The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, particularly devoted his attention to the liberation of women from the fetters of harem culture and overall segregation of men and women. The new Civil Code of 1926 abolished polygamy. A minimum age of 18 was introduced for marriage. Equal rights of divorce, custody of children and inheritance in parental property were also included in the civil code. In 1934, women were given the right to vote. It is interesting to note that the Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen proclaimed by the 1789 French Revolution excluded women from the category of citizens. It took more than 150 years before French women were enfranchised in 1945, which is 11 years after Turkish women began to enjoy the right to vote.
With regard to the legal and social status of women in the Muslim world, it can be interesting to note that Iranian women took part in large numbers in the mass movement that brought down the Shah in 1979. They had gained the right to vote during the Shah’s time. It was not taken away by the Iranian clerics but they introduced a moral police and a set of social, cultural and legal measures, the main task of which was to maintain segregation and intimidate women in day-to-day life. Muta or temporary marriage that the Shah had banned, was revived. Almost invariably it meant poor women being made available legally and openly to provide sexual gratification for a sum of money. I have never met a self-respecting Shia who allows his sister or daughter to contract temporary marriage. Therefore, the outmoded nature of such a practice need not be discussed. Also, I need not mention the misogynist Saudi and Taliban regimes and the so-called Islamic Emirates of Swat and Malakand that lasted for a while after emerging some years ago. All of them can only be placed on the right of the Iranian brand of misogyny.
Ataturk especially emphasised education as the means to empower women. Turkish women had taken part in the liberation struggle and Ataturk was fully aware of the contribution they could make alongside men towards the building of a modern and progressive Turkey. In his own life too he took up such responsibility. He adopted a number of children, mostly orphans, and one of his adopted daughters became a pilot in the Turkish air force. On the whole, the policy of imparting modern education to women effected progressive changes elsewhere in the Muslim world as well. For example, in the Indian subcontinent, Muslims lagged behind by at least 70 years when compared to the Hindus and Sikhs in taking up modern education. The most celebrated pioneer of modern education among Muslims, Sir Syed, was opposed to women being included in his educational project. This prejudice continued well into the 20th century.
Last week, I talked with a friend of mine in Stockholm, Muhammad Feroz Dar (78), whose story about events in Rawalpindi during the partition have been presented in my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed. His father was a train driver and they lived in the railways employee colony in Rawalpindi. When his sisters joined school, the neighbours started taunting them on how they had become kafirs (infidels). However, his father did not pay any heed to such negative comments and gossip. Years later, one of his sisters became a young widow. Because she had had a school education, that skill helped her tide over difficult times by teaching tuitions, giving lessons on the Quran and reading letters for families in the neighbourhood. That earned her the gratitude and blessings of the same people who once considered her going to school heretical. Why I told this story is because what the Taliban were doing recently in Swat, and which resulted in the vicious attack on Malala Yousafzai, was also the attitude of Muslim society in Punjab before the partition. Now, of course, things have changed quite fundamentally in Punjab and when one drives along the old Grand Trunk Road, one can see girls in large numbers either going or returning from school.
My theory is that once progressive laws are introduced and women gain a better status, society in general imbibes such changes and new attitudes, and values take birth. Sections of society may remain steadfast to dogma but most people quietly accept the new situation because they sense an advantage in the changes that have been introduced. For example, Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan’s Muslim Family Law Ordinance of 1961 has remained intact despite demands from time to time to rescind it. That Ordinance introduced the minimum age of marriage and although polygamy was not banned, it was regulated through registration with the local government. It has discouraged the incidence of divorce and even Ziaul Haq did not dare repeal it. Elsewhere too, minimum age is now the standard practice in Muslim societies.
On the other hand, some of the drastic measures that Ataturk introduced were not accepted by the people. The call to prayers in Arabic was restored in his lifetime and later prayers began to be offered in Arabic too. The imposition of Turkish identity on the Kurds resulted in separatism challenges to the state being launched by disgruntled Kurds. In the next article, I will cover the transition from the Kemalist model to the current conservative model represented by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
(Concluded)
The writer is a visiting professor, LUMS, Pakistan, professor emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University, and honorary senior fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Latest publications: Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Book award at the Karachi Literature Festival: The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, Oxford, 2012; and Pakistan: The Garrison State, Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Oxford, 2013. He can be reached at:[email protected]