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What do Atatürk and Erdoğan have in common?

One could find as many similarities between modern Turkey's founder and its popular leader eighty years later as one wished. Obviously one ironic yet conspicuous resemblance is the both men's profound grasp of the semiotics of headwear, though at opposite ends. According to one historical account, young Mustafa Kemal, on his way to Tripoli for a mission tasked by the Congress of Union and Progress, finds himself in Sicily where the locals, especially children, bombard him with lemon peel and mock his Ottoman fez. It's at that instant Kemal understands that the fez epitomizes all that makes the Empire ridiculous in the geography he ceaselessly takes as a role model for the country he would build later.

The turban and the fez go; the turban comes back

So, with the Revolution, the fez and the turban were to go, and men were ordered to wear the bowler hat. It is true that the Revolution punished many men who did not feel compatible with the Frankish headwear. In the meantime, the headscarf (the headscarf, not the turban) remained as the popular headwear of women in Turkey, urban or rural.

Tayyip Erdoğan, on the other hand, comes from various ranks of political Islam which, like Atatürk's ideology, has its own semiotic codes and sacred symbols, the turban being one of them. The fez is not, because, unlike the turban, the fez is an Ottoman symbol, not an Islamic one. Mr Erdoğan's reference point is Islam, not the collapsed empire. Hence his obsession with the Islamic headcover, not any other headcover.

So, with the counter-revolution, not the fez but the turban will have to come back. Unlike the Revolution, the counter-revolution will probably not punish those women who do not feel compatible with the turban. All the same, the social pressures may be equally punishing. The other week, some Justice and Development Party (AKP) bigwig (an MP who sits in AKP’s politburo) said that it was quite normal if businessmen forced their wives to put on the turban if they wanted to win government contracts. "They should put themselves in order if they want contracts," the man said quite honestly. The choice is yours: Look and behave like one of us and you may flourish, or otherwise....

The Revolution introduced the coercive powers of the state in line with young Kemal's semiotic faith. Today, the counter-revolution is slowly but systematically introducing the coercive powers not necessarily of the state but surely of an increasingly conservative society, in line with Mr. Erdoğan's semiotic faith.

Right argument, wrong motives, wrong rhetoric

I agree with Mr. Erdoğan that the campus ban on the turban must be removed. But I cannot agree with him on two related issues. One is the rhetoric the prime minister uses in defense of the turban. Recently, Mr. Erdoğan said that we were not debating the turban but the headscarf. "That [the turban], in my world view, is the headscarf." Full stop? Wait a minute.

Merely in order to avoid a prosecution under Article 301, I shall not describe Mr. Erdoğan's rhetoric in the way it deserves. So I would rather say Mr. Erdoğan is bluntly averting from the naked truth. The turban is different from the headscarf. Actually, on campuses there is no headscarf ban. So, Mr. Erdoğan's new Constitution cannot remove a ban that does not exist. Take good note: Today, any student can attend classes with a headscarf! The ban is for the Islamic turban.

I don't remember how many times I have had to explain that. Considering Mr. Erdoğan's hopeless rhetoric, perhaps I should repeat: The headscarf is a headwear put on by traditional women from all monotheistic faiths (or women of no faith at all, for that matter), and it exposes parts of the female hair. The turban on the other hand is an exclusively Muslim headwear and is designed and tied in a way that no piece of the female hair should be exposed because otherwise "it would sexually seduce men and therefore commit a sin."

Everyone should have the liberty to believe in any faith, monotheistic or otherwise. Everyone should have the liberty to interpret holy books and decide what would make a sin and what would not, no doubt about that. So, if a Muslim lady thinks showing bits or all of her hair would not make a sin, or if another believes it would, we must respect both.

Mr. Erdoğan's problem here is about his endless efforts to hide the true rationale behind the turban and to reduce the argument to an entirely different concept that is in this case the headscarf. He should be able to frankly say that

(a) he believes exposing female hair is a sin,

(b) therefore Muslim women should wear the turban in order not to sin, and

(c) they should be able to wear the turban as they please.

As always, Mr. Erdoğan is hiding behind a not-so-convincing rhetoric, no matter how convincing it may be for the majority of the Turks. I don't want to go into embarrassing examples from remote and recent history why "the majority" does not necessarily mean "the right."

Mr. Erdoğan's other problem is about another rhetoric he has chosen to defend the turban. Quoting Mr. Erdoğan from an interview with the Financial Times: "The right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears." How can anyone with any sense of fairness object to that? But once again, Mr. Erdoğan is opting for a deceptive rhetoric.

Dress freedom on campuses?

Now, read that line once again. It says "[…] what a girl wears." If Mr Erdoğan really means it he is the true liberal reformist he says he is. But does he? In recent articles I have given quite a number of examples that "what(ever) a girl wears" is not Mr. Erdoğan's concern. I guess I must repeat them in honor of Mr. Erdoğan's most recent words on the turban.

Would Mr. Erdoğan's argument based on that "what(ever) a girl wears" also include a campus girl in Satanist or Goth attire? Or an attire featuring atheist slogans? Catholic missionary slogans? Or, on the non-religious front, a t-shirt depicting the prime minister as a bird, a snake, a cat? Well, we already know that Mr. Erdoğan would sue. How about a girl in a t-shirt asking Mr. Erdoğan: "Whose prime minister are you?" We know that he would sue that girl, too.

Dress freedom on campuses in general is none of Mr. Erdoğan's concerns. He is semiotically trying to bring back one of the two headwears Mustafa Kemal semiotically disposed of.

Every revolution idolizes and discriminates against its choice of symbols, and creates a counter-revolution which then creates a counter-counter-revolution. Who wins is a matter of which time frame we look at, and the years 2002-2007 are only a microscopic detail in the history of Turkish statedom. True, 2002-2007 may stretch to 2002-2059. But that, too, will be a microscopic timeframe in over a millennium.

—— Burak Bekdil (by kind permission of the Turkish Daily News)