-lim women.

But I thought that Turkish womenwere exceptional in that they took tomodernisation long ago...

Exactly. But these radical Islamicistwomen are a small minority, not morethan 10 per cent of the population. The

debate before the advent of the Turk-ish nation-state in 1923 with MustafaAttaturk at the helm of affairs. Underhis leadership Turkey began buildinga secular republican nation-state.Throughout this period, women’s po-sition in society became a major issue.The modernists (or reformists) arguedthat the only way to achieve progresswas through the emanicipation ofwomen. The conservatives were ar-guing that if we let go of some of ourtraditions, we would lose our identity,so we shouldn’t allow women to comeout of their traditional roles and be-come professionals. The conservativeswere defining their political projectthrough the control of women’s roles;conserving our identity meant keep-ing women delimited within the domes-tic space. Women were the markers ofcommunal morality. But from 1923 on-wards, we see radical modernisationunder Mustafa Attaturk. Our civilcode was translated and adapted fromthe Swiss civil code in 1926 and be-came secularised.

How is it that you chose to emu-late the Swiss Civil Code instead ofthe French Napoleonic code?

The Swiss code was considered tobe the most progressive at that point

Islamic women students at the university

Islamic movement is just a minoritymovement for the time being. It is not amovement which has yet brought theentire Turkish population in its fold.The majority of the population is liv-ing under a more modern way of lifeusing a different ideology. Turkey isquite distinctive in its radical engage-ment in modernisation starting withMustafa Attaturk.

Could you give a little back-ground?

Yes. Movements of modernisationbegan in the Tanzimat period in 1876.The question raised was: to what de-gree was Turkey going to acceptwesternisation as synonymous withmodernisation during that period, andto what degree would we preserve ourcultural identity? This was the main

“What is paradoxical isthat these women who areparticipating in Islamic

movements are, at the sametime, leaving the domestic

space, the private sphere. . .. are distancing themselvesfrom traditional women’s

roles. . . .”

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No. 100 9

of time. Modernisation meant theemancipation of women, and more pre-cisely, the public visibility of women.Modernity in Turkey was almost syn-onymous with women taking publicroles, without questioning the privateroles. Kemalist reforms pushed womeninto the public sphere, through citizen-ship, through getting their educationalrights, and even at the level of thebody. It was not by accident that in1995, Turkey had a woman presidentas well as a woman prime minister. Citi-zenship rights, and even more thanthat, women’s rights, defined the struc-ture and meaning of reforms, such asthe coeducation of girls and boys. Themixing of men and women in socialspaces and in education was very imp-ortant since it went against the segreg-ation that is conceived of as a key tenetof Muslim organisational and commu-nity life. For us, a woman’s morality isrelated to the way she covers her body.This signifies the separation of theprivate (all that is forbidden and whatis related to the sexuality of women)and the public, or mahrem (forbiddento the foreign eye, and to the foreignman).

But why did Turkish men definemodernisation in this particularfashion?

Because modernisation was con-ceived against the Islamic conceptionof social life. Modernity was con-ceived in binary, oppositional terms; itwas thought of as liberation from Is-lamic traditions. I think it was a veryJacobin notion and an exaggeration ofthe French construction of modernity.It was anti-Islam.

What are the other components ofthis modernisation apart from thiswomen’s project?

Apart from the women’s project,there was also a transition from a multi-ethnic empire to a republican nation-state. The ideology of Turkish nation-alism, compared to multi-ethnic Otto-man identity, emphasised a homo-

C

Young girls participating in a sports festival: a marker of Republican modernity

D

“The ideology of Turkishnationalism, compared to

multi-ethnic Ottomanidentity, emphasised a

homogenising process.”

nationalisation process.You are referring to the large scale

massacre of the Kurdish and Arme-nian populations?

Yes, Nationalist ideologies arebased on purification of race, languageand history, so that was one of themajor components. The written lang-uage changed from Arabic to The Latinscript. There was a Turkification oflanguage purging it of its Persian andArabic influences. We witnessed acombination of nationalism on the onehand, and western oriented nationa-

Overcoming the educational barriers

genising process. The banning of cer-tain language groups began many ofTurkey’s modern problems, includingthe Armenian problem. Although theArmenian troubles occurred prior to theformation of the nation-state, never-theless it was part of this

10 MANUSHI

list version of feminism onthe other. It was a westerni-sation project, and the twoessential components werenationalism and feminism.

How were the ethnicrelations conducted priorto the republic, in the Ot-toman empire?

