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HOW ABOUT TURKEY'S ROSA PARKS?
By Ali H. Aslan
Today's Zaman
Jan 25 2008
Turkey
When Ambassador Dan Fried, the assistant US secretary of state
for European and Eurasian affairs, was testifying before a House
subcommittee on March 15, 2007, he had said, "We welcome Turkish
leaders and opinion makers' calls to amend or repeal Article 301."
Would he also publicly side with Turkish leaders and opinion makers
who call for lifting the notorious headscarf ban in Turkey? I strongly
doubt it.
It is good that the US administration feels relatively more
comfortable in criticizing Article 301, which makes it a crime
to insult "Turkishness." Thanks to a broad interpretation by some
ultra-nationalist lawyers and prosecutors, the law has effectively
been used as a tormenting tool against some of the countries finest
minds, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and assassinated
Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. I'm sure the US government
would be happy if the country it wants to see become a future EU
member leaves behind such laws and practices.
In the meantime, one cannot help but ask whether the US has a clear
position on the decades-old headscarf ban, especially in universities,
which have been turning away some of the country's finest female
minds. Same nationalist anti-reform circles in civil society and the
state establishment are leading the persecution of these women. Yet we
have not observed a principled approach on the matter from successive
US administrations. True, they always mention the debate in their
annual human rights and religious freedom reports, but they never
take sides.
Let alone criticizing the headscarf ban, throughout my more than
10-year journalistic career in Washington, I have never heard a
US official publicly say the headscarf ban (at least the one at
universities) in Turkey is a "human rights violation." And that
includes those who specialize in human rights and democracy.
The last time I asked this question to a US official was when I
interviewed Fried on July 3, 2006. (I didn't know back then that
Fried's notion of democracy promotion in Turkey would not go further
than saying the US doesn't take sides when the Turkish military issued
a coup threat in April 2007). Fried replied, "I certainly don't want
to express an opinion about this debate in Turkey, except to say that
this is -- like in Turkey as in France -- part of a normal debate of
a normal democratic society."
Obviously, this was not Fried's personal position, because US officials
are under strict guidance on what to say or not to say publicly. One
of the most far-reaching comments I've heard on the headscarf problem
from a US official came from Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom John Hanford on Sept. 1, 2004.
Hanford spoke of the "controversial" headscarf issue in "certain
countries" of the world, France in particular. He went on to say: "And
we have spoken out on this and said we believe that Muslims, as long
as they have peaceful intentions and are simply acting on the dictates
of their conscience and are not doing so under provocation and are
not provoking others, why shouldn't they be allowed to wear this? Why
shouldn't Sikhs be allowed to wear turbans? This is the standard of
religious freedom that we seek to promote around the world."
It was good to hear that. But the US government's history of talking
about and pursuing that "standard" in Turkey is an embarrassing one.
US policy toward Turkey is mainly formulated by Fried's office, not
Hanford. Although Fried once depicted the headscarf law in France as
"controversial" (Senate testimony on April 5, 2006), one cannot imagine
him stating that the headscarf ban in Turkey is also "controversial."
The US State Department notes, "Because the promotion of human rights
is an important national interest, the United States seeks to hold
governments accountable to their obligations under universal human
rights norms and international human rights instruments." Do they
honor their principle on the headscarf issue? Not that I know of.
Most people in charge of American policy on Turkey might sincerely
think by using the previous approach they are protecting overall US
national interests. They refrain from intimidating the oppressive
civilian and bureaucratic elite and the social base that the latter
represents. Although these people have lost ground lately to the
ongoing silent revolution of the conservative middle class, they
still enjoy a lot of influence. On the other hand, American rhetoric
on non-Turkish minority rights and restrictive laws like Article 301
also intimidates them. Why, then, do they keep so silent on headscarf
issue? Is it because this is the most emotionally charged domestic
debate in Turkey? Or is there also an Islamophobic element in US
government thinking? I frankly can't tell.
Not taking sides at times of clear violations of democratic and human
rights principles is actually equivalent to taking sides with the
oppressors. Being indifferent to Turkey's Rosa Parks incidents is not
only un-American but also detrimental to long-term American interests,
especially if the US is really serious about promoting women's rights
worldwide and supporting further integration of Muslims with global
society through modern, higher education.
