Turkish students protest speaker

Published: 20-05-2005

Turkish students protest speaker
 

by Kristyn Schiavone
 

May 20, 2005

The Muslim-cultural Student Association's decision to bring former Turkish politician Merve Kavakci to campus has sparked heated controversy between two student groups over separation of church and state in Muslim culture.

Kavakci, who was elected to the Turkish parliament in 1999, appeared at her swearing-in ceremony wearing a hijab, the traditional headscarf for Muslim women. Members of the Turkish National Assembly forced her out of the ceremony because public officials in the highly secular government are not allowed to wear religious apparel. Now a lecturer at George Washington University, Kavakci speaks on the issue of religious freedom.

When McSA opted to bring Kavakci to campus, Medill junior Abed Moiduddin said the Turkish Student Association voiced the only opposition.

Moiduddin said McSA received an e-mail from the Turkish Student Association's executive director urging the organization to cancel the event, scheduled for May 26. According to Moiduddin, the e-mail said the Turkish Student Association would "do everything we can to make the event not happen." McSA sent a response clarifying that the event was not meant to offend, Moiduddin said .

Moiduddin said the e-mail was "a rude, blunt response saying that the hijab is a symbol of female backwardness."

"We know that she is very much opposed to a lot of things in the Turkish government," said Moiduddin, McSA's president. "But we don't want to cause controversy. We want people to come and be able to judge for themselves."

In a statement to The Daily, Turkish Student Association president Jack Ojalvo-Oner wrote on behalf of the group that they "believe in freedom of speech" but "people should argue in not only a constructive but also a responsible manner."

Executive members on both sides met with the university chaplain and advisers in the Multicultural Center last Thursday, but the groups remained firm in their opposing views.

"McSA well understood the implications of this one-sided radical person's lecture," Ojalvo-Oner, a McCormick senior, wrote in the statement to The Daily. "This event will hurt much-needed tolerance among students and hinder further dialogue and cooperation."

For some organizations, tolerance has been difficult to find. After posting advertisements for the event Monday night, Moiduddin got a call from a friend who had seen a group of about four students ripping up flyers near the library.

"Sure enough, we had posted about 100 flyers between the library and Norris, and they were all gone," Moiduddin said. "You could see that they were deliberately torn because there were still pieces of paper and tape left."

There is no evidence as to who is responsible for the flyers' destruction, said Tedd Vanadilok, director of Asian and Asian American Student Affairs. He added that he has been working closely with both McSA and the Turkish Student Association to help improve communication between the two groups.

"I am going to sit down with both student groups to let them know that the program is going forward," Vanadilok said. "We are in a higher education setting where freedom of speech is endorsed and encouraged, and there are ways to protest intellectually and according to university regulations."

Reach Kristyn Schiavone at

k-schiavone@northwestern.edu

Source: The Daily Northwestern