Kılıçdaroğlu fails to pass credibility test on headscarf remarks

“I never find these remarks convincing. They are also ill intentioned. You will do whatever you can to annul a constitutional amendment lifting the ban by taking it to the Constitutional Court and then you will say you can solve it. They cannot make anybody believe this,” Radikal daily columnist and former minister Hasan Celal Güzel told Today’s Zaman.

Kılıçdaroğlu stated yesterday in an interview with Radikal that his party will solve the headscarf problem at universities when it comes to power. “We can solve that issue, and we are determined to solve it. … Everyone will be able to attend university,” he said.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s statements were found far from being convincing since the CHP has long been a staunch defender of the headscarf ban at universities and in the public sector.

According to Güzel, the CHP leader’s statements hint at a threat and challenge, signaling that it is only the CHP who can solve the issue. “This means that ‘our party commands the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] and bureaucracy. They cannot refuse what we say, and so only we can solve it.’ There is a threat here. These statements point to the real culprit of this controversial ban. This is a confession,” Güzel said.

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu shakes hands with a headscarved woman. Kılıçdaroğlu has failed to convince many about his desire to resolve Turkey’s controversial headscarf ban. Kılıçdaroğlu denies pro-freedom headscarf remarks Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has denied that he made remarks in favor of lifting a widely denounced ban on wearing the headscarf on university campuses that deprives thousands of female students of their right to education. The Radikal daily yesterday reported that Kılıçdaroğlu had said in an interview that the CHP will solve the headscarf ban problem and that “everyone will attend universities.” Following reactions from his own party, Kılıçdaroğlu issued a statement late on Thursday denying he uttered those exact words. “When the interview is examined, it will be seen that I did not say headscarved student will go to the universities as they are,” he said in the statement, leaving it vague what he meant by solving the problem. In his statement, Kılıçdaroğlu also referred to an earlier Constitutional Court decision which overruled a parliamentary bill supported by 411 of 550 deputies that allowed headscarves on campuses. İstanbul Today's Zaman

The use of headscarves has remained one of the gravest problems in Turkey. Headscarves were banned on university campuses in the late 1990s through a Constitutional Court ruling on the grounds that allowing them would violate the nation’s secular principles because the headscarf was seen as a political and religious symbol. Political parties have thus far failed to solve the problem.

In early February 2008, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) with the support of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) passed a constitutional amendment that would have lifted the ban on wearing the headscarf at university campuses. However, upon an appeal by the staunchly secular CHP and its ally, the Democratic Left Party (DSP), the Constitutional Court ruled that Parliament had violated the constitutionally enshrined principle of secularism when it passed amendments to remove the scarf ban and annulled the amendment.

Taraf daily columnist Hilal Kaplan, herself a headscarf-wearing woman, questions Kılıçdaroğlu’s credibility and stresses that the CHP has never taken into consideration what people want except some of its “pre-election concerns.” “If this [headscarf ban] was a problem, then why did you block those who wanted to solve it? Or why did you not oppose your party? It never evokes credibility when he says, ‘I will solve it,’ although he never made a self-criticism for his party blocking the constitutional amendment, which would have lifted the ban. In sum, he says: ‘I created the problem, and I can solve it. If any other party dares to address it, I will block it’,” she told Today’s Zaman.

No details on possible solution

While vowing to solve the headscarf problem during the interview, Kılıçdaroğlu did not give any clue as to how his party would solve the issue, saying the method should be left up to them. Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Bugün daily’s Ahmet Taşgetiren said Kılıçdaroğlu previously made similar statements, but just like today, he did not reveal how he could solve the problem in the past, either. “Kılıçdaroğlu is not speaking frankly on this issue. He has been trying to meet the public’s expectations for a solution with such statements. But he never speaks to the point,” he said. Recalling that the CHP was the party that took the 2008 constitutional amendment lifting the headscarf ban to the Constitutional Court for annulment, Taşgetiren stressed that if the CHP wants to be convincing, it should publicly announce that it does not agree with the reasoning of the Constitutional Court in banning the headscarf since the current ban is based on the court’s ruling. “But I do not think that they can do that,” he said.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s move is not a first for the CHP, as many still remember the party’s surprising chador initiative, which ended in failure. In what was seen as an attempt to gain the support of conservative voters in the March 2009 local elections, former CHP leader Deniz Baykal, better known for his opposition to the headscarf in the public sphere, surprised everyone when he gave a woman wearing the chador a CHP badge in late 2008. The move sparked discussions over his credibility, with many interpreting the move as an attempt to win back the hearts of conservative voters ahead of the March 29 elections. The chador-wearing woman later resigned from the party.