"Modernity and Islam: Experiences of Turkish Women"
"He handed wings to a nation as it was ready to tumble…"
Asli Omur, Special to The Turkish Times - In reply to the on going debates concerning the place of women in Islam, a panel discussion was presented at the George Washington University Club on November 20. The presentation, aptly titled "Modernity and Islam: Experiences of Turkish Women," was moderated by Oya Bain, ATAA Capital Region VP. The speakers included Zeyno Baran, CSIS, Dr Engin Imel Holmstrom, Filiz Odabas Geldiay, VP of Atatürk Society of America, and ATAA executive director, Guler Koknar.

Odabas Geldiay started off the panel discussion with her perspective in support of the great actions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk towards Turkish women’s rights. Along with how Islam was integrated into society, and the change of women’s status. Atatürk "transported women from the harem and the veil to membership in parliament."

According to her studies, the "spirit of the Turkish race held women in high esteem." The 7th century conversion to Islam by Turks included the implementation of Shariat Law, in other words, the law of the Islamic religion. With Shariat Law women were banned from participating in any segment of society and a man was able to have up to four wives and divorce whenever he chose to. Odabas Geldiay used this information to accentuate the drastic differences that occurred with Atatürk’s reforms for the Turkish republic. She added, "Some of his reforms, such as changing the alphabet from Arabic to Latin letters, happened literally overnight-imagine receiving the Washington Post in Chinese tomorrow morning!"

"He was a genius, a brilliant military man, a skilled statesman, and a visionary who handed a pair of wings to a nation just as it was ready to tumble down into an abyss."

In a 1923 speech made by Atatürk, marked the beginning of Atatürk’s active campaign in favor of women. He said, "A society, a nation consists of two sorts of people: men and women. How is it possible, to elevate one part of society while neglecting the other half, and expect the whole to progress? How is it possible for one half of society to soar to the heavens while the other remains chained to the very earth?"

During the same year of Atatürks election as the leader of the modern state of Turkey, he was married to Latife Usakligil. She was seen as the epitome of the ideal modern Turkish women. "She was never veiled, she was outspoken and well educated. She spoke fluent English, French and Italian." At a time when people only had religious marriage ceremonies, Atatürk and Latife Hanim were declared husband and wife in a civil court. By the civil ceremony in contrast to a religious one, Odabas Geldiay says, was a :major step." It can be seen as a major step in Turkish politics, because leading Turkish legislators accepted the Swiss civil code that defined the rights of women in a marriage as equal to men.

This empowerment for women, created a large number of women "penetrating" workplaces, from factories, schools, medical institutions, social centers, banks to commercial enterprises and university faculties. Turkish women were granted the privilege of voting and the eligibility for municipal elections in 1934; a great triumph for Turkish women, in comparison to their foreign sisters. French women were not allowed to vote until 1947, and Swiss women did not recieve the right until 1971.

Just as Atatürk’s wife exemplified the modern Turkish women, his adopted daughters did so as well. He encouraged them to study and build careers. Odabas Geldiay spoke of the parallel of Sabiha Gokcen’s life and her own. In 1935 when Atatürk established the Turkish Aviation Association, Gokcen went through the same education to become a flyer, in the same fashion as her male counterparts. A while later, Gokcen, became the first woman fighter pilot in the world. She also had training in gliding and parachuting. Odabas Geldiay noted of her own "burning desire to throw myself out of airplanes." She received her international certificate from the same aviation association. "I am grateful for not being denied the opportunity," she said. Half jokingly continued, "Yes, jumping out of airplanes is a dangerous sport, although not as dangerous as jumping to conclusions!"

In 1935 when the World Women’s Congress was held in Istanbul, a well known female journalist asked Atatürk whether his reforms for women were extended to equality of men and women in the military, Atatürk said, "Actually I am against even Turkish men going into war. Our main policy is to have our country and the entire world live in peace. But if we have to defend our country, you can be sure that our women will once again take their place equally next to men."

Again comparing Turkish and foreign women, Odabas Geldiay stated that women in Turkey make up a larger proportion of lawyers and doctors than they do in the USA. However, in Turkey only a 4% increase occurred with women in parliament. In USA it is 12.5%, 42.7% in Sweden and 14.2% in Mexico. Despite that, Turkey was added to the small list of nations who elected female prime ministers. Tansu Ciller took office of PM in 1993. Though she was not active in promotion of women’s rights, her campaign was enough to gather attention from women and bring them to the election booths.

In reference to the new religiously based government taking leadership in Turkey, Odabas Geldiay concluded that "women’s status in society" will not gain much improvement. "I hope to be proven wrong. Because being allowed to live life in an atmosphere of freedom, having a voice in the government, being able to work and have financial independence are dramatic social and legal changes that are far too precious to take for granted."

Zeyno Baran, CSIS, focused on the effects of Sept 11 and Islam among Turkish women. She said, "I believe the Turkish women’s experience is truly unique in the Muslim world and I see modern Turkish Muslim women playing an absolutely essential role at this historic moment."

According to Baran, since the event of Sept 11, the United States has entered a crucial period in which it claims to not be at war against Islam.

