07.02.2008

Riddle of the headscarf

Esen Uslu calls for a democratic working class programme to defeat both wings of the bourgeoisie

The infamous ‘headscarf problem’ of Turkish politics has once more come to a point where, as the Turkish hunting proverb goes, “the horse’s tracks have obscured those of the fox’s”.

Islamic fundamentalist politicians are seeking maximum publicity for their attempt to raise high this symbol of islamism before the forthcoming local elections, following on from their recent successes. Liberals who have stood for the complete removal of restrictions on the wearing of the hijab are wavering, realising that the government’s attempt to legalise the wearing of the headscarf in places of learning is nothing but a return to the bad old ways of islamic fundamentalism.

The Kemalists, who sometimes call themselves social democrats and who claim that being “revolutionary” is one of their six defining principles, are reduced to defending the status quo: ie, the bans imposed by the fascist military regime in 1980. By contrast some rabid nationalists have tried to pull the carpet from under the islamists’ feet and steal their vote by calling for the removal of all bans on religious clothing.

Reformists are cloaking themselves in the mantle of the conservatives, while some arch-conservatives are claiming to be defenders of human rights. Meanwhile, the poor working people of Turkey are dazzled by all the spin. So too is much of the European left.

Crisis

In order to understand what is actually happening, we must first look at the background. Last spring various nationalists, social democrats and fascists came together in rallies organised by supporters of the junta disguised as NGOs. Large crowds gathered to listen to speakers ranging from retired army officers to university professors, who all denounced the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government just before the presidential elections. They claimed that the government had a secret islamist agenda and its presidential candidate was an open fundamentalist whose wife wears a headscarf. The Kemalist establishment claimed that his election and his wife’s appearance in a hijab in the “public domain” would signal the end of the ‘secular democratic republic’.

An infamous press release was put out by the chief of general staff of the armed forces in the small hours. It warned that the ending of the ban on religious activity in educational institutions and other public places was an attack on the secular nature of the regime, and stated chillingly: “Any person who challenges Ataturk’s understanding of ‘Happy shall be those who call themselves Turks!’ is and will remain an enemy of the Republic of Turkey.” The press release had the effect of a cold shower on Turkey’s body politic.

The situation was on a knife’s edge. However, the chief of general staff and prime minister had a private meeting in one of the old Ottoman palaces situated alongside the Bosporus in Istanbul, and reached an agreement which remains undisclosed to this day. An early election was called, and a constitutional amendment was passed by parliament to be put to a referendum in the autumn.

The intervention of the armed forces had the effect of rallying the liberals to the side of the AKP, which duly won the election, albeit with a reduced majority. While the MHP (Nationalist Action Party) also gained some seats in the assembly, the CHP (Republican People’s Party) of Kemalist, nationalist, junta-supporting social democrats failed miserably. Kurdish nationalists also gained a foothold, although they were forced to stand as independents.

The elections strengthened the AKP’s hand, and were generally seen as a rebuff to the military. The MHP declared that it would support the AKP’s presidential candidate so as not to thwart the people’s choice. With the wind of election success in its sails, the AKP boldly proposed a complete overhaul of the constitution.

A chill went through the Kemalist-nationalist-junta establishment. Its supporters in the state bureaucracy, judiciary and universities raised a furore, claiming that the constitutional amendment was a ploy to end the secular nature of the state or even bring in sharia law. They promised they would never allow that to happen.

The liberals and some sections of the left, including Kurdish nationalists hoping for a gradual easing of oppression, supported the constitutional amendment. Any loosening of the junta’s constitutional straitjacket would be considered positive, they said. And many started to present their own version of a constitution or constitutional principles to be included in the debates. The AKP welcomed all but one - that is, the extremely democratic constitutional proposal of Rights and Freedoms Front, which was banned by the courts and all copies were confiscated by the police, who raided any organisation’s bookshop or office suspected of being in possession of them.

Time to embrace the Alevis

The AKP was very buoyant in the wake of its success and took another step to undermine the traditionalist establishment by softening its position towards the Alevis.

