Hidayet Tuksal

One of the most inauspicious discussions of the latest years, the veiling bans, and the tension caused by these bans have been appraised differently by various groups. Interestingly, there are sides of this subject and in most of the cases, the person talking about the subject bears no relation to the experience of veiling. While the politicians, the academicians or the breaucrats talk most about the subject, the aggrieved people of the problem are made to talk least in media. Veiling bans is such a subject that the agents of the problem is objectified, instrumentalized, incorporated.

The Background of the “Problem”

From the beginning of our westernalization adventure, the reference to the “other” to be exceeded by the well-educated, well-equipped, occupied type of woman -in a sense, carrying the image of westernalization and modernization- was symbolized by the humble, relatively less-educated (or not educated at all), traditionally veiled type of woman. Sometimes, unveiling herself and the courage to wear low-necked dresses appropriate for the fashion of the day was claimed as being “dauntless” and these were significant and helpful for the men around her to show the attributes of modernity and being contemporary. For women, unveiling was, so to say, the first step to modernity. After this step, some other uncovering was required: low-necked dresses in parties exposing the arms and the chest; wearing shorts while making sports and swimsuits while swimming. In time, all these new rituals derived became the taboos of “contemporary life” created by the modernists of post-republic.

In general sense, besides garment, we could say that the components like root, being urbanite, Istanbul Turkish, money, being breaucrat, and being close to administrative classes also functioned as significant criterions for determining the new classes of contemporary life. Consequently, very few people as “model modernists” were made to profit in this long process and great masses from various socio-economic, ethnic, and cultural roots were stigmatized as “the other to be evolved”. Most of the model modernists were already given the task of “educating” the others. Therefore, a hierarchy emerged and today the advantaged elites of this hierarchy have become the most feverish and ideological advocates of veiling bans. For this reason, the problem of veiling bans cannot be discussed without this background taken into consideration.

The advocates of the bans mostly claim that veiled women suddenly emerged and grew in number. However, these women were always present; they lived their lives in the houses, villages away from the contemptuous views of authorities. Or they lived close as Auntie Ayşe or laundress Fatma with their positions not disturbing them. At those times everything kept its correct place. Until the daughters of auntie Ayşe and sister Fatma came to the doors of universities, covering their hair with silk scarfs instead of their mother’s gauze cloth but somehow maintaining their values… What the hell these girls were doing there, especially with those clothes! How courageous and dountless they were! Who made them wear this stuff? From which religious community or sect did they come from? What was the wrong since this group could not be extinguished?

This rhetoric in which the state of veiling is described as an “attempt”, today affects the women’s movement including the left, and of course the advantaged elites and their heirs. By struggling against veilied women one may comfort themselves with the idea that they are not struggling against women but against reactionist men who cover them by force. Or they may think of taking part in a defence struggle so as to protect themselves from a probable danger of a veiling obligation. In any case, there is “no woman” for them covering herself with her own decision owing to a religious, traditional or any reason but there is the man making use of her… Hence, it is not futile for them to ask the head of the Grand Assembly or the prime minister to make their wives unveil themselves. They establish persuasion rooms in front of the enterence doors of universities, they attack the headscarf of a young nurse, they do not accept the mothers to the ceremonies, they do not let veiled women into the civilian meetings of women’s rights, etc…

“Will These Women be the Role Models of Turkey?”

Just as I was worried about repeating the same sentences since there was nothing left to say anymore concerning the very obvious politics of discrimination, exclusion, humiliation, and obstruction that you all know well, Mr. White Turk ran to help me. He had seen a photo in a newspaper: a woman of a house in front of which door there were three shoes with mud; a very natural state of my homeland’s people. Also another very ordinary picture of my homeland’s women, the veiled picture of the wife of the president of the new Central Bank, Dursun Yılmaz, did excessively displease dear White Turk and he asked: “Now, will these women be the role models of Turkey?” The question echoed in newspaper columns and as far as I could pursue, many views were put forward mostly blaming him. Then, referring to an interview with Mrs. Yılmaz, he himself declared in short that he was wrong, and he wouldn’t have said something like that if he had read the interview.

