Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the political economy of islamic discourse 99a growing sense of individualism, the present phenomenon of consumerismacts to cement communal solidarity and identity. Particular dress codes, restaurants,cafes, and home furnishings indicate group tastes and consumer patterns,and Islamists have adopted consumption patterns that can easily be distinguishedin schools and on the streets. This creates a highly visible group culture.In this respect, the various forms of dress worn by Muslim women havebecome the distinct means to diVerentiate Islamist women both from one anotherand from secular women.The Political Discourse of the HeadscarfFollowing the 1997 soft coup, the Kemalist military forcefully pushed for a banon the wearing of headscarves in public institutions. This policy led to continuinglarge-scale protests and acts of deWance, with many police oYcers andmidlevel state oYcials sabotaging the edicts of the military. The issue came toa head with the expulsion of the FP deputy Merve Kavakç1 from Parliament andthe stripping of her citizenship, as demanded by the generals. The great controversythis issue aroused in Turkish society demonstrated that individual rightsand Islamic traditions continue to provide sources of Werce contestation that thestate cannot control. The insertion of Islamic identities into controlled and predeWnedsecular spheres will continue to generate debate over the state-societyand public-private boundaries in Turkey. Far from “liberating” women fromabove, as claimed by the Kemalists, a generation of religious women once againis being disenfranchised and denied the right to an education and the ability toserve in political life by an allegedly “reforming” state.In examining the symbolism of devout “modern” women who wearheadscarves, it becomes clear that these Muslim women are using their bodiesto inscribe on themselves a particular religious identity. 54 The decision to weara form of headscarf represents women’s attempts to negotiate and balance theirown new roles as working women and mothers by resorting to the shelter oftraditional symbols. 55 By “stepping backward,” women in fact make a “leap”ahead to modernity. 56 Modern Islamic attire allows Muslim women to carve outnew spaces for themselves between the private and public spheres. Cihan Akta7,a leading Islamic woman writer, argues that by covering their hair Muslimwomen challenge the policies of the modernizing state and even some traditionalnorms of society that seek to keep women inside the household. 57 Scarvesbecome an exit from the traditional restrictions on women in the public sphereand allow them to take part in modern society. Women increasingly are makingpublic demands and organizing themselves with their own resources.In a group discussion of a number of pro-Islamic women students at BilkentUniversity in Ankara, I realized that covering one’s head, for these women, isan essential part of their identity and moral position in society. 58 It is also a wayfor them to gain access to political and social positions within religious society.They are critical of “state-feminism” for negating their womanhood for the sakeof the adoption of a Western identity. They argue that this Western identity is