The headscarf ban in a spiral of hatred

The Constitutional Court was finally able to announce its reasoned ruling for the annulment decision it rendered 139 days ago regarding the amendment to Articles 10 and 42 of the Constitution. The actual content of the announced reasoning does not really matter. The perception on which nearly everyone agrees is that the court has been trying all this time to fabricate a justification for the decision it had previously announced. The fact that the decision rendered was contrary to reason, law, and conscience must naturally have made it quite difficult to find a justification for it.

The court's reasoned decision attempted, as expected, to fit a decision falling apart at every seam into the framework of law and secularism; however, again as expected, the fabricated cover burst at the seams as well. By embarking on a review "on the merits" of a constitutional amendment—which is explicitly stated in the Constitution that it can only review "procedurally"—it not only exceeded the powers of the Parliament, but also carved out a role and sphere of authority for itself that is independent of the Constitution. As an organ deriving its power and authority neither from the Constitution nor from any law, it made a destructive intervention in the legal dynamics of the country by creating a de facto situation.

Perhaps everything that needed to be said about this decision of the Constitutional Court (AYM) has been said over the past few days. A point that must be underlined repeatedly is that the Constitutional Court operates not as an organ representing positive, neutral, secular law in Turkey, but rather the ideological interests and intentions of a very narrow segment.

As long as it remains confined to the place designated for it in the Constitution as an organ, everyone should naturally respect and comply with its decisions; however, for this to happen, the decisions it hands down must also command respect. Yet, the decisions the court has been issuing for quite some time evoke no respect among large segments of society and do not satisfy the sense of justice.

The language dominating the reasoned decision displays an approach far removed from possessing an understanding of a society with diverse and dynamic segments. It acts on behalf of a narrow state ideology rather than a universal logic of law.

The Constitutional Court thinks it is acting out of an impulse to protect secularism, yet the understanding of secularism it represents has no place in any book. An understanding of secularism that serves to deepen and strain the already existing divisions further, rather than establishing peace in society, has turned into a simple yet dangerous instrument of hatred. If law in a society leads to further deepening all problems, destroying social peace, and making the contract between state and society intractable, rather than solving problems, establishing social peace, and reinforcing the contract between society and state, then it means it has well past its expiration date.

One of the (countless) strange points is that, even though the amendments envisaged in Articles 10 and 42 were made to eliminate any possibility that could violate equality in the state's approach, the annulment decision handed down by the Court at the request of the CHP and DSP operated against the principle of "equality." Upon the demand of the CHP and DSP—that is, democratic leftist parties whose most fundamental principle is expected to be the realization of the principles of "republic" and "equality"—the Court rejected the attempt to "ensure the right to benefit equally from the right to education." Could there be a situation stranger than this?

Such absurdity can at best be called a "distortion."

What is even stranger is that neither the CHP nor the DSP—"even if they retain the slightest claim in the name of the left"—is even aware of this distortion, and in fact, they find occasion for joy in it. Really, what purpose do the CHP and the DSP serve in this society? Where does this meddlesomeness they display in thwarting even one of the rare steps taken in the name of equality bring them from, and where will it lead them?

It is very clear that they have been caught in a "spiral of hatred" that drives them to violate even their own principles so recklessly. In fact, it is not even possible for those caught in this spiral of hatred to engage in politics, because as long as the "other" sides of politics are the object of hatred, there is no problem to be solved with them. "They" are merely enemies to be annihilated. The principle of secularism, conceived as a guarantee against the possibility of different elements crushing one another, can suddenly turn into an ideology motivating the "genocide" of one side against the others.

There is nothing as dangerous as confronting social diversity in the domain of such resentment, and unfortunately, this danger has actually prevailed for years. In the reasoning of the ruling, the "potential pressure of headscarved women on others" is mentioned, while it is brazenly ignored that this "potential" has actually been inflicted upon headscarved women by some for years like a "genocide in the public sphere"…

Indeed, we now wonder: "even if" every aspect of the headscarf were a danger, could the realization of this danger compare to what they are actually doing right now?