Turkey went out to vote yesterday and came back showing the Islamic (or Islamist) AKP with increased popularity. I was watching a one hour report about Turkey on HDNet the other night (Dan Rather's new outfit). The reporter, a youngish Turkish woman, was conducting various interviews with Turks, surveying their opinions on the AKP government and the nexus of politics and religion. The Turkish economy is quite good, and the AKP has kept their Islamist program mostly sub rosa (if you believe they have one more serious than they've shown so far), which has kept them tolerable and maintained their popularity. They have to tread a careful line in any case, as the army stands ready to remove the government to maintain the nation's secular government.

This post isn't exactly about that, though. I just wanted to get down a few thoughts about something.

So I'm watching this thing and the reporter starts talking to a young hijab-clad college student about the fact that on Turkish college campuses, the hijab is banned. She, being religious in a way that she believes mandates the hijab, has found various ways around this by wearing a hat over the scarf...that kind of thing. Secularism is taken seriously in official Turkey, and represents a major fault line in the political thinking of many Turks who see this as essential to the nation's continued prosperity. This is, after all, the country which was dragged out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire by a guy, Atatürk, who went so far as to ban the fez.

One is sympathetic to this girl's plight (certainly that's the intention of the presentation, as well) -- after all, the ideal of secularism is that a female like this should be able to get an education. Here is the law of unintended consequences at work however, as her religion is an obstacle, but not in the way one might expect. Atatürk is long dead, after all, and a free society is allowing her to choose to wear the hijab...so perhaps the university should just let the rule drop...

But, like in the case of a similar situation between the French public schools and the hijab, there are implications to such a thing. The Turkish, like the French, state considers maintaining a secular political life essential. The hijab is debatable as a religious requirement (though the requirements of religion in a free society are an individual choice, regardless of the original source of the rule), and is often imposed on individuals, either through force or peer pressure. It is also used as a visible political statement -- a staking out of turf and an indicator that "we are here"...a potential beachhead in an Islamist drift. A government whose success is built on resisting this drift can make a very good argument for meddling in this matter that is, on the surface, simply a matter of personal choice.

So just to say, "It's a freedom issue to wear and worship what you will," is a gross oversimplification and ignores the implications behind such "choices."

Another example from the same program. They interviewed a business owner -- the founder of a major Muslim fashion designer (I believe it was this company, Hasema). He made what, coming from any other fashion designer I've ever seen, would have been just a typical, cute remark. Going from memory here, the hostess said words to the effect that "Mr. X says he hopes to wrap all the women in the world in his Islamic fashions..." Uh oh. It's not quite the same as a Western hat designer saying they hope to see all the women in the world wearing his hats, or his swimsuits, or carrying his bags... That wouldn't even raise an eyebrow.

But there are implications to a Muslim clothing maker saying he'd like to see all the women in the world wrapped up in his designs, seeing as there are people out there who would like to see exactly that and are trying to see it out by force. There are implications to the statement that make it a deeper one than the surface would indicate.

Another example: The Muhammad Cartoons. Some said the newspapers who didn't print the cartoons were just being sensitive, and re-printing them would have simply been a matter of giving gratuitous offense. True enough...in a vacuum. But we do not operate in a vacuum, and when you add in the fact that there are threats of violence for the simple printing of such a thing, and free press and speech are at stake, suddenly not printing the cartoons becomes a positive choice with deeper implications than the simple view takes in.

You can go on and on with examples, not limited to the War on Terror. Name your poison -- late-term abortion, funding for Iraq, gay marriage...paper or plastic. There's always "more to the issue than appears at first blush" that turns seemingly simple issues, choices, and policies into agonizing, meaning-laden debates.

What are the implications?