The empire ruled com-munities of individualswithin millets. Millets wereregulated but they werenot unified under one law.

But were they warringcommunities? Did theyhave a past history of con-stant conflict?

No. Each one governedits own affairs. Each onehad the rights of worship,education, language, andlaw. But we shouldn’tidealise it, as is happeningnow. Of course, they wereunder the political and themilitary control of the Ot-toman state.

The Shah of Iran’smodernisation project wasalmost violent in its strat-egies. They seem to haveforced, for instance, libera-tion from the veil. How wasit in Turkey?

No, in Turkey the modernisationproject was not so violent because un-like in Iran where they continued withthe monarchical regime there was arupture with the Ottoman aristocraticmonarchical classes in Turkey becauseof the Kemalist reformers. The reform-ers were able to get closer to people.They were civil and military servants.Turkey has a very rich political experi-ence, although it has been interruptedby military interventions, and a veryrich democratic experience that Irani-ans didn’t have. In Turkey, democraticinstitutions, political parties, civil so-ciety, social movements, pressure

lier from 1923 to 1946 therewas a single party regimeunder the RepublicanPeople’s Party in Turkey.This regime was a productof the Kemalist reformers.In my view, secularism hasalways been implementedby authoritarian regimes inMuslim countries. Theyhave believed that if theylet the principle of popularsovereignty work throughdemocratic elections, wewould move towards thevalues of traditional soci-ety, and Islamic values. So,that’s why there was al-most a kind of opposition,a kind of tension, in theTurkish experience be-tween secularism and de-mocracy at the beginning.

How authoritarian isthe regime?

It is not as authoritar-ian as the regime of theShah of Iran because wehad the transition in the1950s to democracy. Wehave not had a series ofdictatorial regimes. Thetransition to democracycreated middle classes, and

middle classes found the way to cometo power. There is alternating powerin Turkey because of this transition todemocracy that began in 1946. There’sthe Democratic Party which is more lib-eral-conservative and closer to soci-etal values, including Islam, but veryliberal at the political and economiclevel. It came to power in 1950 as themain opposition party against the Re-publican People’s party. The 1950swere a very important turning point inTurkey, when different social groupsfirst acquired representation.

What was the concrete manifesta-tion of the way secularism was imposedfrom above by the reformist regime?

A member of the Refah Party

E

groups, and independent mass mediaplayed an important role in this transi-tion, unlike in Iran.

From the 1920s to 1950s many radi-cal changes took place in Turkey. Ear-

G

Mustapha Kemal Pasha

No. 100 11

Firstly, almost all the traditional re-ligious organisations were banned. Soshariat, the religious law, was totallyabolished by the regime. And theSwiss Civil code, as I mentioned ear-lier, was implemented. Secondly, reli-gious marriages, for example, were notrecognised by the state anymore.

Though they are socially accept-able, the children don’t have any citi-zenship rights and all other rights thatgo along with it like property and in-heritance until the parliament decides,about once every few years, to acceptthe children born from religious mar-riages. One of the campaigns of pro-gressive people is having collectivecivil marriages for women who previ-ously had only religous marriages andwho therefore don’t have any basicrights, such as divorce.

In India, it doesn’t matter what thestate says. A de facto marriage is onewhich has social recognition. Do themajority of people continue to gothrough the religious ceremony inTurkey?

Some people have both civil andreligious ceremonies, But many fromthe middle classes have totally aban-doned religious marriages.

What about the rural population?Are they also going in for civil mar-riages?

Some of them only have religiousmarriages, which is the cause for someof the modern campaigns for civil mar-riages. There are recurrent legal regu-lations to recognise the children bornout of these marriages.

What were the distinguishing fea-tures of this progressive code, besidesstate sanctified marriage? What rightsdid it give?

It gave women civil rights regard-ing marriage, equal inheritance, eligi-bility to vote and an easy access todivorce.

And would you say the code is suf-ficiently egalitarian to be attractiveto women?

F

“...Traditional religiousorganisations were banned.

So shariat, the religiouslaw, was totally abolished

by the regime. And theSwiss Civil Code, was

implemented.. . . religiousmarriages, . . . were notrecognised by the state

anymore.”

Dress codes were also banned. . . . the fez, which was the hat of theMuslim Ottomans, was banned by law

Feminist movements and progres-sive women are campaigning right nowagainst some clauses in the civil codedating from the 1920s which are notsufficiently progressive. For instance,a woman has to ask permission fromher husband in order to work outsidethe house. Although we don’t applyit in reality, women don’t want it evenas a law. Dress codes were alsobanned. For example, the fez, whichwas the hat of the Muslim Ottomans,was banned by the law.

