COMMENTARY: Head scarves and Islamic revivalism

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Laila Al-Marayati is a physician and past president of the Muslim Women’s League, based in Los Angeles.) UNDATED _ Earlier this month, Merve Kavakci, a newly elected member of the Turkish parliament, was denied her democratically won seat because she failed to gain approval from the authorities before applying for […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Laila Al-Marayati is a physician and past president of the Muslim Women’s League, based in Los Angeles.)

UNDATED _ Earlier this month, Merve Kavakci, a newly elected member of the Turkish parliament, was denied her democratically won seat because she failed to gain approval from the authorities before applying for dual American-Turkish citizenship. Her real crime, however, in the eyes of the Turkish government, is that she covers her hair with a scarf.


To the secularist regime in Turkey, the headscarf, or hijab, represents a version of political Islam that is feared and opposed with a vengeance.

Any woman who covers her hair because of her religious beliefs as a Muslim is jeopardizing her education, her job and her ability to participate in a so-called”democratic”process. Scarf-clad women have been banned from sitting for their final exams in medical and other graduate schools and from holding any position in public service.

Islamic revivalism has been under way for more than 20 years in parts of the Muslim world as disenfranchised groups seek political, social and cultural options other than those that have been imposed upon them, frequently against their will.

With images of early, post-revolutionary Iran and now the Taliban in Afghanistan, Islamic fervor, especially toward politics, is viewed by some with a degree of trepidation. Yet the tendency to define all Muslims and political movements among them by a singular, totalitarian yardstick ignores the complexities of Islam and the variations among people from place to place.

Discriminating against women in hijab as a mechanism of resistance to political Islam will ultimately result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Women who have little or no concern for involvement in governmental affairs will be forced to become activists and, in some case, demonstrators in order to secure their rights to education, access to employment and political participation.

History shows that those denied their basic rights while being pushed to the margins of society will resort to extreme measures to obtain those rights.

In response, those who support the exclusion of women in hijab maintain that if these women are allowed to increase their role and influence in society, social pressure from them will eventually impose this form of dress on all women. And then, they argue, the pattern of Afghanistan _ forced segregation, the withholding of women’s rights and the ultimate removal of women from any meaningful role in society _ will naturally follow.


But the fact that Turkish women, in hijab or otherwise, participate in all aspects of urban and rural life is testimony to their determination to contribute to their country and its people, ready to resist any attempts to minimize their role.

Merve Kavakci is no exception. But the Turkish government’s decision to interfere with the will of the people who elected her will push it further away from the democratic ideals it claims to uphold. And, instead of challenging this mockery of democracy, the West is silenced by its ambivalence toward the acceptance of political Islam as a legitimate participant in international political movements.

Similarly, feminist groups who would normally be the first to speak out against such blatant gender discrimination are uncomfortably reticent.

Supporting women in hijab in Turkey may not seem consistent with opposing the imposition of the burqa (a sack-like, head-to-ankle garment) in Afghanistan. But the basic principle of denying women the right to fully participate in society and have a say in their destiny is simply wrong anywhere and under any circumstances.

DEA END AL-MARAYATI

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