The Alevis had long been the target of sunni sectarian discrimination and oppression, and were the largest section of Turkish society standing firm against the AKP government and religious fundamentalism. Their memories of a whole series of massacres perpetrated by sunni islamists and nationalist/fascists - the last taking place in Sivas in 1993 - are very vivid. The Alevis have always seen state secularism as a barrier to hold back any resurgence of sunni fundamentalism.

The Religious Affairs Directorate of Turkey plays a prominent role in ‘guarding secularism’. This state body, with its enormous budget and huge number of employees, extends its tentacles into every mosque in Turkey. Sometimes the Alevis have failed to question why such a body should have a place in a secular democratic society, but they hope deep in their hearts that a sunni majority controlled by the state would be less oppressive.

State-imposed compulsory religious education, where every Turkish child is taught the sunni version of islam, has long caused offence to the Alevis, yet the RAD and state officialdom, as well as fundamentalist sunni islam, refuses to extend the recognition of religious institutions to the Alevis’ places of worship.

While the AKP rank and file was continuing to make anti-Alevi noises, the leadership was preparing a new, softer line. They even selected a few prominent Alevi candidates in key constituencies, thus ensuring their election.

Then in the late autumn, at a time when the AKP constitution initiative was meeting with resistance, the prime minister invited leaders of the Alevi community to a celebratory meal to commemorate the ending of the Alevis’ religious fast. However, Alevi fasting does not coincide with the Ramadan of the old lunar calendar observed by sunnis, and in fact is an expression of grief where no celebration is allowed.

Thanks in part to that little mishap, the AKP failed to win over the representatives of the Alevi communities. However, in a sense it had obtained what it was striving for. The media presented the AKP invitation as a major initiative to bring the Alevi community into the fold. Media coverage of the Alevis - a previously taboo subject - intensified. In this way the AKP and prime minister portrayed themselves as moderate islamic friends and protectors of the Alevis.

War in Kurdistan

While this was happening, the dirty war in Turkish Kurdistan flared up once more. In skirmishes the army suffered losses. Some soldiers were captured by the raiding PKK guerrillas and taken over the border into Iraqi territory. After a while they were released unharmed and handed over to Democratic Society Party MPs. A ceremony in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan to mark the occasion was recorded and broadcast on national TV.

Suddenly nationalist fever reached boiling point. Everybody was cursing the US for ‘supporting Kurdish guerrillas’ by not allowing the Turkish army to cross over into Iraq. Militarism and rabid anti-Kurdish sentiment intensified. The army had mobilised and deployed extensive forces to the Iraqi border since the spring, but the government had not been able to persuade the Americans to allow cross-border operations.

Finally the AKP obtained US permission, provided that the scope and targets of such operations were determined by US military intelligence in Iraq. A special military liaison group was set up, and the national assembly gave the Turkish army a free hand to carry out cross-border raids for up to one year.

While the winter months have not been a good time for fighting in the Kurdish mountains, the Turkish air force had a new card up its sleeve. Some aircraft were equipped with a low-level navigation system capable of precision bombing in all weather, day or night. The devastating results of their attacks were repeatedly shown on TV and the increased capacity of the air force talked up. The chief of general staff released a press statement reminding Greece of its obligation not to arm the Aegean Islands. The Turkish military message was heard loud and clear.

This display of military power, and the army’s close cooperation with the government, was the icing on the cake for the AKP. It now believed itself to be in the strongest position it was capable of attaining and was ready to take the plunge to fulfil the long-awaited expectation of its core supporters - that is, ending the ban on headscarves.

Time is right

Although the AKP has evolved as a champion of Turkish finance capital, and hence of international finance capital, it has its roots in the politics of fundamentalist sunni islam. The prime minister was pictured kneeling before the commanders of the Afghan mujahedin in his youth. He cut his teeth politically in the 1970s with the Raiders, the unofficial youth organisation of islamic fundamentalism. He was once imprisoned for reciting at a rally poems such as:

The believers are our soldiers
The mosques are our barracks
The domes are our helmets
The minarets are our bayonets.

