Turkish delight

Posted by Marc Hodak on July 30, 2008 under Politics | Comments are off for this article

OK, I know I said I would lay off the purely political comments, but I actually have a more-than-academic interest in Turkey.

The Turkish High Court has been deliberating the banning of the Justice and Development Party party currently in power. The ruling party is pro-Islamic, though they are nominally willing to abide by Turkey’s constitutional secularism. The flash point of the instant controversy was Justice and Development desire to lift the ban on women wearing head scarves at the universities. They saw this as a matter of personal freedom. This secularists went ballistic, seeing this as the camel’s nose under the tent, so to speak, i.e., the first step toward overthrowing the secular foundations of modern Turkey.

The Court decided against banning the J&D party, but instead cut off half their funding. I have no idea what their laws are–this ruling would seem quite arbitrary by American standards–but the outcome seems right. I think secularism is great, and countries with a populist instinct to the contrary need to be wary of encroachments on secular freedoms. On the other hand, I like a strict separation of church and state and freedom of speech, both of which seem in line with allowing women to wear head scarves if they wish. Furthermore, I would be wary of overthrowing an elected government. Democracy is not my highest ideal–if one could have expansive personal freedom without a democracy, I’d be fine with that. However, democracy serves as a safety valve for the majority when they’re feeling oppressed. If the majority feels it has lost its voice via the ballots, they will eventually, invariably resort to bullets.

This ruling seems to cut the baby in half. It allows the elected government to remain in power, thus validating the will of the people, while putting J&D on notice to watch itself. My assent, however, is based entirely on the premise that the court–clearly dominated by secularists– defended the law as it’s written. Both expansive personal freedom and democracy rely upon the rule of law.

I’m not sure that My Turkish partner, and one of my best friends in this life, would agree. He’s a pretty hard line secularist, and may claim that I am not well attuned to the slippery slope represented by the head scarves issue, and he may be right. Politics always seems easier from five thousand miles away. My friend, a somewhat conservative soul (in the American sense), loves Obama.