It could be said that “This is something”, and could be left out. However, in my opinion, an important development / change came out during these news and interpretations. In Turkey, governed by a religious / conservative group like Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), in the discussions taking place especially owing to the veiled wives of the administrators, the rhetoric of “political symbol / attempt / counter revolution” is no more effective. Instead of it, the regret has been voiced about the problems of these women in this context: “the ability to represent the country with their veiled, in other words, conservative / provincial states” or “being the role models”. Thus, in a way, the discussions have reverted to their origins.

That the discussions have come to this point is something pleasing for me since it was not possible to argue and to meet with people whom accept veiling as a counter revolution in any ground. They did not even condescend so as to listen to the veiled. When they reluctantly came together with the veiled, for instance, in a TV program; the veiled were directed words educating, questioning, testing sincerity, gazing with disgust-hate-pity, with an attitude not from an upper but from the very topmost position.

With regard to the group finding veiled women very reactionary-banal-provincial as role models, it is not a secret that this group has a considerable amount of humiliation against them (Many thanks to them, they do not ever need to hide it). Moreover, it is possible to talk with this group about the use of headscarf or in a more general meaning, the “problem of covering / veiling” in a sense of cultural and personal choices. Consequently, the point of “your choice is yours and mine is mine” could be reached and everyone wears what they want, covers or does not. Naturally, on this basis, no bans or impositions could be supported. Just on this point, I think that it is very significant to share the opinions and the experiences concerning veiling. Indeed, I shared some parts of this private experience in various meetings or mailing groups. Besides, in 2000 as a group of veiled friend, for the special issue for women in İslamiyât Dergisi (a journal of Islam studies), we talked about our “veiling stories” and published them. The subjects were: that we became veiled in very similar processes (the conservative family structure, the effects of books read and religious woman models); after becoming veiled, how we gained the trust and the respect of the authority in the house and how we were treated as adult women (apart from those who became veiled by the force of the family at an early age); the cut offs in our education life owing to veiling bans, protests against the bans, hunger strikes, punishments; as our religious education developed, how we leave the era of accepting everything without questioning and the need to search religious topics with our own knowledge and perspectives; the first struggles against the male-dominated mentality dominant in Islamic environments and the things we lived afterwards; the changes occured in our understanding of veiling in time. In the veiling adventures of everyone of us there were so many common points that sometimes even we ourselves became surprized.

The Veiling Experiences of Three Generations

Now, also encouraged by these collectiveness, I will try to tell you veil which is a crucial element of the lives of three generations in my life story, including me and accordingly, veiling as an attitude based on culture and personal choice.

– I –

From the first generation, my grandmother is a very religious woman. She observes her daughter’s excessive interest and eagerness for shool and studying with anxiety and dismay. And she makes great efforts for persuading her not to go to school. The reason is that, in the middle of the ‘40s, being either religious or interested in religion is something extremely undesirable and the politics of education in schools aims at weakening the influence and the effects of religion. My grandmother, Lady Hanife is obsessed with the idea of education since she thinks that her daughter will grow up keeping distance to religion or even being an anti-religious person under the influence of education and she will want to become a modern, thus unveiled woman; therefore, she is totally against schooling. Yet still, she does not prevent her daughter from her desire by force, and she registers her for school. On one hand, she sends her daughter off with starchy neckbands and ribbons; on the other hand, she tries to make her daugther like and espouse the veil of which she thinks standing as an obstacle in the way of this affectation of modernity.

