Why I Support the Ban

For those of you who may be unaware of what women are experiencing in Europe if they stray from their Muslim roots, I am posting a link to an article printed in The New York Times Magazine in December 2005 entitled “The New Berlin Wall.” The article is, in part, about a young Muslim woman named Hatun Surucu who lived in Germany and was shot and killed by her brothers. Her great crime? Her brothers felt she had become “too German” (abandoning her head scarf and the marriage that she was forced into when she was 13, among other things).

Though I wrestle with the free speech and freedom of religion violations the Dutch could be making by banning the veil, I hope the ban will be one step in gaining Muslim women, at least in Europe, the rights to do the simple things that I do everyday. And when I weigh a woman’s ability to wear a veil--a veil she is often forced by her culture and family to wear--against a woman’s right not to be forced into marriage at the age of 13, I have a hard time mustering indignation about violations of free speech or religion. (As we are asked in law classes: Is this the kind of speech that we want to protect? And, is it a violation of freedom of expression if the women in question are being forced to wear/express it?) I only wish that what happened to Hatun Surucu was an anomaly; unfortunately, her story is not as rare as I would like to believe.

Here is just an excerpt of the article telling Hatun’s story:

Hatun Surucu grew up in Berlin as the daughter of Turkish Kurds. When she finished eighth grade, her parents took her out of school. Shortly after that she was taken to Turkey and married to a cousin. Later she separated from her husband and returned to Berlin, pregnant. At age 17 she gave birth to a son, Can. She moved into a women's shelter and completed the work for her middle-school certificate. By 2004 she had finished a vocational-training program to become an electrician. The young mother who had escaped her family's constraints began to enjoy herself. She put on makeup, wore her hair unbound, went dancing and adorned herself with rings, necklaces and bracelets. Then, just days before she was to receive her journeyman's diploma, her life was cut short.

Evidently, in the eyes of her brothers, Hatun Surucu's capital crime was that, living in Germany, she had begun living like a German. In a statement to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, one brother noted that she had stopped wearing her head scarf, that she refused to go back to her family and that she had declared her intent to "seek out her own circle of friends." It's still unclear whether anyone ordered her murdered. Often in such cases it is the father of the family who decides about the punishment. But Seyran Ates has seen in her legal practice cases in which the mother has a leading role: mothers who were forced to marry forcing the same fate on their daughters. Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German author who has interviewed dozens of women on this topic, explained, "The mothers are looking for solidarity by demanding that their daughters submit to the same hardship and suffering." By disobeying them, the daughter calls into question her mother's life - her silent submission to the ritual of forced marriage. Meanwhile, the two elder brothers have papered their cell with pictures of their dead sister.

Source:
Schneider, Peter. “The New Berlin Wall.” The New York Times Magazine. December 4, 2005, pp. 66-71.