BY BILAL CETIN
VATAN- Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli has made a new suggestion about the controversial headscarf ban at universities, which made headlines again this week with the appointment of a new Board of Higher Education (YOK) head by President Abdullah Gul. It's long been known that the MHP and Bahceli are opposed to the ban. Before the 1999 elections when it became a coalition partner it promised to tackle the issue, but it didn't follow through. It saw that the issue wasn't as easy as it appeared.
So at a press conference yesterday, when he was asked if the ban would be lifted, Bahceli chose his words carefully. He stressed that he didn't favor this ban. Stating that providing education is a basic duty of the state, Bahceli said that certain young people's right to education can't be taken from them just because they're wearing headscarves. `There must be no such ban at universities,' Bahceli said. `If the headscarf is seen as a political symbol, public officials can distinguish between those wearing headscarves as a political symbol or as a symbol of reactionary activity and then do what's necessary. Other than this, the MHP can't consent to the headscarf ban.'
Yet Bahceli also knows that it's not feasible to solve the problem by lifting the ban or appointing a new YOK head or letting individual rectors decide. So he didn't say that if the rectors allow headscarves and YOK doesn't institute disciplinary proceedings, the problem would be solved. He knows that the ban took the character of a constitutional provision through a 1999 Constitutional Court ruling, so he proposed a constitutional amendment. He pointed to Article 10 of the Constitution, which speaks of `equality before the law.' Bahceli says the article can be reinterpreted and rearranged to clarify the term `public sphere' to allow students wearing headscarves to attend university.
So far the MHP hasn't told the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has a majority of 341 deputies, that it can support it on this issue. The MHP also hasn't asked the AKP to introduce an amendment to Article 10 to lift the ban, because it can see that this is a sensitive issue which might create serious disturbances among certain institutions and circles and polarize society. So the MHP says that a social consensus is needed for a solution and the issue can't be solved without one. Bahceli made a reasonable suggestion, but something is interesting in his statements. He is urging certain public officials to distinguish women wearing headscarves as a political symbol or as a symbol of reactionary activity from those who are not. How would this work? Who could make such a distinction? Will there be a fortune teller in front of each university? Will that official allow students wearing headscarves due to religious beliefs to attend university, but exclude those wearing it as a symbol of reactionary activities? This isn't realistic.