And my dearest mother, at her very young age feels deeply the tension between the modernity-representing school and the tradition-representing house. She knows very well that her mother will be the winner of this struggle, so she lives her school years as fully as she could do and then, after the fifth grade, she has to say goodbye to her uniform, to her starchy ribbons, and to her class with blackboard. On her own account, Lady Hanife is right because she has come to this Muslim country in order to live in a Muslim way, leaving her family, friends, and everything she loves behind – not to see them again until the doomsday – since their land has been occupied by non-Muslims. When someone makes her angry or when she is asked to submit to oppression, her motto is ready: “I have come here to live my religion, if not possible, I will go somewhere else!”

When Lady Hanife comes to Turkey as a newly married young woman from her homeland Macedonia, she is used to wear black chador, the usual garment for women in those times. In the following years, while her children’s discomfort about this garment saddens her, indeed, she thinks that there is no difference between chador and cloak in terms of veiling. But she is against the imposition that Muslim women must change their clothes they wear for years; hence she psychologically approaches wearing cloak in the name of modernity as a contempt. Nevertheless, she accepts wearing cloak instead of chador for the sake of her children in their youth.

My grandmother is very sensitive about her and her daughter’s relationships with modernity; on the other hand, as the illegal teacher of Quran of the neighborhood, she has extremely good relations with both women and young girls. This lady teacher never intervenes in their clothing, she listens to the sorrow of her female friends and is the advisor to young girls. But noone veils herself under the effect of this teacher since veiling causes problems as much as today in a city like Ankara in terms of the social life of the time. One-party despotism is present and women’s rejecting modern clothing is accepted to imply nearly the same meaning of rejecting the new regime because in school books, one of the reforms defined as ending the old regime is about clothing and it is symbolized with a big cross mark drawn on women with black chador. Just like the accusation of being communist in ‘50s, the accusation of being reactionist has become one of the troublesome situations one can experience. This is the reason why my grandfather, who is a butcher, thinks while wearing a felt hat that he is demeaning himself to earn money for the sake of his family because this hat is a “sign of infidelity” for him since when he was a little child only non-Muslims used to wear it in his homeland. Besides, he very well knows that the regime is seriously strict towards anti-voices. He has to act rationally. But his wife Lady Hanife is away from official places owing to being a woman – in other words, not being taken seriously as a citizen – and she does not go out if not necessary, so she can keep her religious sensitivity.

My grandmother’s care for keeping the body veiled is an amply internalized religious attitude. My mother interprets that if my grandmother had believed something was a sin, she would never do it. Together with the apparent commands and practices of Islam about veiling, the common stories demanding more from women than religion does seem to shape her attitude about veiling. One of these stories she told to my mother in her youth is written below:

The story tells about a couple both religious and miraculous. The husband is a blacksmith and he does his job bare-handed without using any tools for the very hot iron. And he thinks of it as his miracle. As for his wife, she is a very careful woman about her veil and never shows even a small piece of her fingers to any foreign man. One day she tells her husband that he thinks he is miraculous but on the following day he will understand who actually is. The day after, she does not wear her gloves while giving the money to the seller standing on the door. At the same moment, her husband’s hands burn while holding the hot iron. When he comes home in the evening, he tells his wife the situation and asks what happened. His wife tells that she has greated the seller without her gloves and the husband’s hands have burnt, “Did you understand now who is miraculous?”

The example and these kind of stories led Lady Hanife to care too much for her clothing even near her children. In relations with people either mahrem or not, this type of attitude is caused by the understanding of being remarkably cautious against the seductiveness of the body of which time and place are uncertain. Body is something given that we must keep well and use for good reasons. Also, body is a trap, it can lead people to haram and sin. Veiling does mean not only an obstacle for these kind of traps but also a message and a distance for the danger coming from outside.

– II –

Due to this state of complete belief, Lady Hanife tries to put these ideas also into her daughter’s mind. Thus, at the age of 11 as a thin, little girl, my mother has to veil herself. She deals with both the ridicule that people make, “She is bald, that’s why she wears this!” and the despair owing to the ending of her school life. If the imam hatip high schools had been opened in those years, girls like my mother would not probably have had any problems of not being let to schools.

