Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
The other day, I noted Selçuk University Theology Professor Orhan Çeker's chillingly creepy comments about women provoking their own rape by wearing revealing clothing. Here's the latest on that story.
The appalled (or perhaps just deeply embarrassed) head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, Mehmet Görmez, announced that any kind of harassment or rape is “among the grave crimes and sins that are committed against all humanity and God, not only against women,” and nothing in Islam could be used as an excuse for either.
Zafer Üskül, head of the Parliament's Human Rights Commission, said Çeker’s remarks were unacceptable. “This is a sick mentality that perceives women as sex objects," he said.
Emphasizing that Çeker’s comments violated women’s rights and human rights in general, Üskül said every kind of rape and harassment was a crime and no situation could make the victim responsible for a crime. Such comments are humiliating and they should be severely protested, he added.
The hounds of media hell have come down on Çeker's head. Çeker--for whom I almost feel sorry at this point--claimed he was misunderstood and never said it in the first place. He used the word tecavüz, you see, which has many meanings--rape being the foremost among them, I note, but if you're determined not to use the most obvious translation of what he said, I suppose you could read his comments some other way and still remain within the boundaries of plausible deniability.
The university rector has ordered a probe into his remarks. Islamic feminist theologians jumped all over the guy, skewering him six ways till Sunday. (I wish people who keep telling me Islam can only be interpreted in one way could read this stuff.) The wacko-Islamist fringe of the press focused on his "freedom of expression."
Here we have the consistently lunatic Ali Bulaç denouncing the Islamic feminists as creatures of "Western feminism" and asserting that men are just stimulus-response organisms (whatever that means). He then appeals to "modern psychology itself" to vaguely justify Çeker's comments, so I guess he thinks Western thought otherwise has its uses. The reaction to this from the Turkish Twitterverse was sarcastic, to say the least, but those appealing to God for Ali Bulaç to lose his job were, as far as I know, also sincere in their faith.
And all of this happened without anyone arresting Çeker or charging him with a crime.
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Nov '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
"Islamic feminist theologian" --the mind boggles. Do they take issue with other positions dear to the hearts of the Islamists? What, one wonders, might be their take on, say, reciprocity, or on religious freedom in general? Or is the manifestation of self-described "Islamic feminists" just an example of taqqiya? Such mental contortionists would put the Cirque du Soleil performers in the shade.
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 4:06amRe: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
MMPadre: "Islamic feminist theologian" --the mind boggles. Do they take issue with other positions dear to the hearts of the Islamists? What, one wonders, might be their take on, say, reciprocity, or on religious freedom in general? Or is the manifestation of self-described "Islamic feminists" just an example of taqqiya? Such mental contortionists would put the Cirque du Soleil performers in the shade. · Apr 3 at 4:04am
Edited on Apr 03 at 04:06 am
Yes some do (take issue), and others don't (take issue) and it depends what issue they're taking issue with. If it's an example of taqqiya it's the dumbest one imaginable, because they're writing in a language no one in the West understands. Their audience is their own society and they're trying to shape their own world, the one they have to live in. There's obviously huge cross-fertilization of ideas here, though--bad ones and good ones.
Dec '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
Claire: " (I wish people who keep telling me Islam can only be interpreted in one way could read this stuff.)" The problem isn't the non-Muslim Westerners who believe Islam only has one valid interpretation. Those people are, deep down, hoping and praying that they will be proven wrong. No, the real problem is with those in the Muslim umma who believe that Islam has only one corrrect interpretation. They are not content to hope and pray that they will be proven right: they bomb and behead to make it come to pass.
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
Indeed, that's where the problem is. I just shudder whenever I hear Westerners agreeing with them.
Nov '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
"Their audience is their own society and they're trying to shape their own world, the one they have to live in."
Well, more power to them. I have run across self-identified "Islamic feminist theologians" in safe western university sinecures. Their specialty seems to be preaching to the choir at "progressive" theology chinwags where they can flaunt the street cred of their unimpeachable "otherness". Thus one who hangs out a shingle in an actual Muslim country --where she could really incur a risk for doing so-- is noteworthy.
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
Western universities tend to have only an oblique connection to the real world. Everyone here is "other," I guess, as Western universities define it, so it won't get you tenure, won't even get you preferential admissions. In fact, won't get you anything. Just stand in line with the 70 million others.
Nov '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Western universities tend to have only an oblique connection to the real world. Everyone here is "other," I guess, as Western universities define it... · Apr 3 at 10:33am
The "other" - funny, just finished reading an interesting article posted this morning at Arts & Letters: "The idea of the 'other' – foreign, menacing – is catnip for scholars of violence, says Russell Jacoby. He takes another view: Wars more often pit brother against brother..."
Nov '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I just shudder whenever I hear Westerners agreeing with them. · Apr 3 at 8:41am
Agreed- to say there is an essentialist Islam would be daft. Many different forms of it. Moreover, it could well be argued that Islam, in full political form, allowed for considerably greater liberty of thought than that enjoyed under the medieval Christian polity. Essentially, this is why al-Farabi, as an unbeliever, was freer to think in the manner he did (i.e., esoterically) because Islam from its beginning confronted revelation in the form of law, as opposed to faith, which is not subject to examination by question and answer in order to be understood, but must simply be obeyed. Ergo, there is a formality in Islam, a formality that seems to penetrate all its myriad expressions. By formality I mean the adherent's demonstrating an outward obedience to the law. Practically the opposite was the case under the medieval ecclesiastic hierarchy, i.e., its concerned with "inwardness," or the form of the will. It seems to be a legitimate question, however, if Islam today can produce its own John Locke such as to privatize the question of faith.
Edited on Apr 4, 2011 at 8:43pmNov '10
Re: Stories From Turkey that Don't Quite Fit in the Narrative
And by privatize, I mean such that one does not turn to priests or imams to answer the question of rule. Does Turkey's "state over mosque"- this is a genuine, non-rhetorical question- meet the criteria of privatizing theology? Did it perhaps somehow meet it in the past only to have it recently begin to "wither" away?
Edited on Apr 4, 2011 at 8:46pm