This New York Times piece on the Turkish head scarf debate presents one side to the Turkish religious and political situation. Here, it is the religious outsiders pushing for tolerance in a secular state, much like what you could imagine in the US. Only this is not the US- and it is not the Middle East either (at least not the one we're used to seeing on TV).
The head scarf is a very political and symbolic issue in Turkey, and even if Turkey boasts its own Starbucks and TGI Fridays, we can't expect Turkey to react the same way we might to a statement. In Turkey, the statement made by a woman wearing a head scarf is charged, and often it is not a statement, but rather characteristic of an uneducated, poor, rural lifestyle. (this is what I've gathered from several conversations with my turkish friend)
so...you can tell what the NYT writer's position is, and that my friend's is quite different. If anything, getting my friend's opinion on the article showed me how colored our "American lens" can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment