Hasan Cemal and the problem with Turkey's intellectuals

Hasan Cemal is one of a dozen elite intellectuals who explain developments in Turkey for the world and, in particular, the West. Many of our readers are probably familiar with these public figures. I would like to provide a particularly striking example of how the intelligentsia's hatred of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has severed their ties with rationality. Recently, Hasan Cemal wrote an article titled "A Moral Description of Freedoms or the Hemline Ban" (Özgürlüklere Ahlaki Tarif ya da Etek Boyu Yasağı) where he took Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's statements about "blending all liberties with a new moral formation" and linked them to a ban on skirts at a private high school in Istanbul.

Davutoğlu's remarks, to be sure, related to the problems with the notion of morality that previous laws regulating the public sphere and misguided practices have created in Turkey.

In other words, he posited that the moral code that laws and practices had created to determine how individuals ought to co-exist and the state's relationship with citizens were fundamentally wrong. As such, re-designing the country and the state inevitably requires a restoration, and possibly a re-invention, of shared moral principles, which represents an important issue not only for religious Muslims but also the secular-minded voter base of the Republican People's Party (CHP). In this sense, Turkey remains on the verge of major changes to which any intellectual in their right mind should contribute and offer support.

Although Davutoğlu's statement related to the political arena rather than the private lives of citizens, Hasan Cemal conveniently took the statement out of context and combined it with a story from the Hürriyet daily, of all news outlets, to make the point that his way of life was under threat. The subject of the story, however, represents a successful example of how government policy on the new morality allows citizens to take initiative.
In summary, as you might know, the Ministry of Education abolished the school uniform, a practice found in fascist states, to which pedagogues and educators objected by saying that this decision would reproduce the income gap between parents in the classroom to the negative affect of students from lowerincome households. In response, the ministry revised its decision to allow parent-teacher associations (PTA), not school administrators, to reach a binding decision for their institutions. A democratic attitude, isn't it?

In this case, some parents objected to the skirt ban, which led the PTA and school administrators to hold a vote on the issue. Accordingly, parents were asked to choose between three options: first; skirts and pants, secon; pants only, and third; no regulation. In the end, 76 out of 163 parents demanded that female students be allowed to wear pants only while 81 opted for skirts and pants. Only six parents asked that no regulations be imposed on clothing. As such, the skirts and pants camp won by a small margin and the decision became final for the upcoming academic year.

The story shows how a problem that had nothing to do with religion or peer-pressure could be resolved through a vote. The 76 parents who voted for the pants only option probably did not like the outcome but holding a vote remains the best available option to make mutually binding decisions and coexist.

Cemal, however, continues: "The question is: Are those who rightfully complained about Kemalism's authoritarian notion of secular government in the past now preparing to take their revenge? And is this why they will move from Çankaya Palace [the current residence of the president] to AK Palace [a nickname for the new Prime Ministry headquarters and possibly the new presidential residence] Are we moving from one extreme to another? The signs surface each passing day and become inconcealable. The situation is extremely dangerous. Is this the New Turkey?"

According to Cemal, then, the pluralistic pro-skirt camp won a victory against the proponents of the pants-only solution, who comprised a minority. In line with Cemal's criticism and the above-mentioned story, it is the pro-pants minority, not the skirts-and-pants majority, whose way of life is under threat and pressure in Erdoğan's Turkey - that is, according to Cemal's categories, religious Muslims.

Such is the state of mind that Turkey's elite, who like to complain about secular lifestyles being placed at risk, share today. Although they like to think that the threats are surfacing, what we see clearly now is that intellectuals like this have been misleading the people for years.