Visualizing Secularism and Religion: Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, India

1. Subversion and Subjugation in the Public Sphere: Secularism and the Islamic Headscarf in Turkey

1 ✦ Subversion and Subjugation in the Public Sphere Secularism and the Islamic Headscarf in Turkey alev çinar In the mid-1980s, university students wearing the Islamic headscarf started to appear in public places in Turkey, giving a new sort of visibility to Islam in the public sphere contrary to the secularist norms sanctioned by the state.1 Within a decade the headscarf went from being a controversial item of religious attire to a matter of Turkish national security. In February 1997, the National Security Council identi‹ed the headscarf as one of the main indicators of the “Islamic threat”—the single most important threat to the well-being and security of the country—and called for the enforcement of a ban on the headscarf in all public places including classrooms, universities, and public of‹ces. How is it that such a simple item of clothing can turn into such a powerful disruptive force? This chapter explores the headscarf controversy in the context of contemporary debates about gender and the public sphere. I am particularly interested in how the public sphere in Turkey has been produced in relation to norms of secularism and modernity by the forging and display of new gender identities, especially through regulations on clothing and the appearance of women. I also examine the emergence of new Islamic subjectivities through the increasing visibility of the Islamic headscarf in secular public spaces, which poses a suf‹ciently formidable challenge to the authority and power of secularist discourse that it has been deemed a threat to national security. By comparing the gendered and gendering interven25 tions of the secularizing Turkish state of the 1920s and the Islamist elite of the 1990s, I suggest that Jurgen Habermas’s conception of the public sphere requires revision. Contrary to the notion that the public sphere is a space for political participation and the expansion of political liberties, women’s experiences in the public sphere require a more complicated assessment of the nature and uses of the public sphere. Indeed I argue that, understood as a gendered regime of presence and visibility, the public sphere can limit political liberties and operate as a form of subjugation. The Public Sphere: Liberation or Subjugation? As discussed in the Introduction, Habermas’s conceptualization of the public sphere assumes that it is a ‹eld wherein emancipation and democratic liberties are realized, but that conceptualization overlooks the ways in which the public sphere can also produce power relations and hierarchies to the detriment of most participants. Critics have pointed out that the Habermasian notion of the public sphere treats particular identities and differences in problematic ways. Several authors have noted that the exclusion of the interests of women,2 the working class, and identities forged around race, ethnicity, or religion3 not only is discriminatory but impedes the attainment of the common good. Despite such cogent critiques, most of these scholars remain loyal to the Habermasian ideal, noting that, suitably amended, the public sphere can ful‹ll its promise as a ‹eld of emancipation and liberation. Other writers have developed more radical criticisms, challenging the normative value ascribed to the ideal public sphere and questioning the emancipatory power of public discourse itself.4 Rather than engaging the conventional debate about how the ideal public sphere should function, these critics are concerned with the actual operations of existing public spheres. On the basis of a critical examination of existing public spheres, they suggest that particular interests and identities do not exist prior to or outside the public sphere but rather are produced by and constitutive of the public sphere. Joan Landes, for example, argues that the exclusion of women from the public sphere in eighteenth-century France was not just a historical coincidence but a constitutive act that produced the citizen as an exclusively male subject.5 Appeals to universal principles of liberty and equality and the celebration of common interests at the expense of particularities actually consolidated white male power while concealing the subjugation of excluded subjectivities (women, black colonial subjects). This 26 ✦ visualizing secularism and religion line of criticism suggests that power and domination are inherent in the founding logic of the public sphere. Contesting the Operations of Publicity: The Gaze as a Productive Technology For Habermas and others who take speech and deliberation as its constitutive elements, the public sphere is formed when people engage in dialogue on political issues, wresting the determinants of publicity away...