During such situations, which function as a litmus test, fake personalities are forced into sacrificing their conjectural interests for the sake of their long-term and lasting interests. These people return to their real selves in such cases, which is actually a good thing, because we learn and thus etch in our mind the real identities and personalities of such people who try to pass themselves off as characters they are not and thus try to deceive people.The headscarf debates that have been in the spotlight for the last one-and-a-half months and the constitutional amendment made on the issue has produced the effect of a litmus test, revealing to us the real and fake democrats and liberals. Democracy and liberalism are like a glass vase. Just like that vase, when they lose their integrity, they shatter into pieces.
As you know, a small segment whose past lies in different variations of communism and which today calls itself liberal, claiming that it has transformed itself, has decided to take a bizarre stance instead of rejoicing, all in the name of liberalism, at the lifting of the headscarf ban in universities that has victimized tens of thousands of female students and their families in the last 20 years. According to these “liberal” intellectuals, who take shelter in various arguments in regard to the issue in question, the government is reportedly a democratic one but only in things that serve their purposes. They ask preposterous questions like: “Why did the government start with the headscarf in expanding freedoms? Why does it not endeavor in other fields as much as it does in the process of removing the headscarf ban?” and so on and so forth. According to them freedoms are a whole and freeing the headscarf, which is a part of that whole, is allegedly discriminatory and against holistic freedom.
I don’t know whether I should speak out again and say that I am against any sort of ban or limitation that confines freedoms. However, I’m one of those who are aware that it is really difficult for Turkey to remove at once all bans and limitations that have been embarrassing it. Therefore, I see any step taken in regard to freedom and human rights as a belated act regardless of what part of society it relates to -- but I still applaud them.
Just as I applauded the recent constitutional amendments -- which to me are quite insufficient -- as a humble step taken on the way to freedom and as a sincere effort, today I applaud the Foundations Law, which was passed by Parliament the other day and which envisages returning at least some part of the violated rights of Turkey’s minorities. Also, even though I want the extremely archaic and chauvinistic Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) to be completely revoked, I still feel excited even at any sort of formula that will allay the anxieties surrounding the issue. Without making a priority list, I support with all my heart any steps that will make all people and minorities of this country -- regardless of their faith and ethnicity -- feel like first-class citizens.
Highly contrary to those who are only liberal to themselves, I see no hierarchy between the subjects related to freedoms and I believe in the existence of no priority between freedoms. So, I’m asking those “dignified and dressed-up” liberals who have been unable to internalize the removal of the headscarf ban -- a basic one amongst the demands for freedom -- and who have been doing their utmost to hamper this process with the “all or never” rhetoric: If the regulation in Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code was made or the Foundations Law was passed in Parliament earlier, would you have given the same weird reaction, saying, “No way! Article 301 or the Foundations Law cannot be changed before the headscarf ban is lifted!”? Come on, be a little honest and sincere. You know very well that you wouldn’t have reacted in such a way.
So where does the problem stem from? Does it stem from the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) having taken a step in the field of freedoms, albeit belatedly and slowly, or does it stem from the “sincerity” of these “liberal” friends?
Those who follow my columns know that I have been criticizing the AK Party government for being slow in expanding freedoms. But I find it totally against my internal integrity to ask why they began with the headscarf, although I find the recent step insufficient. And my reaction would not be different if the first step taken in favor of freedoms had begun with Article 301 or the regulations that concern Kurds or Alevis -- as is the case with thousands of genuine liberal democrat academics and intellectuals who fortunately make up the overwhelming majority and who show no hesitation while adding their signatures to declarations of freedom, unlike the former leftists who call themselves liberal.
