What Mahathir failed to learn from Turkey

TMI:

Survey finds Muslim women wear hijab to conform

Alfian Z.M. Tahir, Diyana Ibrahim

A survey has found that Malaysian Muslim women in the main wear the hijab because they feel they are required to appear modest. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, October 15, 2019 

The majority of Muslim women in Malaysia wear the hijab not because they want to but because of the need to look modest and avoid negative perception, a study found.

In a survey conducted by Sisters in Islam, 80% of 675 respondents all across the country between the ages of 18 and 55 agreed that they struggled to fulfil society’s expectations.

The feeling is in a way termed 'peer pressure'.

According to kaytee's astounding wakakaka "scientific" discovery, there could be 3 types (or degrees) of 'peer pressure', namely (in strict order of priority-vitality):

(a) The need to 'conform or be confronted', especially in Malaysia,

(b) The need to look modest and avoid negative perception i.a.w with society's expectations, and

(c) The need to keep up to social fashion amongst Muslims.

In Type (a), there have been related cases of actual and blunt cases of confrontation by bullies, even amongst friends and acquaintances. Lighter examples would be indirect criticisms, sarcasms and snide remarks.

Type (b) obviously preempts the likely Konfrontasi of Type (a), wakakaka, plus having an ingrown awareness and willingness to conform to the expectations of elders, seniors and mateys. The Type (c) approach is only 'inner pressure' to keep up to vogue fashion.

Today after reading about the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) officers alleged rough handling of a stray dog, my mind sprung to my own visit to Turkey sometime back. There two issues surprised me, namely, hijab and dogs.

Then I was astounded by only a minority of Turkish women donning hijabs, where those who had shown themselves gabbed in hijab were in the main (though not exclusively) migrants (Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis, etc). Yes, there have been a few Turks in hijab too but they were very insignificant in numbers in the nation of 82 million (81% Sunni, 17% Shia). Most Turkish women didn't wear hijab.

Even in Turkish kampongs where I went to as part of my visit, most of the village-rural women wore either scarfs (Mat Salleh style or selendang-type) but not hijab.

At airports and other public institutions, only a very small minority of the officers there wore hijab.

I believe this might have been due to the influence of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, who changed the (then defeated) Islamic Ottoman Empire into a staunchly secular republic with free & compulsory primary education and equal civil and political (thus voting) rights for women, well ahead of many Western countries.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 

That was in 1930's. Here in Malaysia in 2019 we still have 'certain' approved and favoured organisations demeaning and attempting to curtail the political activities of our nation's Islamic women.

In that period (1930's) he also changed the Turkish alphabet from its Arabic script into a Latin form, whilst we in 2019 are now promoting Arabic script including Islamic khat for non-Muslim students everywhere instead of ensuring our Latin script continues to be improved and consolidated. And everywhere one goes in Turkey one would see countless books, paperback of otherwise, fiction and non-fiction, locally written and/or translated from foreign (Western) books and novels, all in the Latin script. What happened to our Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka?

Atatürk (which means 'Father of all Turks', a title conferred by parliament on him most deservedly) had never forbade the hijab headscarf, though he actively discouraged its use in public venues.

Alas, after his demise, the hijab was draconianly and officially banned in public institutions especially after the military coup of 1980 coup when a 'public clothing regulation' issued thereafter began to be implemented.

Wikipedia informs us:

With a constitutional principle of official secularism, the Turkish government has traditionally banned women who wear headscarves from working in the public sector.

The ban applies to tecahers, lawyers, parliamentarians, and others working on state premises. The ban on headscarves in the civil service and educational and political institutions was expanded to cover non-state institutions. Female lawyers and journalists who refused to comply with the ban were expelled from public buildings such as courtrooms and universities.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of university students wearing headscarves increased substantially and in 1984, the first widespread application of headscarf ban came into effect at the universities, but throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the ban was not uniformly enforced and many students were able to graduate.

The headscarf ban in public spaces, including schools and universities (public and private), courts of law, government offices and other official institutions, is only for students, workers and public servants. Hence, mothers of pupils or visitors have no problems at all entering the primary schools, but they would not be able to work as teachers.

Similarly, at the courts of law, the ban only involves judges, attorneys, lawyers and other workers. Wearing headscarves in photos on official documents like licenses, passports, and university enrollment documents are also prohibited. Universities and schools refused to register women students unless they submit ID photographs with bared hair and neck.

A regulation in, 16 July 1982 specified that: the clothing and appearances of personnel working at public institutions; the rule that female civil servants' head must be uncovered.

An interpretation of this law in 1997 extended the ban to the wearing of headscarves in all universities in Turkey. The debate over headscarves in universities has been the most contentious of all and has been an important element in the politics of Turkey since 2000.

Fortunately for staunch Islamists, the ban on the headscarf for public personnel was lifted by the democratization package on 1 October 2013. Nonetheless, the secularist influence of Atatürkism seems to prevail even until today, notwithstanding Islamist Erdogen as President.

My Turkish host revelled in reminding me of Turkey's 101% secularity entrenched in its Constitution. And remarkably (for me a Malaysian), he stressed on his faith in only the Quran and not the hadiths which he mentioned were just the opinions of mortal beings who could be wrong.

And yes, I have personally witnessed the Muslim Turks' astounding love of dogs (in sharp contrast to generally Malay Muslims' abhorrence of those creatures).

Strays are in general (not all as the process was still ongoing during my time there) neutered by authorities, tagged and allowed to roam freely in the gardens of mosques, museums, war memorials and the Topkapi Palace, and of course in streets everywhere.

A Muslim Turk in my group showed his love for his god's creatures by allowing a thirsty stray dog to drink water from his cupped hand as he poured the fluid from a bottle into it. Though his act involved touching a wet (drinking) dog, yet he didn't wash his hands seven times (at least once with earth) as Malay Muslims have been instructed to do so in accordance with a hadith by Abu Hurayrah. He just washed his hands normally with soap in the public restroom.

One last word - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk also showed his amazing lateral thinking, way way ahead of Edward de Bono.

For 900+ years, the Hagia Sophia served as an Orthodox Church and then for another 400+ years as an Ottoman mosque - the Ottomans were not allowed to destroy the Christian icons within the building as Jesus (Isa) was considered a prophet in Islam, thus his images, his mother's (Mary's) plus other Christian saints were just pasted (blanked) over with building plaster.

When Atatürk, a Muslim himself, took over as President of the new Turkish Republic, he ordered the blanking paste removed to uncover once again the numerous historically painted Christian icons in the the Hagia Sophia mosque, allowing them to be manifested side by side with Quranic khat.

And what did he then make of the Hagia Sophia?

He turned it into a museum.  

What a lateral-thinking man.

The Malaysian PM who was almost like him, a national patriot to his nation, was Tunku Abdul Rahman, though less of an ardent practising secularist.

Mahathir could have been another Atatürk but alas, the Mamak went the other way, unilaterally declaring (minus parliamentary approval nor sanction) Malaysia a fundamentalist Islamic nation and forming institutions such as JAKIM (and worse, BTN) - all for his selfish personal political survival.