Job Discussion Forums

[Rola]

Hi everyone , my name is Rola and i am new to this so let me introduce myself. I am a 26year old female currently living in Canada and i was considering taking a TEFL course and comming to live in Turkey with my parents in law and teach english as it is my passion to teach. I currently work as a Child and Youth Counsellor and have been for the past five years, but as much as i love working with Children's Aid its time for a change. I have my 3 year college education and a lot of experience leading groups, teaching, working in schools, doing presentations, and counselling and much much more. But i have been doing some research and it seems that the Hijab is not popular among teachers in Turkey as a matter of fact it seems that a few people have been fired from their teaching jobs because they wear Hijab. I may have hit a few bad websites and talked to a few negative people but i thought joining this forum would be the best way to get many different perspective and a real one from people who are in Turkey or atleast have been there. To wear the Hijab is my choice, and in Canada i am free to choose. Just like i would not hastle someone that does not wear the hijab, i expect not to be hastled either. It is my right and my freedom and i should be treated equally as the Hijab does not hurt anyone physically nor emotionally. Here in Canada i did not have any problems ever gettting or keeping a job. Not because of my choice of religion but because i am a hard worker and i have a great personality. But i'd hate to think that they would descriminate against me in Turkey; in a so called Islamic Country. I dunno maybe i need more information but i would love your insight if you have any knowledge or thoughts about this. English is also my first language and arabic is my second language and i know very very little Turkish. What are my chances of getting a job? Will employers hire me? Will students want to learn from me? Do I have a chance? What do you guys think or better yet what do you guys know? Seen any teachers wearing the Hijab lately? Seen anyone get fired for the hijab lately? Help me out "you that are out there!" Thanks for your time and i hope to make some good connections on this forum... i have read some of your entries and you guys seem like a fun bunch

Rola

[runeman]

You might find this essay I wrote about the topic which was published earlier in the year by Counterpunch -



UPROAR IN TURKEY OVER THE HIJAB

by MICHAEL D.ICKINSON


I can still remember my terrified reaction on first encountering Arab women dressed in chadors, covered from head to toe in black sheets with only their eyes visible. It was at Kuwait airport and I was three years old, arriving with my mother and brother to join our father who had started working for the oil company.

"Ghosties!" I cried, clutching my mother's skirts in terror, as the black phantoms silently glided behind the men in long white nightshirts moving about the terminal. It took a while for her to convince me that they weren't ghosts but ladies, and this was the way they dressed in Kuwait. But they were a rare sight, usually confined indoors at their husbands' beck and call, here at the airport in transit.

I learned that this style of clothing was considered obligatory for Arab women because of the book of rules that dominated their lives, that saturated their culture and society, and that determined their subordinate position in the world - the holy Koran. The word of God as dictated by the Prophet Mohammed; which includes two surahs that order Muslim women to cover up:

'And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigor, or children who know naught of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And turn unto Allah together, O believers, in order that ye may succeed.' Surah 24, verses 30--31

'O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them [when they go abroad]. That will be better, that so they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.' Surah 33, verse 59

Apart from the unquestionable word of the Koran, the faithful also adhere to the Hadith recollections about the Prophet, where it is reported that when the daughter of Abu Bakr appeared to him flimsily dressed, Mohammed is reported to have told her: "O Asmaa! When a girl reaches the menstrual age, it is not proper that anything should remain exposed except this and this. He pointed to the face and hands."

Thence the cover-up, the all-covering black chador, and the hiding away of the women from the lustful gaze of other men.

"I leave you no calamity more hurtful to man than woman!" Mohammed is reported to have said. "Oh assembly of women, give alms, though it be your gold and silver ornaments, for verily ye are mostly of Hell on the Day of Resurrection."

The chador is a rarer sight here in Turkey, where I now live, half a century after that early initiation into culture-shock, but not so very uncommon, and my mind still mutters "Ghosties!" as the black shapes pass by, in small groups, or behind a stern faced husband. Locals nickname them 'kara fatmas' (black beetles.)

Kuwait is a monarchy where Islamic law is the main source of legislation. But Turkey is a democracy with a non-religious secular constitution, and women are free to vote, to work, to drink, to drive, to choose their own religion. But, although the government is secular, 99 per cent of the population is Moslem. Take a walk down the main shopping centres of Istanbul, and alongside the thoroughly modern misses sporting the latest fashions, flashy jewelry, tinted hair and makeup, you will also find those with their hair covered by a scarf. The reasons might range from bowing to family pressure, a gesture to cultural tradition, or a statement of solidarity with Islamic law in Iran.

The further one goes into the burgeoning suburbs of Istanbul the more the headscarf proliferates, not gaily colored like the ones you see on the girls in Istiklal Caddessi, but plain and knotted under the chin, the body covered by the obligatory ankle-length raincoat. Almost a chador.

