The Iraqi government is not too happy that Turkey is staging attacks on Kurdish rebels holed up in Northern Iraq. The Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and many European states, has been launching attacks against Turkish people and military targets from bases in Kurdish Iraq.
The Turkish military's cross-border incursion began Thursday night. They claim to have killed 153 rebels and lost 19 soldiers. The PKK says they killed 81 soldiers. The truth is somewhere in between. Kurdish rebels did shoot down a Turkish helicopter and kill more soldiers using booby-trapped corpses of their fallen brethern... what a grim thought.
Ankara's response is that the Iraqi government has done nothing to prevent the PKK from using the area. Because the Iraqi government has so much control over the Kurdish areas, let alone the rest of the country. Despite this, the U.S. green-lighted the attacks, once again siding with state terrorism.
ON KURDISH SELF-DETERMINATION
I am not sure about popular Kurdish opinion in Southeastern Turkey, but I believe in self-determination. Turkish nationalism has left out too many people despite efforts by the government to give nominal concessions to the Kurds. Yeah, it gave the state an ethno-ideological basis after the fall of the Ottoman empire, but then you can't be surprised that non-Turks wouldn't want to live under such a state's power.
If a critical mass of Kurds in that part of Turkey want statehood, they should get it. I cannot help but think the region may be a little better off with a Kurdistan on pieces of Turkey, Iraq and Iran. According to the BBC, "more than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984." The vast majority of them were Kurds.
As a Palestinian, I've always felt solidarity with the Kurds, even though it rankled some of my pan-Arab nationalist friends. But screw it, if the states they live in do not give them the level of autonomy and cultural recognition they need, they should have a place to call home -- even if that means adding another, possibly pro-Israel, pro-West and militarized, state to the volatile cocktail in the region.
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According to the print issue of the International Herald Tribune on Feb 8,
Lawmakers voted early Thursday to approve a constitutional amendment to allow women to enter universities wearing Islamic head scarves, a move that many secular Turks view as an attempt to impose religion on their daily lives.
Lawmakers voted 401 to 110 in a preliminary vote in favor of the government's proposed amendment to the Constitution. The government has defended its plan as a reform needed to give its citizens religious liberty and bring Turkey in line with European Union human rights guidelines.
A second, final round of voting was scheduled for Saturday. (AP)
Well, I should think so!! Forcing women to choose between their religious beliefs and their education is completely and utterly unacceptable, first off. As it stands in Turkey, you can't study at university, or teach for that matter, if you are a religious Muslim woman who wears the headscarf. You either have to violate your religious beliefs, give up your educational career altogether in anything outside Islamic Law, or opt for a third choice: learning an entirely new language in order to study in another country.
I studied Arabic with a young Turkish woman in Jordan, who was studying to master the Arabic language in order to obtain a bachelor's level degree from the University of Jordan in Psychology. The route to higher education in her own country was closed to her, as she chose to wear hijab.
I view any policy that excludes women for wearing hijab as just as offensive and unacceptable as a policy that excludes women who do not. But fundamental personal religious freedoms aside, it can't possibly be in Turkey's best interest as a nation to encourage bright and ideological young people to leave and put down roots elsewhere for the sake of their education.
Aha! Here's a
BBC article on the same topic.According to it, two-thirds of women in Turkey cover their hair... that's a lot of people not allowed to attend college classes.
The government's plan to change the law has sparked large protest rallies by secular Turks, who want to defend the legacy of the modern state's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
They fear it may be a first step to eroding the secular system.
Yes! It's a slippery slippery slope, my friends. A SLIPPERY SLOPE! First your religious neighbor's daughter will attend classes with yours, and then there will be NO ALCOHOL SOLD ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY!!!!!! ANYWHERE!!!!!
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A recent KABOBpost about the election of Turkey’s new president discusses how the Turkish military and other fundamentalist secularists are considering the new president’s wife wearing the Hijab into the presidential palace as an attack on secularism; thus, the new first lady is considering alternate designs for her hijab. Here are some options. Warning, images are graphics.
The post raises the questions: who’s afraid of the Hijab in the presidential palace? And what would it take to relay the fears of some one with this much prejudice? The KABOBforum weighs in:
Nadeem: I dislike the Hijab as a look and a concept - but have a fetish for girls who wear it. Perhaps if Turkish chicks started sewing brims on the front, it wouldn't look so oppressive - and, instead, bring to mind images of beer, peanuts, and cracker jacks. Yeah... that'd be a dope ass compromise. Turkey could market itself as pro-west while it's girls still sport that whole "the lord is my penguin look" jihadists like so much.
