"Secularists' Fears Exaggerated" Say Feminists

Hidayet Tuksal the founding president of the Capital City Women's Platform reacts to Ertugrul Özkök, the editor-in-chief of the mainstream "Hürriyet" newspaper, who wrote in his column today (18 September) that "the future of women in Turkey is endangered." Founded in 1995. The platform aims to organise conservative and religious women.

"Ertugrul Özkök wrote as if religion was very powerful in Turkey. As if one person's defence or one person's performance could open the way for a religious dictatorship. Religious feelings are not the only strong emotions. People have strong feelings about other things, too.

"Religious people do not want to change the system" 

The real issue is whether  religious groups in Turkey want a religious dictatorship or not. It is wrong just to look at "Vakit" newspaper and one or two websites and then make judgments about religous groups. Even during periods when the increase in religiosity was as its most obvious in Turkey, people were not thinking of changing the system.
People only want to observe their prayers and things they believe to be religious duties.

As for radicals, they have always been a small group, but at the same time a group which makes itself heard. At a time when everyone is becoming more liberal, how can Özkök write such a column?

Özkök does not know the people he is writing about 

If religion were such a great power in Turkey, people would have gone underground and started a revolution. However, now people are trying to act within a democratic framework. Özkök has no relations with the religious population, he is looking on from afar. He is worrying about people he does not know, he is exaggerating.

There are statistics that 83 percent of people in Turkey fast [during the month of Ramazan]. Of those 83 percent, some people are inconsiderate towards those who do not fast, but there have been generalisations made about this kind of behaviour. It is not a solution to say "No one should fast", the solution is to ensure that people respect each other's choices.

The same is true about the headscarf. There has been pressure on headscarved women for years, and this pressure has been seen as legitimate. Arguing that there is a possibility that women who do not wear headscarves will be pressurised cannot serve as a justification for putting pressure on headscarved women. I do not believe that religious groups in Turkey are against democracy [...].

Of course precautions have to be taken against coercion, but not in the shape of precautionary pressure. One has to try to find compromises and let people get to know each other.

"Erdem and Bumin's statements are irresponsible" 

Tarhan Erdem [of the "Radikal" newspaper and owner of the KONDA research institute] also does not know what headscarved women are like. They do not follow their lives, they are not interested. People who are sensitive to other issues do not hesitate, when it comes to the headscarf, to present their beliefs as scientific truth. This is irresponsible. Erdem's and Mustafa Bumin's statements are irresponsible [Bumin is the former president of the constitutional court. Erdem and Bumin have expressed their fear of the new constitution allowing headscarves at university].

The left in Turkey has not given up its habit of treating religion as the enemy. Kemalists cannot be objective. They have been exposed to so much propaganda that they cannot be neutral. They always refer to hostility.

I stand shocked in front of the 'discourse of fear'. We are left to give an account not of what we have done, but what we might do. It is demanded that we appease people. How can we do that? How can we reassure people who want to be frightened?

"The solution has long been found" 

They should give up looking at religious people from far away, they should analyse their fears. There is no reason in Turkey for these fears to exist. We have found the formula of living in peace with members of our own families who wear swimming costumes, who drink alcohol. Let the intellectuals step down to the level of the people and see this. The solution has long been found.

They do not know how hurt headscarved women are by what is written and said. I would like them to think about that..."(HT/GG/NZ/AG)