Justification of headscarf bans in Europe and Turkey: A comparative analysis

ABSTRACT

This study aims to descriptively analyze public debates in Europe and Turkey on Muslim women's head coverings in the context of similarities and differences. The main question the study attempts to answer is: How are the headscarf bans in Europe and Turkey discursively constructed and justified after 9/11 in Europe and the 28 February 1997 era in Turkey and what differences and parallels can be observed? With this question in mind, I first summarize the practices regarding the headscarf in Europe and Turkey and the policies adopted by the states. I also examine how headscarf bans are justified in public discourses in European countries and in Turkey. What the study ultimately reveals is that despite their differences in cultural, religious, and socio-political backgrounds, the European countries and Turkey have developed comparable perspectives and procedures regarding the representation of Muslim women in the public sphere during the historical eras compared.

ABSTRACT IN TURKISH

Bu çalışma, Avrupa ve Türkiye’de Müslüman kadınların başörtüsüne dair kamusal tartışmaları benzerlikler ve farklılıklar bağlamında analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmada cevabı aranan temel soru şudur: “Avrupa ve Türkiye'de farklı zaman dilimlerinde (Avrupa'da 11 Eylül 2001 sonrası ve Türkiye'de 28 Şubat 1997 sonrası) uygulanan başörtüsü yasakları söylemsel olarak nasıl inşa edilmiş ve meşrulaştırılmıştır; bu bağlamda Türkiye ve Avrupa’da ne gibi farklılıklar ve paralellikler gözlemlenebilir?” Bu çerçevede, makalede öncelikle Avrupa ve Türkiye'de başörtüsü yasaklarına ilişkin uygulamalar ve devletlerin benimsediği politikalar özetlenmiştir. Ardından başörtüsü yasaklarının hem Avrupa’da hem de Türkiye'de kamusal söylemde nasıl meşrulaştırıldığına ışık tutulmuştur. Böylece, farklı kültürel, dini ve sosyo-politik arka planlarına rağmen, farklı tarihsel dönemlerde Müslüman kadınların kamusal alandaki temsiline ilişkin Türkiye’de ve Avrupa’da yapılan tartışmalar ve geliştirilen politikaların benzerlik ve farklılıkları ortaya konulmuştur.

KEYWORDS:

• Headscarf ban
• Turban
• Muslim women
• Turkey
• Europe

KEYWORDS:

• Başörtüsü Yasağı
• türban
• Müslüman kadın
• Türkiye
• Avrupa

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their comments that contributed to improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 On 28 February 1997, the National Security Council issued an ultimatum to the government. Instead of direct intervention by the Turkish army, the government was forced to resign by a coalition of the media, the judiciary, the academy, and the military. This is often referred to as the post-modern coup or the 28 February process.

2 When Geert Wilders introduced the face veil as a symbol of “radical Islam” in 2005, many parliamentarians agreed with Wilders on public order and security (Letiinga & Saharso, 2012, p. 324).

3 According to a study conducted in 2014, the rate of those who say they believe in Islam is 99.2%, the rate of those who do not doubt the existence of Allah is 98.7%, and the rate of those who believe that there is life after death is 96.2% (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 2014). This research also shows that the rate of those who define themselves as religious to varying degrees is around 87%. However, another study conducted in 2007 found different results. This study showed that 86% of the public believe in the existence of Allah, 85% of them pray and the rate of those who believe in life after death is 73% (MAK, 2017). One of the most recent studies on religiosity in Turkey found that more than half of the participants (62%) describe themselves as religious or very religious (Nişancı, 2023).

4 Former leader of CHP (Republican People’s Party) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was among the MPs who asked the Constitutional Court to annul the constitutional amendment that would allow the freedom to wear headscarves in public (“Anayasa Mahkemesine Türban Başvurusu,” 2008).

5 The 2013 legal democratization reform lifted the headscarf ban in public services but excluded police officers, judges, and prosecutors. Freedom to wear headscarves was introduced for women in these professions in 2015.

6 The objections of covered women to this framing are evident in the field studies. One of the Turkish respondents Cindoğlu interviewed in her research thanked her for using the word “headscarf”: “First of all, let me thank you for saying “headscarf” and avoiding turban when you began. Some people imposed the word turban upon us, and they just kept referring to it as such. What I wear is a headscarf, that’s what I veil myself with” (Cindoğlu, 2011, p. 28).

7 As demonstrated in Weichselbaumer’s (2016) empirical research, an experiment was conducted to examine discrimination against Muslim immigrant women. The study involved submitting to companies the CVs that were modified to conceal applicants’ names and photos. The study found that Turkish immigrant women faced significant discrimination, especially if they wore a headscarf. It was found that all things being equal, a Turkish woman wearing a headscarf would need 4.5 times more applications to be called back than an applicant with a German name who did not wear a headscarf.