And about the veil for the women?It wasn’t banned, but it was dis-

couraged and women were not allowed

to wear their head scarves in publicplaces such as schools. As a reaction,in this generation women began theIslamic veiling movement on univer-sity campuses asking for the right toput on their head scarves while attend-ing university classes.

It’s not a majority movement be-cause the majority of women in themiddle classes are very much attachedto a secular way of life. The secular-ists would say that individuals shouldhave a right to live as they choose, interms of alcohol consumption, danc-ing, nightclubs, veiling or not veiling.They oppose censorship and favourfree expression in the arts. On the otherhand, the Islamic movement would tryto put limits on what is permissible andwhat is forbidden.

Even though the latter is a minoritymovement, it is a significant, influen-tial and determined minority. What isinteresting is that the Islamic party hasbeen on the political scene in Turkeysince the 1970s, and it is becoming lessmarginal, less peripheral. It is becom-ing a very important political force be-cause it is being welcomed by peoplefrom the modern, urban, and political

12 MANUSHI

spheres, including the universities.Everywhere in the world today, mar-ginal political forces, nationalist move-ments, and Islamic movements, aregetting more and more involved in cen-tre stage politics. So ethnicity and re-ligiosity are coming into the politicalsphere where we thought before thatthey were totally marginalised.

Are they using the banner of Islamor nationalism?

Islam. The Kurdish ethnicity issuewill be another marker to distinguishbetween nationalist and Islamic con-cerns. Those who are pureIslamic,against nationalism, would beless nationalist on the Kurdish issue.

Are they willing to give the Kurdsa measure of autonomy?

Some Islamists would argue that allnationalist ideologies are totally reac-tionary, western products, and evenprimitive. Therefore they wish to beconcerned about the Umma, the over-all community of believers. The Islam-ist party will have the vote of theKurdish population simply becausethere is a latent inclusion of the Kurdishpopulation within the Islamist fold.Nationalists would have a tendency toexclude ethnic groups such as theKurds.

In the Kurdish case, is the Kurdishidentity more important, or Islam?

There are differences within theKurdish community about their iden-tity. There is a Kurdish separatist move-ment which is based on Marxist-Leninist thought, but there are alsosome Kurds who are more Muslim andnationalist, while some Kurds are to-tally for assimilation.

Are you saying that the manner inwhich the Kurdish issue gets to behandled is going to determine the fateof democracy in Turkey?

Yes, though in Turkey, opinionsare divided on this issue as well. Thereformists believe in the deepening ofdemocracy and the conservatives areanti-democracy. The latter would

consider movements which make anappeal to ethnicity or religiosity to bereactionary movements, andthreatening to the secularism of thestate in the case of the Kurdishnationalist movement. If, for instance,the Islamist party comes to powerthrough the ballot box, theauthoritarians would justify militaryintervention. With respect to theKurdish issue, the politically liberalreformists would say that we must givefull importance to human, political, andcultural rights. In democratic terms,maybe the reformists don’t give thesolution, but at least they would saywe have to create a public debate inorder to understand who wants what,in order to create a consensus. Whilesome feminists would end up more onthe democratic side, others would leanto the authoritarian side. And somefeminists would acknowledge Kurdishrights.

Where do you stand?I am a radical democrat, but I am

totally independent in that I do nothave any political affiliations. Indepen-dence from political action is crucialfor a sociologist in order to highlightsome of the aspects of the problemswhich are not taken into consideration

through political debates. Politicaldebate fixes the terms of thepolarisation, whereas, I would con-sider social scientific work as some-thing which moves the frontiers,changes the frontiers. So, my work hasgotten me a bit under a crossfire fromboth sides. But on the positive side, Ialso became a bridge between the two.

Have you been involved in nego-tiations between these two groups?

I have not been directly involvedbut due to my work, in areas of publicdebate where the Muslim intellectualsand secular intellectuals were nevertogether, the two groups started com-ing together. I was among those whoblurred the frontiers; I mean, if I am asecularist, it doesn’t mean that I amanti-Islam.

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SORRY FOR THE DELAY

We are extremely sorry that Manushiis running behind schedule. This issue, inparticular, has been very late in coming dueto unavoidable problems. We hope to catchup in the next three months. We assure ourreaders that they will get the six issues due tothem for a year's subscription before the yearis out. - Editor