# No headscarves for Turks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406 "2005-11-10T15:54:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/1 "2005-11-10T15:54:42Z")
Turkey is [banning headscarves](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4424776.stm) in Universities and offical buildings. > [@](#): > > Although overwhelmingly Muslim, Turkey is a secular republic and the Islamic headscarf is banned in all universities and official buildings. Is this what secularism means? Banning personal expressions of faith in public places? Not my understanding. Or are Turkish officials misunderstanding France’s xenophobic nationalism in secularist clothing as being what it takes to be accepted by Europe as one of them and allowed into the club? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/2 "2005-11-10T16:06:39Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Or are Turkish officials misunderstanding France’s xenophobic nationalism in secularist clothing as being what it takes to be accepted by Europe as one of them and allowed into the club? The Turkish ban on headscarves has been in place long before the french one. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/3 "2005-11-10T16:17:08Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > The Turkish ban on headscarves has been in place long before the french one. Back to the 1920’s in fact, along with a ban on the fez and Arabic script. These were all the work of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, one of the more benevolent of the twetieth century’s despots, and a man obsessed with modernizing and westernizing his country. He is the reason Turkey is largely free of the insanity that plagues so many Islamic countries. Here’s the wiki bio: > **[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Ataturk)** > > Reforms > Kemalism Here’s a somewhat propogandistic page, but it gives a flavor of how Ataturk is regarded in Turkey. (I lived in Istanbul as a child.) : [http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/ataturk.html](http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/ataturk.html) ---
**Author:** ![ProTem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@ProTem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProTem)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/4 "2005-11-11T00:04:16Z")
I found all religious symbols frightening as a child, whether crosses dangling on teacher’s chests or stars of David on lunch pails, or stacks of Rosecrutian “non-religious” religious pamphlets on the guidence councellor’s credenza, next to the tracts of other faiths and the ROTC. I was an athiest, but had to hide it when any of those were present. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/5 "2005-11-11T14:08:04Z")
I find it hard to believe you were "athiest ", at least the way I am. Sorry for the nitpick, but it’s annoying to see it spelled the way you just did. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/6 "2005-11-11T14:50:32Z")
So if it wasn’t imitation of the French, how _did_ Ataturk get the idea that secularism means suppression of religious expression by individuals? It clearly is not, in this case, a situation of distate for “the other”. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/7 "2005-11-11T16:35:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > So if it wasn’t imitation of the French, how _did_ Ataturk get the idea that secularism means suppression of religious expression by individuals? It clearly is not, in this case, a situation of distate for “the other”. I wouldn’t know, but it’s interesting to note that the three leaders most well known for having implemented a sudden and drastic westernization and modernization plan in their countries, in different eras, Peter the Great in Russia, the Meiji emperor in Japan and Mustapha Kemal in Turkey, all deemed necessary to also impose european clothes and appearance. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-headscarves-for-turks/330406/8 "2005-11-11T16:47:11Z")
That’s because western clothes and western culture were seen as neccesary for modernization. They were saying in all three cases, let’s get rid of our primitive cultural traditions and become modern.