Tensions Rise in Turkey

As Turkey lurches toward a repeal of a ban on head scarves at universities, the country's secular upper middle class is feeling increasingly threatened.

Religious Turks, once the underclass of society here, have become educated and middle class, and are moving into urban spaces that were once the exclusive domain of the elite. Now the repeal of the scarf ban — pressed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, passed by Parliament and now just awaiting an official signature — is again setting the two groups against each other, unleashing fears that have as much to do with class rivalry as with the growing influence of Islam.

While the public debate here typically revolves around Islam and how much space it should have in Turkish society — a legitimate concern in a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim and deeply conservative — the struggle over power is a glaring, if often unspoken, part of the tension between the two groups. Secular women at parties speak disdainfully of covered women and the neighborhoods they populate. Older people shake their heads and cluck their tongues at them. High school boys yell, "go back to Iran."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/europe/19turkeyweb.html?ex=1361077200&en=5c9ae971fdac505b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

A Cutting Tradition - Female genital mutilation

Photographer Stephanie Sinclair visits a ceremony for young Muslim girls in Bandung, Indonesia. Female genital cutting — commonly identified among international human rights groups as female genital mutilation — has been outlawed in 15 African countries. Many industrialized countries also have similar laws. Both France and the U.S. have prosecuted immigrant residents for performing female circumcisions.

The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift — some fruit or a donated piece of clothing — and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. She has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia, where, according to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.

Female circumcision in Indonesia is reported to be less extreme than the kind practiced in other parts of the globe — Africa, particularly. Worldwide, female genital cutting affects up to 140 million women and girls in varying degrees of severity, according to estimates from the World Health Organization.

The most common form of female genital cutting, representing about 80 percent of cases around the world, includes the excision of the clitoris and the labia minora. A more extreme version of the practice, known as Pharaonic circumcision or infibulation, accounts for 15 percent of cases globally and involves the removal of all external genitalia and a stitching up of the vaginal opening.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/20/magazine/20080120_CIRCUMCISION_SLIDESHOW_index.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink