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CounterPunch
February
27, 2003
Scarf and Make-up:
the Modern Face of Islam
Religion
and Secularism in Turkey and Iran
by BEHZAD YAGHMAIAN
Istanbul is a city of mosques. Some
grand and others smaller, they are in every neighborhood. Their
presence cannot be ignored. The domes and minarets shine at night
under colorful lights. They give the city a sense of the past
gracefully making its place in the present. At the time of azan,
Qur'an readings are heard from loudspeakers across the city.
The azan is heard everywhere: in rich and poor neighborhoods,
and in Turkish and immigrant quarters. All music stops with
the very first words out of the loudspeakers. Cafes and restaurants
shut down their music boxes. For a short few minutes, the azan
dominates. It is the only sound to be heard. The past rules
the present. Tradition overrides the modern. The city belongs
to the mosques. And this occurs merely based on an unwritten
social contract between the citizens-the modernists and the traditionalists,
the secular and the religious, the Muslim and the non-Muslim.
There is no role for the state, its laws, and its bureaucracy.
During the azan, it is the civil society that governs. "We
do it out of respect. It is not forced on us by the government"
explained Ali, a young Kurd working in an outdoor teahouse in
Sultanahmet.
After all, perhaps there is a way
for the secular and the non-secular to live in peace in the East.
Perhaps!
* *
*
Turkey and Iran both experienced fundamental
changes in the past two decades. In Iran, a sweeping revolution
toppled the secular Pahlavi Monarchy in 1979 and brought to power
a theocracy-an Islamic state. In Turkey, a military coup d'état
ended the existing civilian government in 1980 and proceeded
with a broad program of modernization and Westernization under
the military rule.
Despite the difference in appearance,
there are many similarities between the developments in Iran
and Turkey in the past two decades. In both countries, the state
was actively engaged in restructuring the society through constructing
new cultural images and reshaping the modes of social behavior.
Central to this project was the state construction-directly in
Iran, and indirectly in Turkey-of a new image for women. Body
politics played an important role in state's social engineering.
Women's body and lived experiences became subject of struggle
for power.
Constructing
a New Woman: the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the Coup d'état
in Turkey
Twenty-two years ago, political Islam
triumphed in Iran. The founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran
launched an ambitious social project-building an Islamic utopia
on earth. Constructing a society based on Islamic laws, they
sought to build an earthly alternative to the cultural and political
imperatives of the West. The utopia was comprehensive and universal
in its scope. It promised a vague notion of Islamic social justice,
and vowed to protect all those left out or negatively affected
by the Shah's modernization policy. The utopia gave self-respect
to the masses of marginalized and disenfranchised people, and
a sense of political freedom from foreign domination. Defining
the utopia in opposition to the West, the state banned all symbols
of secularism, and cultural products that represented the Western
world's "cultural assault." They crusaded against
the "Satanic West," and hoped to mold a new generation
of Iranians based on Islamic virtuosity-a population opposed
to all Western values.
Central to the construction of the new
society was the state domination of women and their body. A
well-defined body politics emerged from the inception of the
Islamic Republic: The control of women's body was to be a pillar
of a new hierarchical and patriarchic society. The Islamic
Republic's imagined utopia was a society of tamed women and obedient
men. The Islamic hijab was used as a primary instrument of domination.
Forcing the hijab on women, separating
male and female students in universities, and banning all contact
between them, the state sought to create a society of virtuous
Muslims: a space of repressed worldly desires. Through diverse
means and methods, it hoped to construct a culture in which secular
happiness was a sin, and human love was an unforgivable crime.
It opposed and banned music, arts, and all cultural symbols
of modern life. Bright colors of joy were replaced with dark
colors of anger and fear. Happiness was a worldly sin, laughter
a crime. Death and martyrdom were celebrated. A cultural model
of morbidity and sorrowfulness was constructed. The state-controlled
radio and television monopolies constantly aired religious programs,
Qur'an readings, images of virtuous Muslim men and women, grim
faces, and graphic images of the devastating war with Iraq: young
men blown into pieces, and blood. The Islamic Utopia celebrated
death!
