Introduction
Among the highly controversial themes that Orhan Pamuk explores in his novel “Snow”, such as political Islamism versus secularism, the installment of martial law, political exile, suicide, the writer also treats a current issue, very debated nowadays, which is the Islamist feminism, reflected through the resistance to the head scarf banning in public spaces. A cultural trend defending the values of the Islamic society arose in Turkey, as presented in Pamuk’s writing, which end-up in a girls’ suicidal wave, when confronted with the brutal opposition of secularism, which attempt to modernize Turkey by banning the head scarf wear in public spaces. Described as the manifestation of feminism among Muslim women, their insistence to wear a the head scarf, the veil and other clothing pieces that reflect their religious affiliation to Islam, the suicidal acts that define a significant theme in “Snow” novel are actually reflections of a traditional society, wherein women fight for their right to live in a world characterized by gender oppression.
Main Body
The story is set in the modern Turkey, a country that seeks to achieve a strong and sound democracy, but which still deals with traditional perceptions and rejects occidental influences. Therefore, “Snow” suggests the political tensions between the traditional Islamists and the modern secularists, who pursue progress through separating politics from religion. In securing the traditionalist values of Muslims, Pamuk describes the essence of the veil, as perceived by Islamists: “The veil saves women from the animal instincts of men in the street. It saves them to ordeal of entering beauty contests to compete with other women. They don’t have to live like sex objects, they don’t have to wear make-up all day” (Pamuk 45). This passage indicates that in Muslim world the veil is used as a shield that women use to defend themselves from the animal instincts of men, in other words it protects them from not being violated on streets. This confirms the fact that Muslim countries promote and practice women oppression, since men are allowed to indulge themselves in their animal instincts and they can dispose of women, if they do not wear a veil or the head scarf. From this point of view, it can be argued that Muslim women’s insistence on wearing the veil and the head scarfs is in fact an acceptance of this social reality specific to Muslim world, which can be translated as their fear of being submitted to the possibility of being victims of men’s animal instincts on streets.
Stating that through their opposition to the veil and head scarf ban in public spaces they fight for returning and restating the Islam values and its teachings (Pamuk 56) is actually a claim not supported by the actual religion. As such, Muslim take their religious teachings and principles from Quran, but Quran does not specify, nor does it recommend that women should wear veils or other clothing pieces that would assert their religion, but instead it preaches that women should be protected and loved, without advocating for the segregation of sexes (Ahmed-Gosh 104).
In Pamuk’s “Snow”, the head scarf is a symbol of power, of sustaining or rejecting the values of Islam society, but not of Islam religion, although the sustainers of Islam religion directly connect the head scarf and the veiling with Islamic religious values. As such, Gokberk (1) observes that in Pamuk’s novel, the head scarf is a cultural statement of the new Islamist trend, but has also deeply entrenched previously attached “social signifiers”. The suicide girls are, hence, victims of their inherited Islamic values and of their self-constructed perceptions about the new Islam, following a trend to reinstate Islam’s values after 9/11 event (Ahmed-Ghosh 99).
Sustaining the head scarf wear delineates a statement of affiliating with both traditionalist and the new trend Islam, while rejecting it, or accepting the ban of the head scarf suggests the acceptance of modernization, but also of a secularized society, wherein the Turkish state power can infuse new politics and new social values, in accordance with its regime’s ideology (Kietzman 325).
The feminist discourse usually comprise discussions about equal treatment in any social sphere, including education and working environment, equal pay rates, equal access to education, health services and employment opportunities (Morrow & Fredrick 4). In Pamuk’s “Snow”, the so – called Muslim feminism wave has as its major concern the head scarf and the Muslim women’s right to wear it, as their fundamental human right. However, while girls commit suicide as a statement of defending and fighting for their fundamental human right of wearing the head scarf, they omit other fundamental human rights, such as gender equality, the right of equal treatment in society, education, health or work. The wearing of the head scarf seems to have a powerful cultural connotation that eclipses the individuals’ rights in Pamuk’s novel. The head scarf issue seems to be a thoroughly orchestrated scenario of the Islamist sects for preserving the values of the Muslim traditional society, determining women to engage in a discourse against head scarf ban, while diverting them from the real problems of Islam society, which continue to practice gender oppression by not allowing women to be equal with men in the public sphere of the society or by allowing men to dispose of women, driven by their animal instinct.
