Scarf Wars

I remember seeing this years ago and I liked the debate of whether or not the headscarf is a matter of choice or Islamic tradition. At the time I mind you. Nowadays, more pressing matters such as corporate greed, nepotism, and the stifling economy have taken over. However, with Islam trying to move forward in the 21st century and adapting to the changes that are around, this debate won't go away completely.

People who think that Muslim Countries need Democracy and Secularism as a way of 'progress' in to 'modernity'. Basically suggesting the whole essence of Islam is backward, when in reality the true essence in true Islam is actually more superior to any secular or democratic state. So, those ppl who believe this ironically backward ideology, are fooling themselves. But I don't blame them, because they have been systemically brainwashed, resulting in a superiority complex. People who use to live in a real Islamic society such as during the Ottoman era, people prospered in every sense of the world. And now the very thing (Secularism) that is meant to make Muslims in Turkey 'go forward'. Ironically it has made the Turkish Civilization go backward to certain degree. As you have seen in this video no more true freedom for religion or expression.

If anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim was studying true Islam and they get to a point where they have acquired a vast knowledge of the True Islam. And if this person is sincere, objective and honest, and if they compare the system of Islam (a system by in which is more than a religion it provides real solutions for every real problem in the world) and if they compare this system to any other and if they are honest they will agree that it is the most superior and profound. And I'm talking about the real Islam not the Islam which is portrayed to the world through Iran and Saudi Arabia. Now that's a big statement, but the only way for people to try and attempt to prove that statement wrong, is if people have true knowledge of Islam.

I am a Muslim because I'm a humanist, and I believe in true liberation and true freedom of all peoples, which is what the True Islam stands for and what it has always stood for.

Too much video of laura modeling headscarfs, did they not have any better footage to put in?

Islam and Christianity are like brothers. Both are full faith or no faith! There is no inbetween. Arab secularism is a perversion of Islam and an accident in history, everyone else except Turkey has gone back, or never left the gate. Turkey needs to realize whats coming. Islam has no separation between government and religion, its one world of Muslims under God, with a divine right God King or Junta, ruling the earth, like the Catholic Church tried to be. Islam orders death for apostasy, pervert the definition of apostasy into suiting your own goals, and all muslims must follow or face death. Such a religion can not exist in a secular society.

Islam is no religion of peace. Muhammad may have been a man of peace early in his life, but he become enlightened and saw that bloodshed is the answer. Note, theres no secular or liberal arab movements to fight with politics or gun, the fundamentalists, because thats apostasy, and fundamentalists are just following their beliefs, so they cant be criticized by definition. Imagine a Reformed Jew telling an Orthodox Jew he is not a Jew!

Islam sounds like Catholic church during the Spanish Inquisition. Add some witching burning too.

Back to Turkey, Turkey needs to decide if they want to be muslims, or abandon Islam and its baggage. There can't be any middle ground. Look in the USA. You can see parallel between Turkey and the USA. One thing about Islam, it has strict welfare programs ("charity taxes"/zakat), there is no question of its existence, only its distribution. Zakat are collected usually by the govt, you mention paying your charity taxes 5 times a day in your prayers so you NEVER FORGET to pay your taxes. Christians don't have this, if your poor or misfortunate, its God's will and your destiny, free market all the way. Apparently Turkey's govt doesn't collect Zakat, but they pay clergy salaries and do welfare from secular taxes. Next, AK Party=Bush-era Republican party, social conservative, economic liberal. In the USA, instead of headscarf and Islamic charity we have student lead prayers in public schools, and chiping away at secular freedoms such as abortion, evolution, porn, LGBT, alcohol, abstinence sex ed, Pledge of Allegiance and blue laws. The headscarf is an obvious symbol of Islam. What if every american wore a 1 foot tall cross around their neck? What if all atheists wore a invisible pink unicorn sash? What if the some cops wear swastika armbands because thats their beliefs? Even if they're honorable civil servants, wouldn't that symbol always stand for worry and fear? What if your job, your school, your post office, your movie theater, your bar, were KKK members in white robes expressing their faith? You would be pressured or discriminated, actually, or imaginary, into join their group, like it or not. The headscarf is the same symbol in Turkey.