Turkey followed a different path from
Iran. It aggressively moved in the opposite direction-the Westernization
of the society and its culture. The media, businesses, and the
state worked together to secularize this traditional and deeply
Islamic society. Helped by a powerful military and guided by
the desire to join the European Union, Turkey made all necessary
cosmetic changes, transforming the appearance of the society.
Worshiping the West and its appearances became a virtue. The
state hoped to build a Western utopia in a non-Western society.
Similar to the Islamic utopia, the Turkish
utopia had its body politics. A new Turkish woman was to be the
cornerstone of the utopia. Looking modern and Westernized, she
was to be the cosmetic pillar of the new society. Both Iran and
Turkey were building new images, one opposing the West, the other
embracing it. Iran banned the exposure of women's body curves.
In Turkey, pictures of half-naked women were exhibited on billboards
and in daily newspapers.
A New Body
Politics: Challenging the State and its Utopia
Help us to explain that a headscarf is
not a political symbol, we have a right to think politically,
but we consider the piousness as our tradition above all. Enough
is enough. Give, one of you, your support to us. Write something
showing that you understand us. And perceive this as a woman's
right.
An open letter by a twenty-five year
old Muslim woman from Turkey
It was a few years ago. I went to a restaurant
with my parents, husband, and my child. We ordered our food and
waited. Thinking that we were ordinary people, like other ordinary
people in other parts of the world, we talked and laughed quietly.
A few minutes gone, a boy approached us. Thirteen or fourteen
years of age, armed, angry, he was as rude as one could be.
Looking at my mother he shouted: "Are you not ashamed of
yourself for laughing in public?"Tell us once, why laughter
is a sin.
An open letter by a mother in the Islamic
Republic of Iran
A fantastic grassroots and unorganized
movement against the Islamic hijab emerged in Iran since the
early 1990s. Two decades after its creation, the effort to build
an anti-Western society is energizing a creative movement for
its antithesis: a society based on Western values and culture.
A revolution in culture is occurring in Iran. The young people
of Iran embrace the satanic West, long for its forbidden fruit,
and wish to escape the Islamic paradise for a life of sin and
decadence. They are the crusaders of change, warriors of a different
utopia-the MTV utopia. The Islamic utopia is defeated by an array
of seductive cultural products: the Internet, MTV, satellite
dishes, Hollywood, and all that is decadent.
Young and older, the Iranian women defy
the Islamic hijab publicly, and confront the state's Islamic
body politics with a body politics of their own. The youth mock
the Islamic hijab, deconstruct it, reform it, and make it succumb
to their modern desires. They reveal their hair in public by
pushing back their mandated headscarf, transforming it into a
garment used for their beautification. Against all cultural
mandates of the Islamic state, they reveal their body curves
under their remodeled and modernized "Islamic" garb.
They wear loud makeup, walk elegantly, and bring their sexuality
to the public. They reject the control of their body by the
state, and celebrate their womanhood by defying the Islamic hijab.
A new reality has emerged in Iran-a reality
created by women. The Iranian women are playing an instrumental
role in the grassroots challenge to the Islamic Republic through
their deconstruction of the hijab and their direct challenge
of the state's body politics. Challenging the Islamic dress
code, they use the everyday life as the site for gaining rights
and respect from the society and the state. They demand the
right to live as free women. Humiliated, assaulted, and arrested
randomly for being women, they have gained resilience, lost their
fears of confronting the state, and battled the repressive social
and cultural Islamic codes of conduct. Using deviance as a weapon,
they are creating a reality unimagined by the architects of the
Islamic Republic.
In some ways, an opposite movement has
occurred in Turkey. While experiencing an aggressive state-managed
modernization project, Turkey was swept by a growing oppositional
Islamic movement in the 1980s and after. Closely watched by
the military and the business establishment, Islamic parties
gained support in big cities, recruiting those living on the
margins of the society: the unemployed, low-wage workers, shanty
town dwellers, and the urban poor. They focused on the segment
of the population that was left out and marginalized by the process
of modernization, and gained from the failures of the modernization
process. They built clinics and schools, provided the poor with
free personal and social services, and made themselves a living
alternative to the existing economic and social order. The Islamists
ran for office under the banner of the Welfare Party, and had
their first Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1996. Erbakan
resigned from his post in June 1997 as a result of a concerted
campaign by the military. On November 3, 2002, political Islam
returned to power with the landslide parliamentary victory of
Justice and Development Party (AKP).
