8 March 2010 / GÜLAY GÖKTÜRK BUGÜN,
We are again celebrating March 8, International Women’s Day. We still have the Merve Kavakçı issue to confront. Kavakçı, who was elected to Parliament from the Virtue Party (FP) in the 1999 general elections, was thrown out of Parliament because of her headscarf.
The 13 years that have passed since the Feb. 28, 1997 post-modern coup have been analyzed in detail, but there seems to be a consensus not to make any mention of the Kavakçı incident. No one is still able to say “What did we do to this woman? What a rude and primitive lynching it was” because nobody is ready to settle accounts with the incident, which was recorded in our recent history as the “boom of bigotry that turned into social hysteria.” The Kavakçı incident was the most unforgettable part of the Feb. 28 nightmare. It was the most dramatic part of the scenario. What befits the Turkish feminist movement is to be first in remembering that day of shame in our recent history and to be self critical. This movement should be the first to launch a campaign for the restoration of the dignity of Kavakçı.
