Challenging the ‘normal’: curious women conscientious objectors to military service in the male conscription system in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how gender roles shape, normalize, and reinforce militarism and vice versa. Drawing on in-depth interviews with nineteen conscientious objectors, it explores the impacts of militarism on society and offers a picture of women’s demilitarization attempts in Turkey. It applies Cynthia Enloe’s feminist curiosity to understand the link between militarism, gender, and conscientious objection. Recent works have applied Enloe’s feminist curiosity and brought about a feminist approach to critical military studies. Such works, illuminating as they are, have paid little attention to the case of Turkey, the only member of the Council of Europe that does not recognize the right to conscientious objection. Most importantly, current debates on resistance to militarism and the right to conscientious objection are centred on the case of Israel, where women are conscripted. This constitutes a significant lacuna in the literature which this article tries to fill by examining Turkey, where women are not conscripted yet they declare their conscientious objection. The article illustrates that conscription constitutes only one dimension of militarism and that militarism also affects women’s lives even though they are not subjected to compulsory military service. In so doing, it broadens the discussion on the right to conscientious objection by studying those who are previously assumed to be ‘irrelevant’.

KEYWORDS:

• Antimilitarism
• conscientious objection
• (de)militarization
• feminist curiosity
• gender roles

Acknowledgements

This article is an extract of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to Durham University, Law School. I am grateful to my Ph.D. supervisors, Professor Ian Leigh and Professor Deirdre MacCann, for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. I would also thank to all my participants for sharing their experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This matter has been explained to the Ethics Committee at Durham University before gaining ethical approval, and the Committee approved my request for displaying the participants’ names.

2. In Osman Murat Ulke v. Turkey case, the European Court of Human rights stated that: ‘They [repeated prosecutions] are aimed more at repressing the applicant’s intellectual personality, inspiring in him feelings of fear, anguish and vulnerability capable of humiliating and debasing him and breaking his resistance and will. The clandestine life, amounting almost to “civil death”, which the applicant has been compelled to adopt is incompatible with the punishment regime of a democratic society’. Ulke v. Turkey App no. 39437/98 (ECtHR, 24 April 2004) at [62].

3. Kişer Pari Mama means ‘Good night mummy’ in Armenian. Atlas refers to an Armenian soldier, Sevag Şahin Balıkçı, who died during his compulsory service in Turkey. These were the last few words that his Mum, Ani Balıkçı, heard from him.

4. The Prime Minister, in his public speech, expressed that women without children are ‘incomplete women’ (eksik kadin). See http://www.diken.com.tr/erdogan-kadinligin-tanimini-da-yapti-anneligi-reddeden-kadin-eksiktir-yarimdir/.

5. It should be noted that the article focuses on binary gender categories (man/woman) as produced through and productive of militarization.

6. In Turkey, students are allowed to postpone the military service till the age of 30. To avoid the compulsory service, men usually enrol in MA courses.