LET OUR HAIR FREE!

I met this mind for the first time at 15, when I fall ill and taken to Medical Faculty Hospital. The mind was in the form of an elder professor, MD, who tried to examine me with his eyes (avoiding eye contact), avoiding to touch with his hands.

MD aunts and uncles explained that he is very religious but a great doctor at his area, and brother of our famous religious party leader Erbakan.

My 15 year old mind couldn't understand how his religious beliefs could prevent his mind examining me by his hands, but put a dot there in the memory. Thanks god, there were other doctors and I survived. But the question put in my mind with this experience made me reject the religion from politics or any area of life from that day on.

Was it a sin to be a female? Was I a sin to stay away, even to treat? Was it a sin to be beautiful to look at? Which was sick; my young and science hungry mind or his old mind rejecting even his own scientist identity? They were big questions for a 15 year old mind to answer but good to think on.

Though, it was not possible to recognize them for sure during those days. They breed like crabs while people was dealing with fascist attacks, military rules and anti-democratic laws. Suddenly we looked around and realized we are surrounded with black beetles reducing democracy, democratic rights we fought for decades; to the black sheets they cover themselves, to turbans to cover their hair.

So, they politicized the religion, Islam, and standing in front of us...

Last week Prime Minister Erdoğan blurted his already known aim out at last. He remarked on whether the ban on wearing headscarves at universities should be removed or not in his usual language; "Even if it [the headscarf] is worn as a political symbol, can you consider wearing a political symbol a crime? Can you bring in a ban on symbols?"

So, Mr Erdogan knows better than the founders of this Republic...

Conservative media stepped immediately; "His remarks renewed hope that the government will finally take the necessary steps to resolve Turkey's seemingly endless headscarf problem through the new constitution."

So; their endless problem is with hair...

Yesterday top prosecutor warned that "easing restrictions on wearing the Islamic headscarf could lead to civil unrest and undermine the secular nature of the Turkish state". Supreme Court Chief Public Prosecutor Yalcinkaya said political parties cannot have the goal to change the republic’s secular character; "Disregarding the main principles of the republic and 85 years of achievements and providing certain rights to ethnic groups, sects and racists will divide the people and lead to clashes."

So, Mr Erdogan can forget the character of this state easily (or he thinks he is able to change anything he wish or worse; dreaming caliphate)...

That is right; Turkiye bans women from wearing the headscarf while attending schools or universities, or while working in state positions. Turkiye is a secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim population. Turkish women have many good conditions than any Islamic or Muslim dominated countries.

When the Turkish Republic formed in 1923, clear choices made by secularizing the country. Equal rights and the right to vote are given to Turkish women. All kinds of turbans and religious clothing banned from government institutions and women liberated from the darkness (we didn't know burkas even then).

Thanks to the political Islam; more than 80 years after the liberation from the veil, some can take to the streets for the right to wear the Islamic headscarf. Even Mrs Gul, now first lady, applied to Europe Human Rights Court but took her case back when her husband won the elections (don't even mention how they shame Turkish women around the world).

If you visit Anıtkabir, mosoleum of Atatürk, you can see the set of statues of a group of three women. Three women represent the common people and are wearing traditional clothes, not veil or turban. Two of them holds a large wreath that reaches the ground and is made up of sheaves of grain, symbolizing Turkey’s fertile land. The woman on the left holds a cup in her hand, asking in earnest for God’s blessings for their great leader. The woman standing in the middle has covered her face and is a symbol of national grief. They reflect the pride, serenity and determination of Turkish women who made countless sacrifices in the struggle for national liberation.

Some may need to remember;
Recognition of equal rights to men and women (1926 - 1934)
Reform of Headgear and Dress (1925)
Closure of mausoleums and dervish lodges (1925)
Law on family names (1934)
Abolishment of titles and by-names (1934)

In these short years of reforms Turkish women transported from the harem and veil to membership in Parliament, to which seventeen women were admitted in 1935. Reforms also stripped the imams, mollas, hodjas from their privileges. The old order changed; traditional fez was abandoned, harems banned and monogamy became the law. Social and cultural reforms, included banning religious schools, revoking the Shariah courts, and abolishing religious titles and orders.

There is no need to remind the history of veil or what happened when or why once more, but better to look at the higher literacy and professional-employment rates for Turkish women compared to anywhere else in the Middle East and even the developed countries in Europe and America: "In the fields of architecture, science, medicine, pharmacy and law, at least one out of three employed is a woman. In colleges women constitute about 35 percent of the faculty. Almost 40 percent of all young traders at the Istanbul Stock Exchange are women. Even in the technical world of engineering, with a participation level of 12 percent, Turkish women are slightly ahead of their American counterparts."

While Turkish women granted the right to elect and be elected at 1934, French women gained the same rights in 1944, Italian women in 1945 and the Swiss in 1971. In Iran in the 1930s, Reza Shah Pahlevi issued a proclamation banning the veil outright but Shah went and we can see the situation of women thanks to Islamic revolution.

So...

What they want from us now? Turn back to darkness? Having democracy by closing their hair? Making 8-10 year olds close their heads?

Will headscarved doctors serve 15 year old boys? Will 15 year old girls have treatment by male doctors? How will headscarved teachers, judges, polices etc serve to public while trying to avoid touching? Headscarf is not only a religious symbol but a symbol of fanatic behavior, mentality.

How would closing their heads bring them freedom? Some say it prevents men looking them as sex objects but recognize their personalities, bullshit... If it is "what in or on a man's head" or "not", you can't change it by closing your head or opening your ass (just as "what is in a woman's head" or "not")...

Of course this ill mind is explaining it from the point of "freedom of education", explain it to my shoes...

We certainly don't have anything to say about the freedom of education but we have a say about "the freedom of having services". What would a diploma on the wall can bring to an ill mind who would avoid to touch the opposite sex in any area of life, science...

It all begins and ends in the mind. Now Mr. genius PM Erdoğan blurts; "Even if it [the headscarf] is worn as a political symbol, can you consider wearing a political symbol a crime? Can you bring in a ban on symbols?"

Those words are enough to show that their aim is not limited with education in universities. Yes Mr. genius / idiot, we can... carry your symbol "in" your heart and mind and take your minds "out" of women's body...

Educated population, youth is our "national treasure". We neither have enough "sources" to waste for their uncertainty on their "own" beliefs nor enough "time" waste for our future.

Political Islam is the plague cherished by imperialism. They shouldn't’t confuse us with the women of Arab or any other Islamic countries and take their hands and minds from our hair...

And those women who want to close their head; would you stroke our boys' heads as teachers when we send them to schools, would you treat our sons when they get wounded fighting for our country as doctors, would you carry their burned bodies after terrorist attacks as police officers, would you fight side by side with them or be bussy with closing your heads, not touching them under the rain of bullets to our freedom?...

Or just; "what is freedom" for you?... Or just, “what” is in your mind?...

What is in our mind is the "clear and clean" wind of civilisation, humanity, equality, respect waving our hair free for both our daughters and sons...

This is a photo of Afghan King Amanullah Han during his visit to Turkiye at 1928... Think about the Afghan women in burkas now, 80 years later...

Well, Allah gave you the intelligence, think on...