DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP
Things have been relatively quiet following the fierce battle for the Turkish presidency back in July. But it looks like the moderate Islamist AK Party and its secular opponents may be gearing up for round two. Since its victory at the polls, the AKP put constitutional reform at the top of its agenda. Select constitutional scholars and party leaders have reportedly been privately toiling away on creating a new draft. While there is wide agreement that the current constitution put in place after the 1980 military coup is in desperate need of a revamp, that is where any congeniality ends. Despite reassurances by AKP leaders that the new draft will represent the entire country and not simply their own interests, there are some legitimate concerns about the secretive and exclusive drafting process.
Coverage had been mainly limited to the Turkish press... that is, up until Prime Minister Erdogan dropped the headscarf bomb in the Financial Times on Tuesday. He told reporters:
The right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears. There is no such problem in western societies but there is a problem in Turkey and I believe it is the first duty of those in politics to solve this problem.
And boy did that launch a media frenzy.
The question over whether or not to lift the ban, which has forbidden Turkish women from wearing Islamic headscarves on state university campuses since 1982, will unquestionably be the constitution's biggest sticking point. Turkey's secular elite warn that this is just the first step; before you know it, the AKP government will be imposing Islam in all avenues of public and private life. The president of the Middle East Technical University suggested taking the matter back to the European Court of Human Rights (who ruled favorably on the constitutionality of the ban in 2005).
A fair, all-inclusive debate on the headscarf ban is way past due. If, as expected, the new constitution is presented to the Turkish population in a referendum before it is put in place, the country will finally see some sort of fair and democratic resolution on an issue that has polarized the country for decades.
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