In the sprawling outskirts of the city where poverty is rife and education neglected, there is a growing frustrated population that would gladly jettison the godless secularist republic founded by Kemal Ataturk, and welcome the institution of Shariah law. It was their vote which swept the current Islamic-oriented government, the AKP, the Justice and Development Party into power. The powerful Kemalist army allowed them to take power because its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that it is Islamic in the same sense that Christian Democratic parties in Western Europe are Christian, and it is committed to the secularism of the Turkish state. It is merely opposed to the petty exclusion of religious symbolism from public life, such as the ban on women wearing headscarves in state-owned buildings . The headscarf ban was the cause this week of a murder which shocked the nation.

Turkey's current law on headscarves (which dates back to the 1986) bans civil servants, students and staff at private and state universities and schools, medical staff and members of parliament from wearing the 'turban' in public offices, including schools and government administrative positions on the grounds that it would be a breach of constitutional secularism.

In theory, the ban only applies to people on state premises or in state-controlled businesses, but recent court decisions have upheld penalties imposed on civil servants who wear the headscarf in their private life outside work.

Late last year the Council of State upheld a ruling that the Ankara governorate had been justified in refusing a teacher promotion because she wore a headscarf on her way to and from school. The Council of State made reference to the secular order imposed by the Turkish constitution and stated that education should be "kept at a distance from dogma and influences that run counter to science." High level members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were critical and negative about the ruling, and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is recently quoted as saying: "we face many obstacles at the Council of State. We will either overcome these or we will walk together with those who understand this".

On Wednesday morning in Ankara, a gunman broke into the chamber where judges from the Council of State were meeting and opened fire, declaring himself a "soldier of Allah". Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin was killed, and 5 others injured in the shooting.

As he ran from the building screaming 'Allahu akbar' the killer was captured by the police. He turned out to be a 29-year old lawyer Alparslan Arslan, who had been under surveillance prior to the attack due to his alleged links with the radical Islamist group Hizbullah. He told police that the bullets were punishment for the controversial decision on the teacher and her headscarf.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack, but rejected suggestions that it could be linked to the AKP's espousal of greater rights for Islamists. He warned that it would harmful to try to seek political gain from the incident, referring to the opposition Republican People Party (CHP).

Deniz Baykal, the leader of the CHP, said that the attack had targeted Turkey's secular constitution as well as the Council of State." Turkey is being dragged toward a very dangerous place," he said.

Criticism was leveled at an Islamic newspaper for targeting the judges who had upheld the banning of the headscarf on public duty by publishing their photographs on its front page last week.

The day after the shooting more than 20,000 people, including senior jurists, lawyers, lecturers, students, members of parliament and retired military officers marched to the mausoleum of Ataturk in Ankara to protest the attack, shouting "Turkey is secular and will remain secular" and "Government resign!"

Many also voiced their angry indignation at the recent grenade attacks (three in a week!) on the Istanbul headquarters of Cumhuriyet, Turkey's independent radical republican newspaper which has been sharply critical of the AKP, saying it is trying to undermine the country's secular system of government, and which recently ran a media campaign warning of what it sees as rising Islamic fundamentalism.

"AKP buildings are also being bombed," was the dismissive comment on the Cumhuriyet attacks by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.


Erdogan's wife, Emine, wears a headscarf. So does the Foreign Minister's wife, Hayrunisa. In fact most of the Cabinet members' wives also wear headscarves. For this reason the pro-secular establishment excludes them from state functions and dinners. This doesn't please them.

And indeed, surely they have the right to feel the ban on the headscarf to be a discriminatory infringement of women's freedom of expression and religion, as well as of their right to education (Hayrusina was barred from attending university for wearing one.) The ban on headscarves clearly infringes upon women's right to religious freedom. But enforced veiling should also be opposed as an infringement upon a woman's rights and freedom. Is that possible in an Islamic state, where the Koran rules and hijab for women is proscribed by law?

A few years ago an old student of mine returned for a visit to school. I remembered her as a bright intelligent teenager, witty and funny, crazy about Bon Jovi. I was shocked by the change in her appearance. In place of the grey school skirt, the white blouse, jacket and tie, she now wore a long grey coat, buttoned from neck to toe, and a beige headscarf tied tightly over her hair, only her face and hands visible.

"What happened?" I asked.

"From one uniform to another," she grinned, not unhappily. Her parents were devout Muslims.

A Turkish friend was telling me about her weekend. "We went to Camlica Park on Sunday but I felt uncomfortable in my jeans. All the women there were in dressed in their long coats and headscarves. I was getting strange looks."


Shades of the 'Stepford Wives'?

