Thursday, May 29, 2008

What is the deal with the headscarves?

We spent most of the day today at Sabancı University talking with students there and touring the premises. There was a striking lack of hijabs - out of the hundreds of female students I saw over the course of the day, maybe five had their heads covered. After all of the controversy on the topic I found this a bit surprising. I commented to one of the Sabancı students we were with about how few seemed to be taking advantage of AKP's lifting of the ban on headscarves. He shrugged and said that the headscarves weren't really that big of an issue and no one wanted to wear them anyway. Now granted, this was one guy who had already admitted to having no particular enthusiasm for AKP, but still.

If there aren't people wanting to wear headscarves at universities and other government institutions, why is AKP so worried about repealing the ban?

If there are people wanting to wear headscarves at universities, why aren't they?

If the people who want to wear headscarves aren't going to universities in the first place, then what on Earth is this argument about anyway?

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