I visited Istanbul thirteen years ago.
That was still the early stages of the rise of political Islam
in the country, and the state's massive campaign to "modernize"
the society. Two parallel but opposite movements were marching
ahead: Islamization, and modernization-albeit shallow modernization.
Both movements grew in strength in the 1990s. I returned to
Istanbul in September 2002. A sea change had occurred between
the two visits.
Istanbul is a profoundly more Western,
and more Islamic city now. The number of women wearing some
form of Islamic hijab has significantly increased. Hijab is
everywhere. It is as noticeable as the hip, and western outfit
worn by other women in Istanbul. They are there together. Groups
of women-some in the Islamic hijab, and others in the outfits
of the "infidel"-are seen strolling together, conversing,
laughing, and enjoying a unique sense of peace and coexistence.
The Islamic hijab is far from uniform
in its form and style. Three broad genres of hijab are dominant.
The scene is remarkably fascinating. There are women who fashion
a long baggy robe and a headscarf to hide from the public their
hair and body curves. This was the dress code celebrated in
the Islamic Republic of Iran and forced on the secularized and
modernized women of Iran by the state. But, here in Istanbul,
the same hijab is, in some sense, a defiance of the secularism
of the state. Often chosen by older women, by those who were
the product of a more traditional Turkey-Turkey before the coup
d'état-the Iranian hijab is a part of the Islamic body
politics, a new development of the past two decades.
What is especially intriguing is the
hijab of the younger generation, the children of modern Turkey-teenagers,
high school students, and young women in their early twenties.
Their hijab is a collage, a mix of tradition and modern in the
body politics of the same person: a sign of the coexistence of
two distinct worlds in Turkey. Visually intriguing, it is the
best embodiment of contemporary Turkey and all its social contradictions.
Here, the hair is entirely covered in a bright and colorful
headscarf that resonates a keen consciousness of female sexuality.
In most cases, the hidden hair is more than compensated by the
elegant beautification of the face with the use of all modern
inventions and Western notions of femininity.
Conflicting, collage-like, and elegantly
designed, the young woman's Islamic head is juxtaposed on a body
that is simply modern, non-Islamic, and often seductive. Contrary
to the baggy robes of the first hijab, the young Muslim woman's
body curves are revealed under the Western, and sexually appealing
outfits-tight and colorful pants and blouses. The body is riddled
with sexual consciousness and the willingness to be sexual in
public.
The Iranian-style hijab is dominant in
Istanbul's slums and shantytowns, and more religious quarters
of the city. It is the hijab of the poor and the lower middle
class of Turkey-those neglected or negatively affected by Turkey's
hyper-Westernization. Of course, occasionally, one sees the
Saudi Arabian model of the Islamic hijab-women entirely covered
in black, only revealing their eyes. But, this is far from dominant.
It is a rarity even in very religious neighborhoods of Istanbul.
The Iranian-style hijab became a landmark
in Turkey's body politics during the gradual ascendance of the
Welfare Party. The party brought a sense of respect, discipline,
and order to the poor. For the forgotten and marginalized poor,
all of these were welcomed developments. Religious order and
self-respect completed the welfare program of the party. The
Welfare Party's motto of "Just Order" won the hearts
and minds of the poor. Here too, political Islam arrived with
a cultural model, and an image of the virtuous woman. The Islamic
hijab was its banner in the march towards an alternative paradigm.
The collage-like hijab is the hijab of
the children of the educated Turks, higher incomes Turks, and
those influenced by the culture of Westernization. This is the
landmark of Justice and Development Party, the new Islamic party
in power, and a party with supporters far beyond the poor in
city slums and shantytowns. The new party has large support
among the youth, the educated Turks, and the students. Political
Islam has won the hearts and minds of the non-marginalized Turks.