8 Covered women still face discriminatory treatment from the private sector, although they have been able to find jobs in state institutions because the bans have been lifted in the public sector. For example, according to a news report in the press in October 2020, a university student named Şeyma Bakan stated that she was not hired because she wore a headscarf in an automotive company where she applied for an internship in Bursa (“Son dakika!,” 2020). According to another news, in May 2020, three young women were fired for wearing headscarves at a branch of a well-known supermarket chain in a shopping center in Beşiktaş, Istanbul (“Başörtülü oldukları için işten çıkarıldıkları iddiası,” 2020).

9 On 22 July 2021, a minibus driver ran over a woman wearing a headscarf in Izmir. The driver who insulted the woman by saying “Do you think you are honored because you are covered!” was brought to court following the victim’s complaint (CNN Türk, 2021). In July 2021, a woman passing by in Ortaköy insulted covered women waiting at a bus stop: “Slum women, scum. You are … ” (“Beşiktaş'ta yaşlı kadından başörtülü kadınlara çirkin saldırı,” 2021). In June 2021, a young academic wearing a headscarf, Neşe Nur Akkaya, was insulted and physically attacked by a man in the Nişantaşı district of Istanbul, who said, “What are you doing here, we don't want people like you here” (“Nişantaşı'nda başörtülü akademisyene saldırı,” 2021). In July 2021, a woman wearing a headscarf was attacked by an uncovered woman in the Küçükçekmece district of Istanbul and had her headscarf removed (“Küçükçekmece’de başörtülü kadına saldırı kamerada,” 2021). In November 2019, a young woman wearing a headscarf was attacked by a woman named Berrak Karaoğlu in Karaköy, Istanbul (https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/besiktasta-basortulu-kadina-saldiri-davasi-basladi/1690067). In January 2019, a woman who attacked a female student wearing a headscarf in a minibus said, “If Atatürk were alive, you wouldn't be able to go to school with a headscarf” and attacked her (Kinik & Aktürk, 2019). In March 2019, at Atatürk Airport, a person named Bülent Kökoğlu insulted a covered woman working at the airport with the words “blackbug ninja, the country's immoral people” and posted it on social media (Akbulut, 2019).

10 The well-known journalist Can Ataklı who is known for his prohibitionist rhetoric objected to the presence of teachers wearing headscarves on the TV channel that the Ministry of Education opened for students in 2020. He said, “It’s wrong to present covered teachers as role models to millions of students. Don't tell me it’s freedom or something … ” and he framed the headscarf as a turban in the context of a political ideological symbol (“Son dakika haberi: Can Ataklı yine nefret kustu!,” 2021). Fikri Sağlar, a former deputy of the Republican People’s Party, framed the headscarf as a political symbol turban like Ataklı and said in December 2020, “I doubt that a judge wearing a headscarf will do justice.” Covered women who want to exist in the public sphere working and making social contributions are sometimes subjected to severe insults. In fact, Özlem Zengin who is still a member of the Turkish parliament was attacked on social media by the lawyer Mert Yaşar. He posted on Twitter: “If the presidential cabinet was given the right to the first night, would Özlem Zengin close her beak?” (“Hukukçu Mert Yaşar'dan AK Partili Özlem Zengin'e ağır hakaret!,” 2021).

11 Although veiling is seen as a lack of action, the Islamic head covering adopted by educated Muslim women can be interpreted on the one hand as an indicator of piety, and on the other hand as an indicator of educated urban intellectuality, a kind of modernity, in short, conscious activism (Abu-Lughod, 2013). So much so that many women in Turkey and Europe choose to cover their heads despite the objections of governments, men, and families, and this practice requires sacrifice and strength to resist which is not easy to afford. An Open Society Foundation study of 122 veiled women in the UK was published in 2015, and they found no evidence of parental pressure on women to cover their heads, and most of the pressure was to remove the veil: “There was no evidence that parents forced their daughters to wear the veil. In-depth testimonies have shown that when parents apply pressure, it is always to persuade their daughter to take off the veil” (Open Society Foundations, 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

H. Şule Albayrak

H. Şule ALBAYRAK is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of Religion at Marmara University Faculty of Theology. Albayrak has authored Christian Fundamentalism (Hıristiyan Fundamentalizmi) (2007) and Religion-State Relations in the USA (ABD’de Din Devlet İlişkileri) (2018), and edited Being Woman: Islam, Tradition, Modernity and Beyond (Kadın Olmak: İslam, Gelenek, Modernite ve Ötesi) (2019), and Privacy in All Its Aspects (Tüm Yönleriyle Mahremiyet) (2022). Email: [email protected]