After primary school, my mother learns sewing and embroidery. In time, she progresses and becomes a good tailor, sewing – without payment – the clothes of the people in the house and the relatives. By the way, she also sews nice clothes for herself. She lets her hair to one side and shapes her curl by making it harsh and then curving. Next, she covers her hair with a silk scarf like the one Grace Kelly wears while sitting in a runabout, leaving this beautiful curl outside. In her youth, my mother young Nezihe turns the veil into a beautiful component with her talent although she hates it in her childhood. But still she feels uncomfortable about it. As for her marriage with my father, she has become liberated in various aspects. Compared to my mother’s family, my father is a more modern man and he has no such troubles like the veil. However, most of the Rumelian brides cover their hair with a scarf, even if in a half way, while going out. Also the hair is high and curly, the face is generally with make-up. Hence, in many photos of weddings or family visits, it is possible to see my mother and my aunts either their hair made not wearing anything on or with a light scarf on their heads. The length of the sleeves and the skirts could be shortened till the elbow and the knee, but nothing more. Furhter part is within the limits of veiling.

– III –

Young Nezihe successively had four children in four years and her motherhood adventure began. During this adventure as a mother, her model in various aspects is grandmother Lady Hanife though her limits of veiling are somehow more flexible. Our encounter with veiling begins in seaside vacations we go almost every year. From our primary school times on my mother sews us swimsuits with short sleeves and legs but totally covering the front and the back sides. Then of course, we meet with sarcastic gazes or with well-meant interventions like “My child, this is not a good costume for swimming, you may get cold!” Our daily clothes consisted mostly pants or knee lenght skirts worn with stockings. It is forbidden to wear shorter or more open. Furthermore, when I am about to start secondary school, my mother’s – not father’s – concern is the must to wear swimsuts in physical education lessons. Although my mother really wants me to study, she openly declares that if a school could not be found with extemption from swimsuit, I would not go to school. Anyway, school for girls is found, so my school life continues.

At the ages of 13, 14, I suddenly grew up and as the oldest child of the house, I became a young lady in my mother’s mind. She adopted charming models, sleeve and skirt sizes taken from shopwindows or sewing magazines for me; she sewed and made me wear these. During my school time I always had the longest and the largest uniform among the girls. My mother also intervened with my hair style and she would never let me go out unless my hair was proper. Expending this much care about my clothing, she never thought of the possibility that one day I would also want to veil. This is closely related to the negative feelings she had for years about the veil. In those years, the veil was, also for me, just an accessory my mother wore… But I remember having some feelings like respect and envy when I sometimes saw a beautifully veiled young woman walking with dignity in her long cloak.

During my highschool years, there were political polarization and the atmoshpere of intense conflict. I was seeking peace from the very pessimistic swirling mood I was deeply engaged. Besides, the meanings of both life and death began to bussy my mind. In this situation, the religious instruction course teacher gave me reasonable and understandable answers and by respecting my teacher, I started performing namaz and reading informative books on religion. This process was the first time that I became religious and found some peace. But still, the idea of veiling was like a very far away image for me. One evening my – always friendlike – uncle told me that he bought a scarf from Vakko for me and that from that night on he wanted me to go to school veiling. At first, I kindly rejected. Then, when he continued insisting, I rejected harshly, even screaming and crying, saying that I would never do such kind of a thing. Even though I could not stop myself respecting veiled women, I never thought of veiling; I did not like covering my hair even in religious ceremonies.

However, I did not like the bad treatment the veiled were exposed to. One of my friends was a veiled girl covering herself outside and uncovering in school. Once, I do not know as a result of what but she wanted to go into school with her veil whereupon the literature teacher from my favourites, also the assistant of our class, ran after her and made her take the veil off. I got awfully sad because of this scene. When I found the chance, I went to the teacher’s room and asked the reason of the treatment adding that what kind of a wrong it could be to go into school with veil knowing that she would anyhow take it off inside. I was told about the rules, if I remember correctly. We still meet with my beloved teacher whom most probably never thought of this dear student veiling one day. However, my veil did never lessen the love and respect between us. We accepted one another as we are and kept in contact.