Baran said that to answer the question properly that is if Islam is inherently limiting of women’s rights and involvement in public life, we must first distinguish Islam as a culture and as a religion. The five fundamentals of Islam encompass: Allah’s uniqueness, the final prophecy of Muhammad, prayer, giving alms, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. On a religious level, Baran says, men and women remain fully equal to one another. And that the difference in Gods eyes rely solely on the piety of the individual. Not their sexes. Islam as a religion refers to the changing social, economic and political circumstances. "In the time of Prophet Muhammad women had very few rights, Islam has considerably improved women’s rights," Baran said.

She brought attention to the misconception concerning the number of wives Islamic men were allowed. From her research, polygamy existed before the time of the prophet in Arabic nations. Mainly due to a great number of men who died in wars. Because of the death toll, the female/male ratio was severely distorted. "What the Quran did was to limit the right to marry up to four women, but only if the man could treat them all equally, and then stated explicitly that such treatment was not possible."

Baran focused on the first women of Islam, "Most extremists wont mention that the prophets first wife, Khadijah, was a businesswoman. His favorite wife, Ayse, was a well known authority in medicine and history.

"All fundamentalist religions first action is to limit women’s rights and sexuality; that betrays Islam as a religion."

The trends of secularization started with the Tanzimat reforms of the1839- 1876 period. Following, the end of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1, modern Turkey emerged

victorious in 1923 as a secular, democratic republic in the Muslim world.

"I believe one of the main problems facing the Islamic world today stems from the unchallenged authority of a few men believing they know the absolute truth."

Headscarves are not required in the Quran. Islam requests a modest dress code. Historically, headscarves were not introduced until after Muslim conquests of Iran and Byzantium and when Muslims became urbanized, men veiled and secluded their women as a status symbol and show of wealth.

Baran said that "unless Islam goes under reformation as Christianity did centuries before, it is going to be quite difficult to separate Islam as a religion from Islam as a culture.

From the experience of Baran, there are three groups in the hub of Turkish Islamic women. One group consisting of migrants who move to larger cities and have difficulty assimilating. Therefore, by hanging onto the hope that utopic Islamic times could be replicated, then those women who are highly educated and are disgusted by the moral corruption of what they see as the Western societies and ruling elite. They also consider women to be promiscuous and lacking family values. Those in this group isolate themselves with Islam. And then the third is of women wanting to fit into the modern lifestyle, but cannot for one reason or another and "in total humiliation" turn to Islam.

More than anything, Baran believes that women in Turkey are fearful of becoming an Iranian example. And in the end, they fear in unison of going down the "slippery slope," of which there is no return. She says, that "so- called Kemalist women will fight tooth and nail not to lose their basic freedoms and liberties they have enjoyed all their lives."

ATAA executive director, Guler Koknar took to the stage her experiences as a women in American and Turkish political business societies. Agreeing with the previous speakers she said, "Turkish women have made tremendous strides in the past near century, incomparable to the vast majority of women in the Muslim world, and even ahead of some of their sisters in the West."

Koknar also went into the differences among Turkish women. In underdeveloped regions in the country women enjoy far lesser access to education, healthcare and jobs. Their status in society is not upheld. It is surely not at the stage Atatürk had envisioned for them. Koknar argues that, "Traditions, may they be religious, cultural, regional or tribal, bear heavy on the shoulders of girls and women in many parts of Turkey." Koknar made a strong point that the greatest tool women can attain to fill the gaps, is an education. Something of which she says is the "great equalizer." In Turkey, the equality of women and their human and civil rights are under the guarantee of the Turkish constitution and other legal decrees. But these guarantees do not stay in the law books. Koknar says, "They have taken roots in the collective consciousness of society." Today, even the "most uneducated and underprivileged woman in Turkey" realizes she has some "unalienable rights as a human being and a woman that cannot be stripped from her."

Education and financial independence are of top priority along the road to women being able to assert what is written as their rights in the Turkish system.

When Koknar joined the Foreign Service Ministry, there were only two women holding the positions of ambassadors. That was in 1989. Now 2002, that number has increased over a dozen. Her class was equally split between men and women. She says, "This number will rise much more rapidly."

She added that her most challenging experience was not during the first Gulf War, when she was simply a freshman Turkish diplomat, nor was it when she was assigned to deal with Humanitarian aid shipments or international journalists. Instead, she humorously remembered, "was when I was a 25 -year- old Vice Consul and had to meet with good old Texan businessmen, who could not quite grasp that I was the one they needed to talk to about doing business with Turkey!"

The biggest difference she sees between American and Turkish women is that Turkish women are not as alone on the road to female independence. Turkish women typically have a close knit family structure and a greater closeness among their friends and neighbors. Koknar says that this is another aspect in favor of the Turkish working woman. With these facets of her life the Turkish working woman is able to overcome much more easily the "many daily small or large challenges that an American woman faces mostly alone." Koknar's final words in completion of the panel discussion are alarmingly in coercion with that of the previous speakers. A concern exists among the women on the panel, they hinted of Turkeys new government and how will progress continue among the women of Turkey. "Efforts by Islamist parties to deprive women of their rights to vote, to education and to other civil rights are real, the dangers posed to modernity and what it has done for women by fundamentalist Islam are real, and they are most frightening for Muslim women."

TT’s Note: We did not have Dr Engin Imel Holmstrom’s speech available for us to include in this report at the time we were going to press. We will publish Dr. Holmstrom’s speech in our next issue when we have it available. We apologize from Dr. Holmstrom and our readers for this inadvertent neglect.