TURKEY:Turkey's Islamic-rooted government is poised to end a decade-long ban on female students wearing headscarves in universities, in a move that has enraged secularists and disappointed almost everyone else.
Ensured of a nationalist opposition party's backing, the ruling AKP's proposal to alter two constitutional articles should get parliamentary approval this Saturday.
A former AKP minister whose wife wears a headscarf, Turkish president Abdullah Gul signalled on Monday that he would not call a referendum on the issue. But his known support for the Bill makes ratification in time for the new university term on March 3rd almost certain.
Polls suggest most Turks support an end to the ban, only strictly enforced since the military-led expulsion of an Islamist party from power in 1997.
Controversy has been fuelled by the fact that enforcement is largely left up to individual university rectors. A handful turn a blind eye to it. Others bar women wearing wigs to sidestep the issue. In 2005, one rector even refused to allow headscarf-wearing mothers to attend their children's graduation ceremony.
For secularists, though, the headscarf remains the most potent symbol of the fanatical backwardness they believe Turkey risks sliding into.
Last Friday, university rectors warned the change would "undermine the principle of secularism and inevitably turn Turkey into a religious state". On Saturday, 150,000 secularists marched in Ankara in protest.
The beneficiaries of the changes do not seem satisfied either. Some worry that, by adding a reference to headscarves to a constitution that until now did not mention them, the government risks making it more difficult to phase out headscarf bans on women in public-sector jobs.
Others are angered by plans to permit only headscarves tied under the throat in a style a government spokesman referred to as the "older sister model". "Do they want me to look like my granny?" fumed student Neslihan Satici.
"For 80 years Turkish women have been given rights by men and told to shut up," added Sibel Eraslan, former women's branch head of an Islamist party. "AKP is carrying on the patriarchal tradition."
Analysts blame the botched nature of the AKP's solution on the haste with which the Bill has been pushed through.
After years spent talking of the need for social consensus on the issue, the government only moved into action after prime minister Tayyip Erdogan commented in mid-January that, "even if wearing a headscarf is a political symbol, can you ban a political symbol?"
Apparently off the cuff, his remarks stirred the nationalist opposition party to propose an immediate solution. Unwilling to lose out to the nationalists, whose supporters are similar to its own, the AKP took up the idea. The AKP "has succumbed to blackmail", said Rusen Cakir, a political commentator.
Amid growing criticism, the government insists its aim is to ensure liberties at universities, and that it intends to uphold secular principles enshrined in the constitution.
"We want to lift all ridiculous bans in Turkey," said Egemen Bagis, one of Mr Erdogan's close aides. "We want everyone to receive education, either with miniskirts or headscarves."
For an increasing number of liberals - whose support for the AKP since 2002 has boosted its international credentials - such rhetoric is beginning to look ragged. They point to the way other crucial reforms have been forgotten in the rush to deal with headscarves.
Ready five months ago, the government's draft for a constitution to replace one introduced by a military junta in 1982 has yet to be publicised. A notorious article on "insulting Turkishness" remains in the penal code, a year after the government pledged to change it.
Columnist Yildirim Turker summed up the atmosphere of growing scepticism. "If you are on the verge of liberating a symbol of freedom of belief," he commented, "how can you remain so indifferent to the rights and freedoms of those who have different beliefs?"