As I graduated from high school, I had much time for reading and thinking. Once, I got a book by Şule Yüksel Şenler, a so called sıkmabaş of past time. In this book, various “stories of finding the true way” were told and I was really much affected. First, the stories were not fiction but based on real events. Second, the protagonists were related to the West, always a pointed aim and a model for us, but they preferred being Muslims. In other words, they turned back from the road we were trying to go. Third, they took being a Muslim very seriously and disciplined themselves very well according to this new teaching. Very pleased with their new states, they never withdrew their decisions despite many difficulties they experienced – especially about the veiling issue in Turkey. They stayed unemployed and penniless in spite of their careers yet they did not concede their veiling and worship.

After finishing the book, I remember feeling very much ashamed thinking like this: I am a Muslim from birth and suppposedly religious, have been practicising namaz for three years, but look at the determination, the enthusiasm these people have! Look, how altruistic they are! This means, I haven’t taken my religion as seriously as they have done. What a shame on me! And thus, I decided to veil for the sake of being a more devoted Muslim.

Being thought of as a whim, my decision was not taken seriously at first by my family. However, my mother got it when I went veiled also to meet with one of my friends from high school.

Still, veil was something very new for me. I was feeling uneasy as if everyone in the street looking at me. My friend was not surprized, it was probably an expected end from a girl practicing namaz and wearing long clothes, anyway. That summer she took part in a beauty contest with her bikinis in Avşa Island and became the third. She showed me her photos. When I saw that naked situation of her and the gazes of men as if stuck on her body, I was satisfied with my decision one more time. She was feeling uncomfortable, indeed; however, was feeling like she had to do it, to overcome this shyness, and to gain this rank. If you are beautiful, you had to prove and to use it in the ways of life because her mother also believed in this. For overcoming ordinariness, going into an upper class, for a better life, beauty and intelligence were significant devices and my friend had them both. There were no TV shows for easily getting fameous (or offended) then. If were, I think her mother would have persuaded her to join one of them. Luckily, it did not happen and my friend graduated from a good department from university, made a good marriage for her own standards, and made a good amount of money from her job even though it was not her profession. I mean, she realized both her mother’s and her own dreams.

I also did, in a way, succeed in realizing my mother’s and even grandmother’s dreams. Although she does not like the veil, my mother got very happy when I entered the Faculty of Theology. As I got closer to the veil, she got used to it; besides, also liked it. Because there was a new era now, the veiled were not marginal anymore, they went to schools, even to universities. Noone could say that sentence to them anymore, “She is bald, that’s why she wears this!” They received excellent proposals. What I learned later is that a thought first came to my mother’s mind, “Alas, noone will marry her now!” when she saw me veiling. Yet, the time had changed. Like the saying in a song: “How many doctors, how many engineers proposed to me!” (But the time changed again. This time, the girls who do not unveil when necessary have a little chance of getting married). I graduated from university; got married to a man my mother also liked very much; my first child was a boy – just like my mother wished (When the first child is a boy, my mother gets very happy thinking that the mother gets rid of probable preassure thus). By the way, pursuing my career, I became a doctor. Consequently, I had the chance of realizing the things my mother could not accomplish due to the veil. And she got happy for both of us.

Were my dear grandmother to be alive, how much we would have to talk as two lady teachers of religion. Moreover, if I could tell her my thesis, she would also, in my opinion, have become a religious feminist. She would have taught me religiosity and I would to her feminism. Together, we would have managed to be in peace with our past and present, our tradition and modernity, our religion and world. Why not?

From Amargi- Issue 1