Mrs. Lamis Andoni is not sincere. She declares herself as a self-proclaimed secularist, opposes all of religious-institutions, and enjoys a liberal & contemporary life style; then, criticizing Turks.
People commenting on this matter never pronounce constitutional rights. The real base for that argument is Turkish Constitution, not Holy Koran, hadiths or sunnet. Turkish Constitution is based upon contemporary requirements of a modern society and embraces all citizens of any ethnic origin, religion or gender.
Turk means Turkish citizen of any ethnic origin. Turkey is a melting pot for several ethnic groups.
Turkey is aiming to reach contemporary standards. Imagine the difficulties of building a contemporary society, state and democracy in this region upon the remnants of an empire. You may realize how difficult to reach that target and why Turkish Army assume a "Guardian Role" for democracy.
Turkey has suffered and still suffering much from religious fanaticism and ethnical differences, and paid bitter bills to reach that level of democracy and social structure.
Turkey will overcome all of the current problems and obstacles, such as headscarf of university girls, ethnic Kurdish unrests and separatist terror, Armenian claims, will get better. EU membership has contributed much to Turkish law and democratic institutions.
Turkish secularists don't want to package women, but providing a strong ground for them to live and enjoy life; like Mrs. Lamis Andoni.
I am sure that Mrs. Adoni already knows these basics and understands where hijab leads.I am sure both she and other opponents aren't sincere. Just talking…..

wearing burqa is personal choice. but it would be better to practice religious related practices at inside a persons's home or at some private areas. the world govt should ban any type of religious practices at public places.

Amish and Mennonite women (and many nuns) voluntarily wear hair covers in the US without problem. So in the US, wearing a modest veil is fine (although face coverage would be considered extreme, and should be illegal in free countries).

Your argument would hold more water if there hadn't been incidents of Christian women in such diverse places as Iraq, Iran, and the Paris suburbs being beaten up for not wearing a covering.

In Iran and Saudi it was by religious police, but in Iraq and in Paris, it was by young men who terrorize girls, who then "chose" to wear the hijab "voluntarily" so they are not harassed...

I suspect this is why many Turkish women fear the removal of the ban.

Excellent article, Ms. Andoni. It's just a piece of cloth! Muslim feminists have been saying all along that hijab, or the lack thereof, is of no significance to the really important issues in the world. I see sisters in hijab working for human rights alongside bareheaded sisters, and neither group thinks it matters one way or the other. It's a private, personal choice. All this irrational obsession with hijab distracts from the issues that really matter while placing extra burdens on women.

The issue of hijab is one of imposition and lack of choice. Some Muslimas choose to wear the hijab. Others have it imposed on them by their families or their governments. If a women decides to wear the hijab in her own time, she will love it because it was her choice made with knowledge and understanding. However, if it is imposed on her by her government (or even her family) she may come to resent it and the faith itself.

This was the explanation given to me by a dear friend and professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia for why he refused to let his young daughter (10 years old) wear the hijab. First, he said that women were not supposed to wear the veil until they hit puberty anyway. Second, he said she was too young to make an informed choice. He'd rather she make the choice as an adult and do it with knowledge and respect and love. Then, she'd love the hijab and love her faith all the more.

Religion is a beautiful thing if taken with knowledge, understanding, and peaceful and pure hearts. Religion is perverted by ignorance, greed and hate. We should all work for more understanding of each other.

RichmondGiant:

The simple fact that after six years, the true reasons behind the Afghanistan adventure are still being debated shows all too well the weakness of the case. In addition, still at issue are: 1. the responsibilities of the Afghan government prior to our military attack; 2. its willingness and our unwillingness to talk, let alone to negotiate; 3. the international legality of the whole operation, and 4. the appropriateness of calling it a “war”. It is interesting to note that we experience no similar difficulty in relation to our participation in World War II, for instance.

In my opinion, history will clearly show this military expedition: 1. never was what could legitimately be called a “war” by any international definition; 2. never could, and therefore never was, from beginning to end, supported by any sound rationale that could have served as a legitimate justification for it; 3. was never anything but an illegal adventure in international state terrorism; 4. was by no means the first and only one of its kind, attributable to the United States of America (in due course, a list of precedents will accompany the demonstration).