Will: I respect the hijab when it is a voluntary expression of modesty and sincere religiosity. I think secular dogmatists running the public order in Turkey and France should actually adopt a more American form of secularism, which allows for pluralism of religious expression. People should have the right to be as free as they want to practice, or not practice, religion in their homes and in their politics. At the same time, wannabe theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran should also stop shoving “religious” norms down everyone’s throats. Amen. [Editor’s note: boring]
Maytha: In the spirit of compromise, I suggest that hijabi women be free to wear it -- however, only under the stipulation that the rest of them be naked -- that way both groups get what they want!
Fayyad: It should be no longer a problem now that the Bush administration is providing the Turkish military with a $30 billion dollar military aid package to counter the threat. Especially that the weapon stockpile will include Hijabi Slayer BX-27 advanced weapon system and Madrassa Buster G-11 laser guided missiles. And as for Mrs. Gul, I think she should try the see-through Hijab; that will be a compromise.
Chaim Sugarman: As an avowed secularist, I take offense to Turkey’s flag. I see the star and crescent as an oppressive symbol of religion. I’m glad the Turkish army does not march under it, and I’m glad it is the only flag in the Middle East with a religious exclusiveness connotation.
QuiQui: I agree completely with Will in his well-written, extremely boring thoughts. And thanks to May for making me laugh right afterward, triggering a mood disorder I didn't know I had until I found KABOBfest, where one post makes me happy and the next post makes me sad; when one minute I'm laughing, and the next moment I'm angry. It's a confusing state to be in... I imagine this is what the state of Turkey must feel like? Has this bi-polar region in the Middle East err... Europe umm... wherever it is decided who it wants to be like yet? No? Well, that may be because it's impossible. Is the military pissed off that Ms. Gul isn't "Turkish" how they want her to be "Turkish" or that she won't show them some hair? Is she gonna have to don a hijab with Ataturk smiley faces on it or will she have to purchase one with hair airbrushed onto it? Maybe she can just wear a wig where she gets to show off someone else's hair. The see-through hijab? That's some deep philosophical ish, Fayyad. If Ms. Gul is convinced that she's wearing a hijab but those looking at her are convinced that she's not, then everybody wins, yes, but does the hijab cease to exist? Is that like an if your hair falls down to your shoulders but no one is there to see it, does it still make a sound hijab?
Nabeel: As the resident Islamic scholar here at KABOBfest, I feel that it is necessary to point out a very obvious but overlooked point that may put to rest the controversy regarding Mrs. Gul's head covering. As I understand it, the controversy is about how many Turks feel that Mrs. Gul wearing the hijab while residing in the Presidential Palace is an affront to Turkish secularism. However, the irony is that when Mrs. Gul is actually in the Presidential Palace she most likely will not be wearing the hijab given the fact that the hijab is only adorned by Muslim women when in the presence of males who are not related to them.
With that said, debate in Turkey ought to shift to whether Mrs. Gul should go ahead and paint her face with gold-sparkley paint and begin performing in public squares like this guy.
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Apparently the mighty Turkish military is.
After a third round of voting in the Turkish parliament, AK Party presidential nominee Abdullah Gul was elected as Turkey’s president today. Gul, a self-made politician and businessman, comes from an Islamist political backgrounds, in a country where the fierce fight between the vanguards of the Islamists and secularists has grown unrepresentative of the publics views.
The Turkish military has been the vanguard of secularism, and wields significant power that it occasionally overrides democracy. The army has overthrown at least six elected governments in the modern Turkish republic, that it did not approve of as secular enough.
Yesterday, on the eve of what seemed an all but guaranteed win for Gul, the head of the army warned once again that then-nominee is a threat to secularism. Apparently no one told the general that the army interfering in constitutional elections process is a threat to democracy.
Abdullah Gul’s record, however, shows otherwise. He has been foreign minister in a government the military would describe as Islamist, that has grown the economy significantly, improved relations with its neighbors, introduced and implemented political reforms, upheld the country’s constitution and worked through its democratic process, strongly pushed for EU membership, downsized military and diplomatic collaboration with Israel, and strengthened relations with the US, while at the same time telling George Bush to, and I quote, go fcuk himself, when he asked to invade Iraq through Turkish territory.
So clearly, the military is out of touch with the public who gave Gul’s AK Party a clear mandate in early parliamentary elections last month.
Ironically, some secular extremists in Turkey, too issue with the fact the Gul’s wife, Hayrunisa, wears a hijab, which is banned from all Turkish public institutions, and from some reason terrifies some, especially when Mrs. Gul wears into the presidential palace.
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The Iraqi government is not too happy that Turkey is staging attacks on Kurdish rebels holed up in Northern Iraq. The Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and many European states, has been launching attacks against Turkish people and military targets from bases in Kurdish Iraq. 