This report shows that in Turkey, currently the devoted pretend to have high respect for seculars, but its from political correctness (a strategy from the USA), if devoted disrespect seculars, seculars would unify and attack the devoted before the problem gets big and Turkey looses its secularism. The devoted are taking seculars for a ride on the slippery slope. Compare to racism in the USA, "do you hate blacks?", everyone will say no, anonymously ask "would you like african american grandchildren?" the answers looks much different. This happens many times in the report, 15:00, orange shirt, and again at 17:05. Everyone answers PC or passive aggressive. Laura needs to do a better job next time getting interviews.

Women rights, the video speaks for itself! How many of these women are speaking for their mahram or husbands? I wonder if a mahram can beat his women on modern Turkish street, and nobody say or do anything. Some say giving women the right vote just lets their dominant males vote twice.

The idea that the west and Islam are in every way opposed to one another fuels fire the Problem (problem with a capital "p") between the U.S. and other self-identified western nations.

bulespider12 suggests that the only way to stop hijab (headscarf) wearing in Turkey is for the U.S. to invade. I think we've seen and continue to see what happens to the natives of Middle Eastern countries that are invaded, and I don't think a U.S. invasion is the solution. An outsider's perspective on the situation assumes Muslim women want western help in the first place. Implicit in the idea that the U.S. must go out and help the Mid East is the belief that the west overrides Islam in both its doctrines and practices. What moral supremacy does the U.S. have over the Mid East and Islam? It is as though we're giving Muslims two choices: stick with your "oppressive" Muslim religion, or bask in the liberties of western ways. What other options are there? And who's providing them? Have we considered the fact that people in the MidEast want a way of life that is neither of these? It is mind-numbing how obvious our media carefully engineers screenings of stories and images set in the Middle East that lend themselves to telling a very particular tale. In other words, we subscribe to the notion that Islam is a backwards religion that only the west can eliminate, because we are continuously fed media coverage that is aligned to this idea.

I wonder, if given the chance, the space, the autonomy, what revolution Turkey and other nations located in the Middle Eastern could begin. We have come to believe that they're incapable of doing this, but how much of what the U.S. does in secrecy in the MidEast are we really aware of? What current and historical U.S. operations aid in maintaining the weakness of the Middle East?

very nice work.
i enjoyed the coverage on both sides of the story

and just so everyone knows, the head scarf is part of the religion. and maybe instead of reading a book that was probably written by western ideas instead of the quran then you would know that.

and your right about the prophet seeking advice/decisions from his wives. which tells you that women do play an important part in islam. unfortunately if muslim women would actually read the quran, then maybe some of them wouldnt be so submissive.

and maybe some would know that its just not the woman who is to be stoned for infidelity...but also the person she was with. both parties are to be punished.

Interesting how both sides feel that they are being forced to take on the beliefs of the other's group.

Wow...I am speechless

I believe that as it stands, there is no problem. No one is being forced to do something they do not wish to do nor are they being stripped of any right. If anything, the Islamic women who would choose to wear the scarf are being oppressed by the scarf bans that remain.

It was very interesting to hear opinions from both sides. It was really nice to see that the women were not forcing their opinions about head scarfs on the others. They were really civil.

It seems like the AK party passed a Law in 2008 to allow Head scarfs to be worn in Universities because some women really want to wear it because of their beliefs and not for fundamentalist reasons.

It was also really nice to see a video that got to talk to the day-to-day Turkish people. I'm really looking forward to visiting Istanbul in the fall for the very first time. It looks beautiful and the people seem very friendly.

Wow. I was really impressed with the maturity of all the respondents. In America, this would be a shouting match even if religion wasn't tied up in it.

Overall an excellent addition to the Vanguard series by Laura. You tried very hard to balance both sides of the issue and get a sense for where things are heading. Coming into Turkey without a detailed background and trying to make sense of the many variables in this complicated country is something most journalists fail to do (NYT's current reporter) but your pods show once again how current is keeping journalism alive.

The last segment of the pod was trying to tackle a much larger issue in such a short time, I think it really should have been the point of the entire broadcast instead of the headscarf.

That being said, there were a couple issues on the piece I think could have been elaborated on. Even secular-minded people would agree that women should be able to wear scarfs; the problem is the majority of women really don't have a choice due to family and social pressure.

Outside of the more affluent neighborhoods in the broadcast women face harassing comments for not dressing conservative enough. News articles of the past year show several times where single women were harassed by men on the beach or public parks.

Personally I'll put more emphasis on what these headscarfed women are saying when they have rallies showing support to the women who are harassed and sexually assaulted while NOT wearing headscarfes. Otherwise they don't seem to care about all women, just their women.

