Turkey has had a problem with democracy and religious rights
for quite some time. Over the past few
decades Turkey’s greatest battle has been over the wearing of headscarves or
hijabs. In 1997 Turkey introduced a law
that made girls and young women who wear the headscarves go to other means for
education. A big point for the
headscarves law was when in 2007 the AK party which was for justice and
development passed a law that permitted headscarves to be worn in schools. The bill was immediately tested by being sent
to the constitutional court on the basis that it violated the secularism of the
state which almost leads to the governmental removal of the AK party which was
the majority party of the time. The
issue is interesting because it is a battle between traditionalists and
modernists but also a battle between people who want to limit some religious
rights and some who want them to permit these allowances.
The battle in Turkey is boiling over something that could
have quickly been eliminated through compromises if there were a good
democratic system in place. The
headscarf issue is something that cannot be easily removed so there needs to be
a system in place for when you can and cannot wear the headscarves. If Turkey wishes to ban the headscarves and
be taken seriously as a modern nation they would have to adopt a system similar
to France and outright forbid all versions of showing your religion. The fears of a few in powers that have the
ability to influence others seem to be the ones who are influencing others to
say the headscarf needs to go. Recently
the government has allowed women to wear headscarves thankfully but it was not
without a tumultuous battle that can still have backlash nationally and
possibly globally. Overall, the issue
could have been avoided if democracy would have prevailed for the people.
Ryan Clark
11/10/13
20:33
1 comment:
I'm impressed. You're truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. I'm saving this for future use.
Kendra
www.imarksweb.org
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