The renewed focus on the headscarf issue sparked by the deadly attack on the State Judges has increased tensions between Turkey's secularists and the AKP, and they seem set to rise ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.

Should the headscarf ban be lifted? How much of a difference would it make? Would the government offices, hospitals, schools and universities of Turkey suddenly become flooded with fundamentalist women in headscarves and life go on at its normal secular pace, or would the unchecked dress code lead, as those who fear it might, to an Islamic theocracy similar to that in Iran under the guidance of Ayatollah Khomeini?

[FGT]

You refer to Turkey as a "so called Islamic country". It is not. It is a secular country. As part of its secularisation, Islamic dress (hijab, fez etc) was banned in public institutions in 1925 and is still banned to this day.
It would therefore not be possible for a teacher to wear hijab in any government controlled school or university.

[Baba Alex]

I assume you konw the rules on public institutions and universities, I have never seen either a male or a female wearing any kind of religious symbolism in a dershane (private English course). I recommend, though, that you email some dershanes and ask them if they would. You should be able to find some on the job search page.

Welcome to the forum, who's your favourite punk-rock band?

[yaramaz]

I've been working with the CELTA trainers in Istanbul recently, as a teacher they send their trainees to observe. One of the trainees was covered. Smart, open minded, sweet, interesting, a good teacher. And covered. When she went to do her practicum, a huge number of the students (adults)refused to be taught by her. They walked out in anger. We had to scramble to find willing students from our other classes. The only ones I could find were a Korean woman and a French woman.

Turkey is more like France in its fear of religion in public places. It may be a country populated with Muslims, but it is even more strongly populated by Ataturk worshippers. He was very very very secular. I taught 2 years in one of the most conservative cities in Turkey, filled with covered women, arranged marriages, and mosques on every corner... but at my school no woman was allowed to be covered, and to be covered was seen as being backward, ignorant, villagey. Modern Muslim women don't cover up, the story goes.

Good luck.

[justme]

As the others say, by law, you can't wear a headscarf in any state-run school. I suppose you would be allowed to in a private school or English course (the students can and do), but honestly, I think you'd have a hard time getting hired, with or without the headscarf. One school I worked at was going to hire a teacher, but decided not to when she was seen coming out of the toilets after her interview wearing a headscarf. This had nothing to do with the personal sympathies of the managers, as both of them came from religious backgrounds and educations, and I know both of their wives and other female family members wore headscarves-- they just knew the students wouldn't accept it.

I've also heard of teachers being turned down because, although they weren't wearing headscarves, their clothes were enough to indicate that they did outside of school. Another school I worked at seemed to cater specifically to young women who wouldn't go to regular unis because they refused to take off their headscarves. Even though most the teaching staff and management were very religious, none of the women wore scarves while teaching.

Is it the same outside of Ist in non-government schools? Maybe someone out there knows that.

All that being said, Fatih University, while you can't wear a headscarf on campus, won't discriminate while hiring based on them knowing you're covered. I daresay it might even work in your favor. Same for Fatih Kolej. And Fatih Deshane is another company (isn't it?) so I don't know about them...

[dmb]

[howmucharefags]

I also don't know of any schools that employ those who choose to wear the headscarf, nevermind the hijab.

Our school forbids the wearing Of Celtic football club strips or any other team of tim/mick/potato picker origins.

[dmb]

[howmucharefags]

I'm quite serious....I won't teach anybody wearing that monstrosity. Offensive.

[yaramaz]

dmb, my point was not that CELTA let her be covered, but rather that the students were so offended by it. I guess their reaction renders even a school's potential acceptance of a scarf a moot point. Why would a school hire someone who enrages (*sigh*) the students? In Turkey, the whole issue of covering is often quite polarised and fierce. At Bilgi, we had a lot of girls who were covered...with funky rasta hats and cloche hats and turtleneck sweaters pinned up over their ears... and i often listened to Turkish teachers around me referring to them as if they were infected or contageous somehow, whispering conspiratorially about that covered girl who...

Whatever.

I personally find the hijab no more a sign of submissiveness or capitulation of women's rights than the anorexia, nose jobs, and skinny jeans of the Bagdat and Nisantasi crowd.

[dmb]

Molly,what is ET's position on this? Can students and staff wear a headscarf?

[sandyhoney2]

I'm pretty sure ET does not allow the hijab or headscarf. Men are not allowed to have full beards (nor women, I suppose).

ET's teacher's handbook is fairly clear about it.

[Baba Alex]

[tekirdag]

I agree completely with Yaramaz. Many students would refuse to be taught by someone covered. I know many people here who, for example, won't go to certain shops because the shops are owned by deeply religious folks. The whole secular vs religious issue brings out a lot of very strong emotions.