If AK party is serious in its reforms it not only needs to push for freedom for conservative women, but also check conservative men who feel more empowered to push their ideas of public attire onto other women. Like the headscarfed woman from Zaman said, the situation for women in Turkey is not that bright still. I think first of all we need to address the issue of the men in the country; the women already know it isn't right.

Let's not forget the Prime Minister's famous quote while he was mayor of Istanbul. "Democracy is like a streetcar, you ride it until you reach your destination." While he may say he doesn't believe that anymore, words like this make many pious Turks nervous.

There are also many actions, especially done by local municipalities controlled by AKP, that make secular-minded Turks nervous. Actions like the city of Antalya suddenly taking down a statue that has been there for years, on the grounds it is now seen as "obscene". There are still more mosques being built than schools, but only the latter are in dire shortage due to a massive population under 18.

The recent seizure of one TV station made Turks nervous, especially when the prime minister's brother in law was the new owner, and sole bidder, of the station. Even last week the only openly anti-AKP station was sold to another pro-AKP conglomerate. The owner claims if he hadn't sold it the company would have been seized by the government. These actions I feel are more concerning than some women wearing headscarfs.

No public universities are being opened, and there are only 400,000 openings a year for new university students, although thousands more pass the exam. The response from the AK party minister of education? Less people should take the test.

Laura's addition of why AKP is popular due to providing social services to the poor is true, but the worst kept secret is also the fact that right before elections they deliver free food and coal to rural families, not under the name of a municipality, but under from the AK party.

The problem isn't necessarily that they want Islam more in public life, the problem is they refuse to check the more extreme elements from their side of the political spectrum. They don't want to simply end the secular establishment of the courts and the military, they want to replace it with their own control of it.

Oh yes, and Roc needs to bone up on his Ottoman and middle eastern history. A lot.

The head scarf is NOT an Islamic practice but rather a cultural thing. Before the onset of the Ottoman empire dominating the whole Muslim world at its peak women had as much rights as men.

The Ottoman empire imposed TURKISH values on the rest of the Islamic world. If you go read a book called "A short history of Islam" you will discover that in the Arab world, women were ALLOWED to seek a divorce from their husbands hundreds of years before this practice was taken up in the western world. Women were also said to have fought in wars side by side with men although only if there was a shortage of able bodied male warriors and it was by choice for any woman to do so.

The Prophet was always seeking the adive of his wives so much so it annoyed some of his followers that he would hold women in such high regard.

The wearing of a veil or scarf and a woman being killed by her husband for committing an act that was ok for him to do is just the continuous domination of women by men.

Non secular countries have NO place in today's world.

Roc

Editor, WHORESNEVERLEARN.COM

This was a very nice work quoting both sides of the argument. I liked watching it.

I think the big conflict is that, opponents of the headscarf in Turkey think headscarf is something that makes the country less modern. These people are the biggest supporters of western democracy but they fail in their sincerity when they don't respect covering which should be viewed merely as a choice of style.

Most women wear the scarf as this is a recommendation in the religion they believe in, or they don't feel comfortable dressing up in western style as opposed to using scarf as a symbol of their ideology.

I agree with rawrfee, its become more of an issue with the government than with the people. As you can see, most of the interviewees explained that its purely by choice whether a woman should wear a head scarf or not. Being half Turkish, I grew up with many women who wore the scarf and not once felt the pressure to cover myself in order to prove that I am Muslim. Great interviews, could have been a bit shorter because the topic became a bit redundant but you definitely covered many of the crucial points in confronting the scarf conflict.

was this really a scarf war? it seemed a lot more like an american creating an issue where none really exists... at least yet.

pressrecord - of course you can approach a woman wearing a head scarf...Though it is best if you have a woman with you at the time (it is considered impromper for a man to approach a woman by himself when they don't know each other)

Thanks to Current and Miss Ling for reporting this story. Istanbul is home away from home for me...seeing the bars in Taxim and the view of the bosphorus from Ulus again was like hugging an old friend...

However, i think the issue could have been covered more thoroughly...excuse the pun...as many of my Turkish friends are more concerned about an Iranian or Talaban type party emerging from the AK...They aren't so worried about the head scarves (as almost all of those interviewed said) as they are about full body covering. Istanbul is extremely European with a middle eastern charm...More details from the small, rural towns would have been interesting.

All the same, i thoroughly enjoyed the story and the style with which it was reported. Thanks again!

these headscarves make women look more attractive, i think. i know i begin to focus on women's eyes and lips when they wear these. i'm more curious whether it's ok to approach a woman wearing one?