However, despite these credentials as a religious fundamentalist, he put off tackling the headscarf issue during his first period in office and was accused of reneging on his election promise. On several occasions he had to brave the demonstrations of young women wearing the hijab and shouting, “We thought you were men: you turned out to be cowards!”

But now the AKP leadership was persuaded that the time was right. It proposed to repeal the law banning the wearing of the headscarf by university students. Into the fray jumped the MHP, which has its bloody roots in the paramilitary fascist organisations of the 1970s. It stated that it would assist the AKP in voting the change through the national assembly and together the two parties had sufficient votes to ensure the passing of the necessary constitutional amendment.

The uproar of opposition raised by the Kemalists, nationalists and junta-supporting social democrats was echoed by the military and civilian bureaucracy. The chief of general staff stated that its position on the issue was well known and there was no need to reiterate it. Judges from the constitutional court, court of appeal and court of administrative affairs all voiced their opposition.

But the MHP upped the ante by claiming there was no need to amend the constitution - a simple parliamentary motion would suffice.

Early roots

The headscarf ban in the universities was imposed in the 80s by the fascist military junta as part of its promotion of the so-called ‘Islamo-Turkish synthesis’: that is, a moderate islamism mixed with Turkish nationalism. This would provide a cure for, as they saw it, all the ills of Turkish youth, with their leaning towards the left, penchant for revolution and sympathy with the Kurds.

However, as the state and army desperately tried to maintain control over society through the introduction of a controlled, moderate form of islam, it also needed to prevent any resurgence of fundamentalism. So legislation introduced in the early 1920s to defeat the islamist uprising against the young Kemalist regime, which had since gradually fallen into disuse, was renewed or reintroduced. The headscarf ban in educational establishments was one of the most powerful ways of showing the islamists their limits.

After military rule was replaced by an authoritarian regime under the pretence of returning to democracy, the headscarf ban continued to act as a bone of contention between the army and state officialdom, on the one side, and the politicians of fundamentalist islam on the other.

After the Welfare Party (RP) islamists became a coalition partner in government in 1996, its pronouncements and actions aimed at reversing the ban resulted in the so-called ‘postmodern coup d’etat’ of 1997. The generals intervened without taking over executive and legislative powers, but applying sufficient pressure and issuing thinly veiled threats of a full-blown coup. Their tanks rolled through the district of Ankara where the municipality controlled by the RP was making too many islamist noises, in an attempt to force the coalition government to resign.

Since then many islamist politicians have proposed amendments, and islamist student activists have staged numerous protests. However, up to now every attempt to overturn the ban has been thwarted by the civilian and military bureaucracy.

Spectre of proletariat

How was this ban maintained, and why have the champions of ‘human rights and democracy’ in Turkey and abroad failed to support such a simple demand of islamist politicians and youth at a time when Turkey is striving to became a member of the European Union?

This (to European eyes) seemingly silly riddle actually has deep roots in the social structure of Turkey. To fully grasp the problem we must go back into history, to the Ottoman empire.

When this empire came into contact with the modern capitalist countries of the west, and established industrial, commercial and financial links with it in the 19th century, capitalist dynamics started ripping apart the economy and structure of the old society. Capitalism began to create a bourgeois stratum out of the ruling classes of the old society. It started to transform the merchants and money-lenders first into agents of capitalist trading firms, then into a stratum of independent capitalist traders.

That first bourgeois stratum of the Ottoman lands was named the ‘Levantine bourgeoisie’ because it was based in the coastal towns of the Levant - that is, the eastern Mediterranean. It was derived mainly from non-muslim minorities or foreigners who had settled in these lands on the basis of ‘capitulations’, or special privileges, granted to their countries by the Ottoman ruling classes. The advance of the Levantine bourgeoisie ran parallel with the ripping apart of the old society (whose ills were all forgotten), and it was seen as the culprit in the popular mind.

Nascent Turkish nationalism emerged with the destruction of the old society, with the military defeats, suffered one after the other at the hands of the capitalist countries, and with the uprising of peoples living under the domination of the Ottoman empire. The Levantine bourgeoisie became the first target of Turkish nationalism in the project to create a Turkish bourgeoisie and a Turkish state.

On the other hand, developing Turkish nationalism saw a desperate need to adopt the institutions of a modern capitalist state. And that meant replacing many of the islam-based practices of the old society with laws and institutions that were regarded by much of the population as christian inventions. On the other hand, it was necessary to maintain the support of the muslim population in order to resist any foreign intervention.

Therefore, the reform movement begun in the Ottoman empire of the mid-19th century defined the tight line the reformers needed to walk - a line which in a sense they still need to walk today. They have to get rid of all those restrictions, customs and practices of islam (that is, of the old society) that are hampering the development of capitalism, while at the same time winning and rewinning muslim support in order maintain themselves in power. The state’s coffers were used to develop a new Turkish bourgeoisie in competition with the foreign, christian bourgeoisie.

Turkification of capital

In the early 20th century the main mechanism of that process was ethnic cleansing and the expropriation of the christian and foreign capitalist classes. The Armenian massacres, and the war and ensuing mutual exchange of the Greek Orthodox population of Anatolia with the muslim population of Greece were all part of the same process.

This ‘Turkification’ of capital was initially accompanied by brutal accumulation processes in the young republic. And state economic enterprises played the role of greenhouses, where the young Turkish bourgeoisie was nurtured through protectionism and privileges. In those circumstance ‘human rights’ - even in the narrowest bourgeois sense - were not even an issue.

The resistance came from two sources: Kurds, whose expectations were thwarted with the breaking of promises of democracy and self-rule; and islamic fundamentalists, who strove to turn the clock back to the old society by attacking what they saw as the incursion of the modern and the christian. Any challenge to the rule of the nationalist bourgeoisie was brutally suppressed in view of the danger posed by the main forces of opposition - the landless peasants, the dispossessed artisans and, most of all, the modern proletariat with its class hatred and class-consciousness fed by the Russian Revolution.

So the bourgeois revolution in Turkey was hardly heroic - it was forced to follow its own logic. It maintained its rule through the most modern institution of all, the Turkish army, and found it necessary to adopt anti-clericalism in order to impose its own rule over the old society. However, when the dispossessed showed their discontent, when any proletarian challenge was mounted against the regime, the bourgeoisie felt obliged to play the islamic card to rally support behind it.

As Turkish finance capital emerged, the so-called ‘Anatolian Tigers’ - the small and medium capitalist enterprises of the Anatolian towns - also began to develop. They reached a level where they could challenge the monopoly of finance capital in accessing state funds, subsidies and support. They have their roots in conservative islam, yet sufficient experience to manipulate the electoral process to their advantage. The ‘Anatolian Tigers’ provide the bedrock of a moderate islam, as they compete for a share of the gradually diminishing state fund.

Because of all these contradictions ‘Turkish’ finance capital (which is as foreign as European or US finance capital to the working masses) has failed to persuade the majority that its own interests are synonymous with the ‘national interest’ of Turkey. The first consequence of this failure has been the need to retain the army as the overarching institution able to perpetuate its ‘own’ principles and interests, while defending the vital interests of finance capital in the face of any challenge from wherever it may come. The second consequence is the obligation to reach a modus vivendi with islam - which means isolating the fundamentalists and promoting a moderate wing.

It is very striking that international finance capital and the main imperialist states came to precisely the same conclusion after 9/11 - they too declared islamic fundamentalism the enemy and promoted moderate islam.

Tip of the iceberg

Therefore, today the problem that emerges before us in the guise of headscarf ban is not simply an issue of democracy or human rights, as claimed by the fundamentalists. The headscarf problem is actually a graphic representation of two deep-rooted processes.