To be precise, we did not “bomb” Afghanistan, as you write; we bombed Afghanistan. In the process, we in fact did better than bomb innocent civilian populations: we invaded and occupied that extremely poor country, and through terror, managed, among many other feats, to have: 1. food shipments cut back, 2. the number of people risking starvation increased by 50% (by 2.5 million, up to more than 7 million), 3. international aid reduced or suspended, 4. international workers withdrawn. The net result is that after six years, we are still occupying Afghanistan; and with the prospect of more resistance (such a surprise!), not only is there no end in sight, but increased destructions and long term occupation are currently on the agenda. I shall not go now into where the moneys pegged “military” and “reconstruction” have gone, and in what proportion…

Chomsky:

“You say that there are people there who are going to defend him. Are those the seven to eight million Afghan we are trying to starve to death, are they defending him? No, these are victims. They’re not defending him. The people we are killing are innocent Afghans… they are the victims… they are the ones we are attacking…those are perfectly innocent civilians, who have nothing to do with it, they are the victims… we, meaning you and I, not some abstract entity, are consciously acting to murder. If we can’t face that, we have no right talking about this problem….

The hypocrite refuses to apply to himself the standards he applies to others…

We should try to rise to a minimal level of moral integrity; to do so requires that if we think something is wrong when they do it, it is wrong when we do it. …If we’re serious we should be concerned about what we do and what we can do. If there is an elementary moral truism that’s it! People don’t understand that, they’re just not in the moral universe.

I don’t blame America. I blame you, I blame me, and I blame the rest of us who are allowing this to happen right in front of our eyes…”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bugC2RvGBQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUcIxq4hBuc&feature=related

The hijab does indeed become the emblem of ortodoxy and submission. Women who venture onto the streets without it, or perhaps covered entirely by a burkah, risk taunting, attack by males with impunity, and punishment by sharia judges. Similarly, men are compelled to grow beards or be suspect as "unislamic". It is not a question of "fashion," as would be the choice between clothing of one color or another. Ataturk was the one person with the brains and guts to purge Turkish society of the oppression of garb which only represses and divides. Too bad the Middle East has not produced more like him who, for all his faults, gave seed to the first secular Islamic democracy.

I agree with the comments which describe the increased wearing of hijab especially in Turkey and the West as - often or at least in part - an identity statement or political statement in reaction to percieved negative attitudes toward Islam. I understand this reaction and sympathize with it.

It could, however, contribute in some environments to social pressure on secularist Muslim women to be more Muslim and adopt hijab. This is itself a kind of oppression. There is a real threat here I think.

My only fundamental objection, however, to anyone's adopting this habit comes when the habit extends to veiling the face - especially with opaque veil which totally obscures the features of the face. This is a dehumanizing and anti-social act whether by choice or not. It should be strongly discouraged as a public act in any civilized society.

I agree with the comments which describe the increased wearing of hijab especially in Turkey and the West as - often or at least in part - an identity statement or political statement in reaction to percieved negative attitudes toward Islam. I understand this reaction and sympathize with it.

It could, however, contribute in some environments to social pressure on secularist Muslim women to be more Muslim and adopt hijab. This is itself a kind of oppression. There is a real threat here I think.

My only fundamental objection, however, to anyone's adopting this habit comes when the habit extends to veiling the face - especially with opaque veil which totally obscures the features of the face. This is a dehumanizing and anti-social act whether by choice or not. It should be strongly discouraged as a public act in any civilized society.

eh?

I say, hijab is the least of the problems our world is facing. There are literally hundreds of ppl dying daily due to AIDS, poverty, homelessness, etc. It's such a waste of time for all of us to enjoy the (useless) luxury of philosophical discussions while our fellow humans are dying by the thousands, and we, esp. in the west, don't even give a damn, let alone do something to help them.

We must understand that no culture is bad. Cultures are differnt from each others. So we have to learn to live together with spirit of tolerance.

Culture's merits or de-merits is endless discussion. Peace can not achive without patience and tolerance.

Naveed Sadiq Khan,
Lahore- Pakistan

I do agree with the article. Every person have a right to choose their dress. And it is their human right.

I believe that the article was stressing the importance of westerners understanding and respecting the culture and values of the muslims. However it is quite clear how most of the people only want to discuss Hijab and muslim women and muslim belief only, thanks to the Western news media which has almost hypnotised the whole western population including some people in the eatern part of the world.

All the respected readers here who are discussing the Hijab and arguing it to be oppressive to muslim women etc etc, please let us leave looking into the wardrobes of others and let them decide how they should dress.

Unfortunately for most westerners it is impossible to think of people living with different cultural and value systems and that misunderstanding is the problem.

In gulf countries people have their own system of living and they have been carrying out life happily and peacefully until the westerners from past 20 years have started objecting the way they live and have created mischief and bloodshed within their lands by their misunderstanding and superiority complex they behold.

Its very interesting that hijab is corelated with women rights and democracy by the western media.Please ask the hijab wearing women how they feel about hijab.
women has always been treated as a piece of flesh and entertainment by western media but the security the women gets by wearing a hijab cannot be understood by western cultures.

Look at usa and uk policies of wmd in iraq which was full of lies and lies what hapenned to wmd

western media should stop criticising islam and try to find out their own follies.

look at the world how islam is spreading and specially have a snap shot of secular muslim countries how they are slowly going towards conservatism turkey malaysia pakistan palestine etc etc

Its very interesting that hiab is corelated with womwn rights and democracy by the western media.Please ask the hijab wearing women how they feel about hijab.
women has always been treated as a piece of flesh and entertainment by western media but the security the women gets by wearing a hijab cannot be understood by western cultures.

Look at usa and uk policies of wmd in iraq which was full of lies and lies what hapenned to wmd

western media should stop criticising islam and try to find out their own follies.

look at the world how islam is spreading and specially have a snap shot of secular muslim countries how they are slowly going towards conservatism turkey malaysia pakistan palestine etc etc

Good post and comments.I believe just putting hijab on does not bring modesty and it also does not bring Islamic revolution in a country.These are all myopic views of the situation which is much more complex.Both Muslims and West needs to understand each other because both playing a role in building this mistrust.West needs to continue to back freedom including religious freedom and Muslims without a doubt needs to be more tolerant.Unfortunately in majority Muslim countries Mosques are empty, less and less people practice Islam but majority is ready to jump on the street to burn something in response to Cartoons of Prophet or other perceived or real insults.Too much demagoguery in play.

It's funny how you muslims want the west to tolarte your blieves,and you muslims can not tolerate christians in your muslims nations.wher is the justice in that.

It's funny how you muslims want the west to tolarte your blieves,and you muslims can not tolerate christians in your muslims nations.wher is the justice in that.

JRLR

You, and Ms. Andoni, seem to forget many of the West's reason for "bombing" Afghanistan. Allow me to remind you. On September 11, several Muslims hijacked several airplanes and smashed them into office buildings. The investigation, and subsequent admissions, concluded that one Osama Bin Laden was the mastermind and that he was planning more attacks. He was tracked down to Afghanistan where the Taliban regime tried to evoke the rules of hospitality (not known for around 2000 years in the West) to justify harboring him and his followers and their training camps.

The West did not bomb to ban burkas. It bombed because a cold blooded murderer was being protected and supported by the Afghan government. Tossing out the Taliban was just icing on the cake. If the Taliban were to renounce violence tomorrow, and mean it, I doubt the West would care about the state of Afghans. It's sad, but a reality.

Ms. Adoni:

You make some good points. I think that our concern is that the Hijab is the 1st step towards complete subjugation of woman, as is seen in many Islamic ruled societies. If you can convince people in the US that our interpretation is false, you might have a different reaction to the Hijab.

In the US, a woman can wear a hijab if she wants because we do not fear that the Muslim minority in this country will take over an impose a Taliban style government. Can the same be said in Turkey? Apparently the Turkish army doesn't think so.

