Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org.
In the category of why exactly I, as an atheist, attempt to follow world affairs, I read today about a shooting in the high court of Turkey.
[BBC News] A gunman has shot dead a prominent judge and wounded four others in an attack in Turkey's highest court, in the capital, Ankara. Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin died despite six hours of surgery to remove a bullet from his brain.
Witnesses said the gunman, identified as Aslan Alpaslan, a 29-year old lawyer, said as he was shooting, "I am a soldier of God!" The issue: whether teachers can wear Muslim headscarves in public schools. Religion leads to some very strange behavior. Follow me below to explore this seemingly innocuous issue, which until today has been heated but largely non-violent.
The Turkish ban on headscarves in schools has been around for quite some time. If you did not know, Turkey has a secular constitution that is in some ways comparable to that of the United States.
[HR-Net] ARTICLE 24. Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religious belief and conviction.
Acts of worship, religious services, and ceremonies shall be conducted freely, provided that they do not violate the provisions of Article 14.
No one shall be compelled to worship, or to participate in religious ceremonies and rites, to reveal religious beliefs and convictions, or be blamed or accused because of his religious beliefs and convictions.
In the first sentence we have an equivalent to freedom of religion. In the last, we essentially have a freedom to be non-religious. Note, however, the provision regarding Article 14. This is the crucial difference.
ARTICLE 14. (As amended on October 17, 2001)
None of the rights and freedoms embodied in the Constitution shall be exercised with the aim of violating the indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation, and endangering the existence of the democratic and secular order of the Turkish Republic based upon human rights.
Emphasis mine. This key phrase may be said to be comparable to the establishment clause of our First Amendment, but there is a very crucial difference in the application of this clause. I will try to bear this out as we go along, but at this point let us note that Turkey was founded as a secular state, while the United States was essentially founded as a religious state. The actual states had no restriction on the establishment of religion. With the introduction of our Fourteenth Amendment, this changed. Therefore, in the United States, religion is often considered more important; secularism is simply for politics. In Turkey, secularism trumps religion.
Now, as to the case about headscarves I have to point out that I did not quote the entire Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution above. It continues:
Education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and secondary schools. Other religious education and instruction shall be subject to the individual's own desire, and in the case of minors, to the request of their legal representatives.
No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things held sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental, social, economic, political, and legal order of the state on religious tenets.
Emphasis mine. This is tough language regarding the inclusion of religious anything in something controlled by the state. You can now see that headscarves are a direct infringement on this principle. The gunman in our lead is a soldier in the war against secularism.
Let us leave aside for the moment that a lawyer killing a judge because of a ruling that is entirely constitutional is an outrage to the rule of law. Let us not be led to comparisons with calls by rightwing pundits in this country to assassinate liberal justices. Let us instead think about this: Can Muslims wear headscarves in our public schools? The answer, of course, is yes.
As recently as November, 2005, Human Rights Watch weighed in on the issue.
(New York, November 16, 2005)--The European Court of Human Rights decision to uphold the Turkish government's headscarf ban will deny thousands of women access to higher education and a professional life in Turkey, said Human Rights Watch today.
Last Thursday, the court's Grand Chamber rejected the appeal of Leyla Şahin, who had hoped to qualify as a medical doctor in Turkey, but was banned from medical school after she refused to remove her headscarf. She was ultimately forced to study abroad.
Think about the absolute outrage in this country if people were told their children would no longer be allowed to pray in school at all. Not in designated areas, not at designated times - never; keep it at home or church. Personally, that is my attitude, but it would never stand in a country that refuses to view "under god" as an establishment of religion.
Free exercize of religion is more important to the majority of Americans than is keeping religion out of our public institutions. However, to a Turkish secularist, there is nothing more important than a secular republic. Such a republic did not arise without great struggle and will not survive without great safeguarding. The ruling on headscarves may seem as insignificant as the ruling on "under god" in our pledge, but to a secularist, there is no room for allowing the chipping away of the secular state. Such chipping away has taken the United States well away from the intentions of our founders.
To some, religion is not just a choice to be made or a ritual to be performed at certain times; rather, for some, religion is a way of life. It invades every portion of a person's psyche. This insistence on living as a Christian or Muslim in every aspect of life creates a massive push against secular governments. While protecting your right to be a Christian, how do I protect my right to not be? I accept that I will never live in a world without religion. But the religious must accept that their worldview will, also, never be perfectly accepted. It is the sheer intolerance that religion breeds that is a danger in a secular society.
I found a nice summary to this in an article from Dhimmi Watch.
When Bush yet again tells the world ... that the example of Turkey proves that "Islam" and "democracy" are compatible, he shows he fails to understand. What the example of Turkey shows is that a determined leader, who carries out a program of limiting and constraining Islam over several decades, and who has some domestic support because he constantly shows how Islam holds back both individual potential, and that of the nation, then conditions are created where something like democracy can be attempted.
Replace Islam with Religion (in general) and you have my mission statement. Still, I have no idea why a woman can't wear whatever the hell she wants to wear. While Turkey seems to be mistaken in its approach to civil liberties in this regard, I give a begrudging respect for a solid stance against the encroachment of religion into public life. Where's my great Atheist Leader to transform this country?