One of them is the struggle of finance capital to persuade large sections of the population that what is good for finance capital is good for the whole of society. In that sense it is a struggle for the hearts and minds of the poor. However, historical experience has proved that finance capital is incapable of achieving success in this unless it can distribute to the working population a portion of the superprofits sucked from abroad.

Despite its advance up the imperialist hierarchical ladder, Turkish finance capital is yet to reach such a status. It cannot therefore retain the leadership of the nation by peaceful means, and must continually resort to the brutal, suppressing hand of the army as it always has.

The second process is the life and death struggle of capital in the face of the proletarian challenge. Such a challenge does not necessarily appear as an organised and open movement. Its potential destructive power is sufficient to push the bourgeoisie to take panic measures.

Therefore any political party worthy of representing the interests of the finance capital must take all these issues into account before making any move. If ideological dogma pushes the AKP or any other party to rush through measures whose effect is to upset the balance, unwanted and unexpected consequences will ensue. That is why the headscarf issue is more delicate than it might at first appear.

Democracy and islamists

The legal moves of the AKP have brought the usual nationalist/junta-supporting/social democratic crowd onto the streets. The slogan of last weekend’s demonstration in Ankara was “The army is with us! Who are the police with?” The slogans of rival islamist demonstrations were “Freedom to wear the headscarf everywhere, now!” and “Freedom without condition or discrimination!”

The reference to conditions and to places where the ban applies are the result of the fudge created by confused bourgeois law. The ‘public domain’ or ‘public space’ definitions were invented by the courts, which have defined any official institution as a ‘public domain’ where the wearing of headscarves is prohibited. The recent attempt to remove the ban played with the same concept - any ‘service provider’, such as a teacher or other state employee would still fall under the ban, but their ‘clients’, such as students, would not.

Actually the islamists who make all those ‘democratic’ noises are neither democrats nor liberals. On any issue other than the headscarf they maintain the most conservative and backward views, and have a track record of implementing oppressive policies. On the other hand, nor are the army, bureaucracy and the nationalist, junta-supporters democrats either.

The only true democrats today are the proletarians. Their political representatives, the communists, are, of course, against any bans, restrictions or discrimination imposed by the state. However, they are also very aware of the danger posed by fundamentalist islam in the service of international finance capital against the working class movement as a whole, and minorities in Turkey. Therefore communists do not give blanket support to the demands of the fundamentalists.

Reformist illusions

The most important task before communists is to utilise the sharpened political focus on the question to show the proletarian masses and working class vanguard that fundamentalist islam’s demands are nothing but reactionary rhetoric despite their liberal or democratic disguise. They have to show that the ‘secularism’ of the army and state bureaucracy is nothing but a weapon to be used against the working class. Further they have to show that the interests of finance capital are not those of the working people.

Communists must draw clear lines of demarcation between the programmes of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Their task is to show the working masses that democracy cannot be achieved under bourgeois rule, but only through the destruction of bourgeois rule and the defeat of its agents - whether they be fundamentalist islam, nationalism or a military junta.

To support the ‘democratic’ demands of the islamists against the army would be to engage in reformist self-delusion - or even provide cover for an anti-working class scam. Support for the rights and religious freedoms of fundamental islam, as they exist in the European Union, may seem attractive to the left, but it would be a serious mistake.

No christian sect today can seriously hope to control the EU, and none attempt to organise the massacre of others. The long-established rule of the bourgeoisie has obliged religion to operate politically as christian democrat parties.

Make no mistake: this is not the case in Turkey. Over the last 30 years there have been two large-scale massacres, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, killed by religious fanatics with the tacit approval or instigation of the state. Hezbollah, encouraged by the state to strike against the Kurdish movement, has tortured and killed scores of people. Islamist and nationalist lynch mobs roam towns and cities. Any leftwing organisation staging a protest must be prepared to resist physical attack across Anatolian cities.

In such circumstances communists cannot let themselves be deceived into supporting one wing of the bourgeoisie against the other. There are no bourgeois allies for the proletariat in this struggle. The communists’ task is to promote the democratic programme of the working class.