Also, ask your Al Jazeera audience what would happen if I walked the streets of the middle east with a Yamulka (or a large cross) on, would I be treated as well as hijab wearing Muslims are in the US?

You raise good points, Ms. Andoni. I don't accept there is a "Western Superiority". Perhaps two hundred years ago during the height of Brittania. Perhaps at the end of WWII in the US.

The issue of the Hijab is not so much the garment as what it represents to many. Islamic Fundamentalists are destroying the meaning of so many of Islam's symbols. They are coopting the whole faith. The problem of the hijab is not Western intolerance, but Western fear and Islams absolute failure to address it's violent brethren.

When whacko artists offend Christians, for example, millions don't take to the streets in violent protest demanding blood. Yet if anyone is even rumored to offend Islam - out come the knives and AK-47s. It's a primal violence. Just as the Roman Salute is now taboo because of the Nazi's, outward signs of fundamentalist Islam are taboo because Islam is becoming, to others, the sign of murder, beheadings, lynch mobs, and suicide bombers.

The real solution here is complex. Yes, the West must be willing to be more open minded. Contradiction is nothing new to the West. Here in America, we preach religious freedom yet wearing a cross in the workplace is often seen as "unprofessional", or outright banned. But we should try. The other half of the solution is Islam - it needs to develop an abhorance for violence and stop blaming others for it's own problems.

We invaded Afghanistan not only to attempt to root out the Taliban and Al Queda, but also to attempt to restore some semblance of equality and less oppresive system for all citizens.

The Burka is merely a symbol of the repression under the Taliban and others. No schools for girls, no female doctors, can't drive, honor killings, can't go out in public alone, etc. Now if some of the other regressice Islamic countries would loosen up a bit, we wouldn't have to have these discussions.

I agree the discussion shouldn't be about wearing the hijab or not. If a muslim woman want to use it, it is her righ. The problem is when she is forced to use it. In our western society you can use hijab, veils, piercing, tatoos, punk hairdos, crosses, etc. But nobody is asking to institutionalize, i.e., a Punk tribunal that will rule over punk people's punkness, and with capacity to overpower a civil tribunal. You let a muslim tribunal to force your women to use hijab, then what, a neo aztec religion will be allowed to carry on human sacrifices or ritual bleeding? Of course is ridicolous, but hey, it is a religion too.

Nudity does not define liberation
Modesty does not define servitude

http://Rupeenews.com

Ibrahim Mahfouz:
You are so correct. Additionally, its is a sad day when your identity is centered around your religion!!!! That is all you have to offer... that is one of the major reasons why there are so many internal conflicts within Muslim countries, there is no national pride, only allegience to a religion or a sect within that religion.....

Ms. Adoni:

The imposition of the veil upon Muslim women is just one more tool their men are using to mark their stamp on them as their property. It is not a religious requirement. It is true that their prophet found it necessary to shroud his wives with Burqa, but that was for reasons that were special to his particular situation. First he had eleven wives and undetermined number of concubines living in the same household where all sort of men were continually coming in and out, supposedly to pay him homage. Also the wives used to go out at night to a clearing in their neighborhood to defecate, and men including Omar, one of the Prophet’s fathers in law, recognized some of them even in very dark nights.
Muslims who favor the veil rationalize that it is to “maintain a woman’s modesty”. A woman’s modesty if not protected from within can never be protected by a shroud or a scarf. On the contrary some prostitutes use the Burqa to facilitate the conducting of their business.
An emerging function of the veil is its use as a political statement. How else could we explain the fact that Islamists, at least in Egypt, are paying large sums of money to public figures in TV and movies to wear the headscarf. Recently a well-known Muslim cleric sued an Egyptian actress for taking off the scarf after wearing it for over a year. In the West wearing of a scarf is not a political message as it is statement of rejection of its way of life.
PS. America did not invade Afghanistan to remove the Burqa but to remove the Taliban who were allowing the Qaida use their lands as a base to launch terrorist attacks on the West.

Interesting to receive the views of someone from an Arab country on the "domination of Turkey by the military".

The reason the military is so influential in Turkey is because it is based on mandatory conscription and because it has always been military man that introduced and safeguarded deep-rooted institutional progress (read, not election driven "reform").

The effect of conscription is easy to understand: It is hard to dominate a society if the armed forces is by and large comprised of people that come from the people. Without popular support, the military could not have staged coups. The military uses the conscripted masses to gauge the sentiments of the people and acts accordingly. To do otherwise, the generals would risk their own heads; it is hard to give a blatantly wrong orders to conscripts driving tanks and carrying machine guns.

As for Westernization, the history is very clear on this one. If it had not been for the military, there would be no Turkey; Turks would have shared the same colonial fate as their Arab neighbors. But the military did not stop there. Officers (who later moved to civilian positions, e.g. MK Ataturk) introduced Western constitution, laws, and institutions; and nurtured and guarded them so that, when at least one generation had a chance to grow with them, the switch to election-driven democracy could be made. The military-established CHP party was the first and primary party; it lost the election but did not resist a peaceful transfer of power out of respect for the process of democracy. During the Cold War, they could have carried out a coup and no one would have noticed. But, they did not.

In fact, as we saw following the multi-party elections in the 1950s, the civilians sought to establish a one-party dictatorship, by closing opposition parties and severely restricting the press and engaging in outright one-party propaganda using state media (radio, primarily). The civilians were the guilt party then, trying to dismantle democracy in open view. And, that was not the only time civilians try to curb (eliminate?) democracy.

Military men seem to understand that in order to affect change, it takes a lot of homework and planning, patience and hard work -- like raising a child until he/she matures. Giving cheap speeches and wishful promises a few months before elections does not provide a good basis for progress. What democracies need are independent-thinking citizens and independent judiciary. AKP and other so-called democracy-loving parties have taken blatant steps to undermine these pillars of democracy. We now see a push to create a single-block for "conservative values". The independence of the judiciary, which has traditionally been kept desperate for resources on purpose, is facing all sorts of clear and shameless interfered from the executive and legislative branch. The military's role has traditionally been to resist such attacks on democracy.

Without the ability to safely question anything, including so-called Islamic requirements like the hijab, one cannot trust the seeming independence of women. The record of Islam in recent centuries is abysmal when it comes to women's rights and freedoms. And, Islam is yet to go through its Renaissance. So, not having gone through a fundamental reassessment, why would we expect the male-dominated interpretation of Islam to safeguard the secular rights or women, including, the right not to wear the hijab? The answer is obvious: We have no reason to expect that Islamic societies will somehow suddenly have an epiphany and realize their ill-deeds towards women.

As we say in Turkish: Habit is worse then craziness. There are ways to deal with mental diseases and ailments; the effects can be and often are temporary, fleeting; habits, esp. societal ones, are impossible to break unless you have an ultra-charismatic someone like Ataturk with an impeccable national and cultural credentials (based on real accomplishments, not pre-election speeches) to show the way. That sort of opportunity appears once in a millenium; politicians that promise Heaven and Earth are dime-a-dozen and there is no limit to their habitual lies.

I totally agree with you Lamis Andoni.

To get people to discuss hijab has become a diversionary manoeuvre: while people do that obsessively, they do not even think of discussing more fundamental issues, more particularly the truly revolting ones. That is one common way for the media not to do their job, under freedom.

You write: "It puzzles me how many western liberals make a big fuss about hijab while they remain silent on their government's crimes and the real issues faced by people of the region.The lowest point perhaps, was when the western media, governments and some liberal writers justified bombing Afghanistan with the argument that it would liberate women and getting rid of the burqa there. Six years later, through to the current turmoil, the burqa survives."

I quite agree. True humanists and humanitarians do not kill fathers and mothers so the daughters attend school. True humanists and humanitarians do not kill the husbands so the wives trade the burqa for a bikini. To attempt to "justify" a military adventure with such insanities only goes to show how desperate "humanitarian militarism" (or is it "military humanitarianism"?) has become... and at what staggering moral, human cost.

The US didn’t bomb Afghanistan to first liberate the women, but to respond to 911 and the fact that Afghans had been supporting and harboring Osama……