By Ali H. Aslan
Today's Zaman
Jan 25 2008
Turkey
When Ambassador Dan Fried, the assistant US secretary of state
for European and Eurasian affairs, was testifying before a House
subcommittee on March 15, 2007, he had said, "We welcome Turkish
leaders and opinion makers' calls to amend or repeal Article 301."
Would he also publicly side with Turkish leaders and opinion makers
who call for lifting the notorious headscarf ban in Turkey? I strongly
doubt it.
It is good that the US administration feels relatively more
comfortable in criticizing Article 301, which makes it a crime
to insult "Turkishness." Thanks to a broad interpretation by some
ultra-nationalist lawyers and prosecutors, the law has effectively
been used as a tormenting tool against some of the countries finest
minds, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and assassinated
Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. I'm sure the US government
would be happy if the country it wants to see become a future EU
member leaves behind such laws and practices.
In the meantime, one cannot help but ask whether the US has a clear
position on the decades-old headscarf ban, especially in universities,
which have been turning away some of the country's finest female
minds. Same nationalist anti-reform circles in civil society and the
state establishment are leading the persecution of these women. Yet we
have not observed a principled approach on the matter from successive
US administrations. True, they always mention the debate in their
annual human rights and religious freedom reports, but they never
take sides.
Let alone criticizing the headscarf ban, throughout my more than
10-year journalistic career in Washington, I have never heard a
US official publicly say the headscarf ban (at least the one at
universities) in Turkey is a "human rights violation." And that
includes those who specialize in human rights and democracy.
The last time I asked this question to a US official was when I
interviewed Fried on July 3, 2006. (I didn't know back then that
Fried's notion of democracy promotion in Turkey would not go further
than saying the US doesn't take sides when the Turkish military issued
a coup threat in April 2007). Fried replied, "I certainly don't want
to express an opinion about this debate in Turkey, except to say that
this is -- like in Turkey as in France -- part of a normal debate of
a normal democratic society."
Obviously, this was not Fried's personal position, because US officials
are under strict guidance on what to say or not to say publicly. One
of the most far-reaching comments I've heard on the headscarf problem
from a US official came from Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom John Hanford on Sept. 1, 2004.
Hanford spoke of the "controversial" headscarf issue in "certain
countries" of the world, France in particular. He went on to say: "And
we have spoken out on this and said we believe that Muslims, as long
as they have peaceful intentions and are simply acting on the dictates
of their conscience and are not doing so under provocation and are
not provoking others, why shouldn't they be allowed to wear this? Why
shouldn't Sikhs be allowed to wear turbans? This is the standard of
religious freedom that we seek to promote around the world."
It was good to hear that. But the US government's history of talking
about and pursuing that "standard" in Turkey is an embarrassing one.
US policy toward Turkey is mainly formulated by Fried's office, not
Hanford. Although Fried once depicted the headscarf law in France as
"controversial" (Senate testimony on April 5, 2006), one cannot imagine
him stating that the headscarf ban in Turkey is also "controversial."
The US State Department notes, "Because the promotion of human rights
is an important national interest, the United States seeks to hold
governments accountable to their obligations under universal human
rights norms and international human rights instruments." Do they
honor their principle on the headscarf issue? Not that I know of.
Most people in charge of American policy on Turkey might sincerely
think by using the previous approach they are protecting overall US
national interests. They refrain from intimidating the oppressive
civilian and bureaucratic elite and the social base that the latter
represents. Although these people have lost ground lately to the
ongoing silent revolution of the conservative middle class, they
still enjoy a lot of influence. On the other hand, American rhetoric
on non-Turkish minority rights and restrictive laws like Article 301
also intimidates them. Why, then, do they keep so silent on headscarf
issue? Is it because this is the most emotionally charged domestic
debate in Turkey? Or is there also an Islamophobic element in US
government thinking? I frankly can't tell.
Not taking sides at times of clear violations of democratic and human
rights principles is actually equivalent to taking sides with the
oppressors. Being indifferent to Turkey's Rosa Parks incidents is not
only un-American but also detrimental to long-term American interests,
especially if the US is really serious about promoting women's rights
worldwide and supporting further integration of Muslims with global
society through modern, higher education.