Sometimes the difference between today and yesterday can be as stark as the difference between day and night. Around a decade and a half ago, the Turkish parliament erupted into chaos when the members of the Virtue Party, a predecessor of the Justice and Development Party (JDP), stood up and cheered and gave the victory sign to welcome one of their colleagues who broke the taboo against the veil. Meanwhile, the majority of MPs were outraged. Moreover, as their shouts of condemnation echoed through the chamber, the generals who occupied seats permanently reserved for them in the guest gallery left the assembly, marking a precedent in the life of the Turkish republic whose principles they were sworn to protect and defend. They vowed to avenge this offence against the core principles of the Kemalist state, foremost among which is the separation between religion and the state. Immediately after that stormy session, then-prime minister Bÿlent Ecevit broke his customary equanimity to deliver a fiery riposte against that act of defiance on the part of MP Merve Kavakci who had breached the rules of parliament and the law by wearing the veil in the legislative chamber. Then, before she knew it, she found that not only had her parliamentary membership been nullified but also that she had been stripped of her Turkish citizenship on grounds that she had obtained US citizenship without having obtained the approval of Turkish authorities. The latter may have been a frail pretext, but it was sufficient at the time to confer a stamp of legal legitimacy on her ouster. Kavakci was not without defenders in the secularist camp. The famous MP Nazli Elacak protested in the name of the individual's right to wear whatever he or she wishes, as long as it did not violate codes of propriety. She, too, was made to pay for her courage. She was stripped of parliamentary immunity and banned from engaging in politics for five years, all in accordance with the law. Fast forwarding to the present, not one but four women MPs appeared in the National Assembly wearing the “tÿrban” or what Islamists term the “crown” of the Muslim woman. They had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca and were determined to resume their work as lawmakers dressed in accordance with religious strictures. But this time, instead of the shouts and boos that ushered Kavakci out of the parliament building 14 years ago, the veil-clad women MPs were warmly received, and not only by their colleagues from the ruling JDP. Indeed, Kamal Kilic Daroglu, leader of the Republican People's Party, a bastion of Kemalist secularism, said that although he opposed the recent law that lifted the ban on the wearing of headscarves in the civil service, these women were as much his sisters in parliament as the female members who did not wear the veil. As for the conservative right-wing Nation Movement, and the Kurdish Peace and Democratic Party, they had given their full blessing to the law. That overwhelming support afforded JDP strongman Bÿlent Erinc the opportunity to proclaim, “Finally, we have obtained a democratic right that we have fought for.” The proud Erinc undoubtedly had another reason to crow. This was an exquisite form of revenge against all who had admonished and censured him, at a time he served as speaker of parliament, for having let his wife, Nermin Hanim, who wears the veil, accompany him in a reception for the Turkish president at the time, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, upon the president's return from an official visit abroad. Nevertheless, the fawning over the headscarf-clad MPs did not sit well with some MPs, female before male. “Shame on you,” said one female parliamentarian who refused to lend herself to the sycophancy and the exploitation of religious sentiments. “You have reduced questions of freedom to a fancy piece of fabric. Where were you during the police suppression of demonstrations in Taksim?” she asked, referring to the wave of anti-government and anti-Erdogan protests that flared in Istanbul and most other Turkish cities at the beginning of summer. Also, among a public strained by day-to-day concerns, the parliamentary festivity stirred grumbling. A woman who had affixed a large Ataturk button to her purse was quoted in the dailies as saying, “It won't end there. This is the beginning of a road that will eventually include female employees in the army, police and the judiciary who have been temporarily exempted from the decision to lift the ban on the veil in the civil service.” In her opinion, this was only one of the steps that the Erdogan government was taking to undermine the secularist foundations of the Turkish state preparatory to “Islamicising” it. “Soon we can expect that unveiled women will be accused of being heretics and anti-Islam,” she warned. “Are we headed towards women wearing the burqa, as well, in schools, universities and government offices?” another person asked. As though staring at the spectre of his country's immanent downfall he added: “The success of modern Turkey had rested on its ability to keep religion out of the decision-making centres.” Perhaps the political scientist Ayse Bourak best summed up the situation in Turkey today. Turkey, she said, is gripped by an identity crisis in which it is torn between modern secularism and a return to Islamic roots. “Therefore, the country is fighting on two opposing fronts, without there being a clear vision of the future, which worries all segments of society.” She feared that tensions between Erdogan, who has framed the veil in the context of democratic reforms, and the secularists who are watching the principles of the secularist state being gnawed away at by the decisions of the prime minister and his party, would intensify to an unprecedented height that could threaten the entire country. The key question now, she said, is whether the secularists can keep their protest peaceful now that their national anthem had been taken away. Once sung daily in Turkish public schools, the anthem served as a reminder of Kemal Mustafa Ataturk's struggle to build the modern Turkish state on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. To many Turks, Erdogan is bent on steadily eroding the foundations of this state and propelling Turkey back towards the Middle Ages and rule by the clergy. It is hardly surprising that the disgruntlement runs deep in the military establishment which had long resisted the growth in the Islamist movement, or what it referred to as the “reactionary trend”, and which has sustained numerous blows under the Erdogan government. The wave of resignations among officers has increased to the degree that in some sectors of the military establishment civil employees outnumber military personnel. Meanwhile, fears of Erdogan's dictatorial tendencies are mounting. While the prime minister still boasts high popularity ratings, large and significant segments of the population are suspicious of Erdogan's designs. Many accuse him of cynically exploiting religion for political purposes. As one commentator put it: “The JDP held the veil card for 11 years without doing anything about it. Today, when it has no other winning cards left, it is wielding it for the purposes of municipal elections scheduled for March.”
