From Earth Times - October 25, 2008
Frankfurt - Turkey's ban on wearing headscarves in public institutions such as universities is a form of oppression over women, according to an Islamic feminist novelist Cihan Aktas, 48. An intellectual who is both a feminist and a devout Muslim is a combination so startling in Turkey that Aktas said reviewers and the media had initially refused to take her seriously.
In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, Aktas set out the views she has developed in a 25-year career writing about the difficulties of being an observant Muslim woman today.
Aktas wore a loose scarf draped over her head and a colourful ankle-length dress to the interview at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
"My father was a teacher and I grew up in a house full of books and had already decided as a girl to become a writer," she said.
"I have written about 25 books," she said, adding, "Maybe it is more like 30, but there are a few I wish now that I had not published, because I was very young at the time, very rash, and they don't have enough discipline to them."
Her oeuvre includes two novels and eight books of short stories, collecting three prizes during her literary career. A ninth book of short stories is being published this month, she said.
Her latest work is entitled The Close Stranger and is about Iran, a country where she and her husband often live for short spells. He comes from Iran, where his family is part of the ethnic Turkish community. She has also written a book about Iranian cinema.
None of her books has been translated into any other language in its entirety, but extracts have appeared in Italian, German and Persian.
She has antagonized Turkey's secularist elite, writing books with titles that include Covering Up and Society, and Oppression of Women Students, attacking the notion that the scarf is a sign of women's backwardness or subjection to men.
"I adopted the scarf at the age of 20, after I completed my university degree," she said. "I wanted to be a good Muslim."
Aktas, also defends the scarf as a cultural tradition in Turkish society, saying, "Turkey is not a Western society."
She said Turkey's rulers had allowed neither philosophical debate nor the principle of majority rule when trying to abolish scarves.
"They ignored women's rights, pluralism and participation by society," she said feistily.
This year, there was heated debate in Turkey on the issue. The government passed legislation in February opening the universities to women wearing scarves. But the secularists appealed, and in June, the Constitutional Court ruled the law out of order.
Aktas still insists the scarf is a woman's right to choose, adding that some women in Judaism and Christianity cover their heads too.
"No man ever insisted that I had to wear a scarf," she said. Aktas argues that large numbers of intelligent, educated women want to wear the scarf as their own expression of their religious commitment.
"There is a wave in Muslim society of young people wanting to learn about their religion."
"I believe that when the state decides over women's bodies in this way, it is a system of oppression over women," she said. Aktas added that she did not want to make the scarf compulsory.
"I argue that every Muslim should decide for herself whether or not to wear a scarf," she said.
Her stance has brought her hate messages from radical secularists but also from religious hard-liners.
"I have had nasty e-mails from both sides," she said. "Regrettably, the internet creates opportunities for uneducated and cowardly people."
Aktas spoke with humour of her long fight to prove herself: "For a long time the media and critics who are mostly leftist ignored me, because they could not imagine that a woman in a scarf could possibly be a writer."
She said her twice-weekly columns in the daily newspaper Taraf and her books had established her, but going against the current meant she still had to work harder than other writers.
"I have had to struggle against hostile criticism, but it has not made me pessimistic. I believe in my responsibility as a writer. I believe in my work. A writer is always writing for the future, and time will sift the best work," she said with a smile.
1 comment:
How about the right for every muslim female to decide whether or not she even considers the headscarf (NOT called hijab in arabic ironically) to be divine command by Allah and thereby Islam?
Because this issue remains unexplored and unaddressed. It is not rocket science.
Itis perfectly ok to assume (wrongly) that Islam commands the headscarf in particular as a modest attire. This will draw sympathy from both apologists and fellow muslims.
However, try saying you do not consider the headscarf or such to divine or Islamic, and you will suffer the wrath of hate by the normally assumed to be integrated and peaceful fellow muslims. Derogation and namecalling will be their foremost weapon next to "you don't know anything about Islam".
So where is the right for the muslim females, who are educated and very well aware of Islam and what Allah says and does not say, and who wish to reserve the right to interpret His words themselves?
Fact is the Quran mentions the word "hijab a handful of times. NOT ONCE in relation to attire, covering or female dresscode.
So how masses of people can suddenly within the last 10-15 years propogate that Islam commands the headscarf and brand it hijab (???), when in fact Allah says modesty comes from within and apart from some abstract guidelines, He mentions nothing about headscarf, or such attire, is beyond any rationale.
The fact is the scarf is an arabic cultural custom which has been heavily propopgated (forced too) by many instances and today victory is theirs.
But truth remains. So does the lack of addressing and acknolwedging alternative interpretations of what is modest (attire) and the right for the individual female to interpret as she believes to be true.
In other words the "choice" not wear is not really a choice. It is just shameless and arrogant acknolwedgment (if not a severe God complex) of that some females just don't follow their religion.
No alternative views were presentend at the conference of 2004. That alone speaks volume. One is more worthy than the other and the latter are simply drowned in this mass false propogation lead by men and now their female sidekicks too.
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