White Baboon

I’d heard the stew-brewing controversy about the headscarf ban a few years ago, but I never really got it. I remember thinking: A majority of Turkey’s population are Muslim, so what’s the deal? The protests surrounding restrictions in French schools seemed to further submerge the issue in a murky bath of obvious modesty, yet nonconforming rebellion. Confused and not terribly concerned, I forgot all about it.But a few trips to Istanbul during our Peace Corp service planted a couple quickly flowering plants in my ever-expanding, but weedy, garden of ideas. So what was the headscarf ban all about? Should women be allowed to wear these seemingly harmless hijabs in government-funded environments?Our new Turkish friend, Sez, who hosted us through a smashing little thing called couchsurfing, thinks yes. But while he believes women should be able to express their own interpretations of the Koran in any way they choose, he also urged his own sisters, upon approaching adolescence, to abstain from the headscarf. Why? Because in Turkey, you must choose. Hijab-free, you can attend high school and university. With it, you’re forced by law to self-study. According to him, the Qur’an says merely to “cover yourself” but does not specify how. He feels they should not forsake their education for this amorphous rule–and that going without a headscarf does not make one less Muslim.Now in Turkey for more than two weeks, I am no longer just reading a story about a clandestine book club amidst a Muslim community. Nor are my impressions captured within the confines of a two hour film about an American trying to escape her Iranian husband.I understand now that this country is a lot more like Europe than the Middle East. A lot more like Greece than Iran. As I shop for groceries. . .as I walked home in the dark last night to the sound of the eternally haunting call to prayer. . .as I ride the subway with Ipod-clutching, paisley-pattern-covered, and generously eye-lined 17-year olds, I am here.From this vantage point, complications fall away with ease. Clarity emerges. Just like in the US, some people go to church and some people don’t. Some find strength in the holy spirit, others in running triathlons and still others in restoring vintage pinball machines. It’s your choice. And similar trends shine through as well. When heading from Chicago to, say, Kenosha, Wisconsin, bible ownership and potluck suppers probably increase. Similarly, Islam is more apparent in the village than in Istanbul. Women here just happen to wear their Allah-worshiping heart on their sleeve. I can see how it’s really none of anyone else’s business.So, again, why the headscarf ban?In short, so Turkey can maintain the glowing impression I’ve just received. Straddling the East West fault-line in many ways, they want to appear European, dedicated to secularism enough, to wash from their billowing, balcony-hung flags, any wrinkle of a potential return to an Islamic state–a place where religion and government are one, public hangings and stonings actually happen and women aren’t allowed an education. On the lengthy Turkish timeline, it was “just” a century ago that the Ottoman Empire fell and a guy named Ataturk led the Turkish National Movement, helping to establish a modern, secular Turkish democracy. And thank God (or maybe not, depending on your denomination) that he did.In America, for the most part, we’re comfortable with yamikas, headscarves, beards, aprons, crosses or robes–whatever you deem spiritually fashionable. Maybe because religious freedom was one of our nation’s founding principles. Or maybe because there is no fear, in America, of returning to some Quaker or Christian state. However, relative to developing countries, America IS fond of  “bright lines”; enforced laws drawn in the sand (or in our case, grass) which are relatively unsusceptable to corruption. And as much as I eventually warmed up to the benefits of a bendable rules in Bulgaria, defined lines, such as a ban on headscarves, are a characteristic of a developed country, where social order is held a little more sacred. Moreover, who knows how the United States would react (perhaps a la the French) if we had an overwhelmingly large Muslim population throwing a little too much religion into the classroom. It’s tough to say.Strange, isn’t it that the very law which drives Turkish women away from formal education is the same one meant to make Turkey a more modern, more Western place. But so it is. And with neighbor Iran demonstrating the very Islamic state at the end of a slippery slope Turkey is struggling so desperately to avoid, I’m starting to get it. Why the headscarf is a halo of heated controversy. Why the ban is actually protecting women from a potentially worse fate. Why different laws work for different countries. Why Turkey is holding its ground.