It brought to its ranks younger women in deconstructed hijab-the
collage of Islam and the West-a new Islamic aesthetics.
In the streets of Istanbul, the Western
outfit, and all types of the Islamic Hijab coexist through a
delicate relationship in the civil society. Secularism or the
religiousness of one's outfit is not mandated by the state.
There is no state body politics. But, this ends with the young
woman's entry into educational institutions or government offices-spaces
where the state mandates its secularism. The hijab is banned.
Turkey's "measured democracy" shows its face.
Denied of the right to enter schools
with her choice of the hijab, the young Muslim woman is made
to be creative. The state should not be offended. But the hijab
must prevail. "Hijab sends an important message that a
person does not have to see my body to have a conversation with
me," said a female student from Istanbul University. She
feels a need for protection from the eyes of men. She takes
shelter under her hijab. The state reacts. It removes the shelter,
and the perceived protection of the hijab. An open battle of
different body politics emerges. Hats, caps, wings, and other
forms of cover that are commonly used in the West for their beautification
of the body are appropriated by the young Muslim woman in Turkey
to deceive the state. They are used as hijab-a "Western
hijab"-one not objected by the secular state. A third
model of hijab has, thus, emerged in response to the state and
its body politics.
Like their Iranian counterparts, these
young women use all possible means to go beyond the state-mandated
identity, defining and creating their own identity. But, unlike
their Iranian counterparts, they defy the state's secularization
of their identity, struggling to be Islamic. And while some
young women triumph by adapting to the new rules and changing
the appearance of their Islamic hijab, others refuse to change,
pleading to the public for understanding and support. They vow
to preserve their hijab as a woman's right.
"Write something showing that you
understand us. And perceive this as a woman's right," pleaded
a young Turkish woman in an open letter to the newspapers. Her
plea is sobering. It is a fundamental question asked of enlightened
seculars. It tests the limits of their beliefs, their commitment
to individual rights, and their support for the democratic process
in Turkey. Though under the hijab, her discourse is modern,
it is a discourse of rights. Can a secular society in Turkey
or elsewhere tolerate the non-secular "other?" Can
it coexist with its symbols of otherness-the hijab in this case?
This is a test for Iran and Turkey in
the coming years, both on a path to change and a hope for democratization.
The passage to unconditional democracy, not "measured democracy,"
or "Islamic Democracy" necessitates a peaceful solution
to the age-long tension between Islam and modernism. The hijab-forcefully
imposed or removed-is but one visually apparent sign of this
tension.
Welcome
to Europe
Behind the main entrance of Bosphorus
University-the Turkish equivalent of French "Grandes Ecoles",
forming Turkish business and political elite-there is a makeshift
room. Small and painted green, a window covered with closed
curtains, and not noticed by most passersby: the room is no more
than five feet inside the campus behind the gate.
I accidentally noticed the room one early
afternoon. A young Muslim student in an Islamic headscarf entered
the gate, walked to the room, opened the door and disappeared.
A few minutes gone, the door opened, and the student reemerged.
The headscarf removed, her hair tucked under a thick winter
hat in a hot and smoggy afternoon, she proceeded to the campus,
once again disappearing from my sight. I stood guard, watching
the room from distance. Leaving the campus, a woman wearing
a winter hat entered the room. The door was shut closed and reopened
shortly after. The woman emerged with an Islamic headscarf, crossed
the gate, and entered the world outside the beautiful Bosphorus
University. She was Muslim again.
I closed my eyes and reflected on the
sign on a bridge on the Bosphorus: "Welcome to Europe!"
Behzad Yaghmaian
is an international political economists and the author of Social
Change in Iran: An Eyewitness Account of Dissent, Defiance, and
New Movements for Rights (SUNY Press, 2002). He is currently
in the Middle East researching for his upcoming book, Embracing
the Infidel: The Secret World of the Muslim Migrant (Verso Books).
He can be reached at behzad_yaghmaian@hotmail.com.
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