Dominating the gender discourse, the head scarf also dominates the public discourse in Turkey, predicting the current political crisis and also the current cultural conflicting significations of veiling and head scarfs throughout the world (Gokberk 4). This public discourse, oriented on head scarf, as a reflection of the existent social tension between the adepts of Islamists and those of secularization, is a symbol of the fight between old and new, between traditionalism and modernization, between Orient and Occident. This, in fact illustrates the precise position that Turkey has in the geo-politic scene, which is also an accurate representation of the country’s geographical positioning in the world, between West and Middle East, negotiating its own identity among these two powerful, yet contradictory cultures and ideologies.
Women’s head scarfs represent the instrument of negotiation between Islam and secularism, but the manner in which Turkey approaches this topic generates a suicidal wave among girls and determine a significant part of the Muslim feminine population to adhere to discussions about suicide and to contemplate on killing themselves. This response indicates the fact that they are not yet culturally nor socially prepared to liberate themselves from the accepted male dominance of the public space or to embrace modernization and emancipation.
Through modernization and taking off their head scarfs, Muslim women understand that they immediately will become enslaved to the values that the Western civilization impose, such as beauty or superficiality, as it is indicated in the above quote from Pamuk novel, stating that renouncing at the head scarf implies entering beauty contests, wearing make-up and being considered sex objects. This is in fact a misconception about the Western society and its values and an indication of the fact that Muslim women were manipulated into having this preconceived image about the Occident and modernity, so that they would not desire to attain modernity and emancipation.
Another view upon girls’ suicidal epidemic in Pamuk’s “Snow” indicate that in searching for their identity, Muslim girls reach an existential impasse, perceiving their lives as meaningless which drive them towards committing suicide (Goknar 181). Nevertheless, Pamuk (391) entitles one of his chapters as “The Main Reason Women Commit Suicide Is to Save Their Pride”, suggesting the fact that they defend a strong principle in which they believe. However, this representation of women that give their life in the name of defending their pride is an ironic caricature that indicates that women’s pride is solely related with wearing a piece on clothing that dress them up so that men would not attempt to violate them on streets. There is nothing about these suicidal acts related to the real problems women face in Muslim society, such as oppression, lack of equal rights, even death at their men’s hands in extreme, but existent situations. Perceived as a feminist act of defending their dignity, the suicide wave from Pamuk’s novel is in fact a hysteric noise propagated by women who consider themselves as being undressed if they are no longer allowed to wear their head scarfs, showing their impotence of adjusting to the novelty and to start appearing in the public sphere as they really are: as persons, with equal social rights with men.
Conclusion
The avoidance of modernization and the fear of emancipation are expressed in Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow” through a girls’ suicidal epidemic, generated by Turkish politics that banned the wearing of head scarfs (part of the traditional Muslim wear) in public spaces. By committing suicide women intend to make a statement of their fight for defending their pride, but in fact they are actually renouncing the fight for the thing they call a fundamental human right - their right to wear the head scarf, an indication of their Islam status. Standing out for their Islamic status through wearing the head scarf, they are actually defending a social construct, which states that wearing head scarfs is an indication of Islam condition, because in fact the Quran never indicated that women should follow a certain dress-code. Therefore, in the name of sustaining a social construct, girls give their own lives, disguising their unpreparedness and fear of emancipation into a false feminist speech about their rights of wearing the head scarf, feminist speech that does not mention actual feminist themes such as the ban of gender oppression and discrimination, equal treatment in education, health services and employment for both men and for women.
Works Cited
Ahmed-Ghosh, Huma. “Dilemmas of Islamic and Secular Feminists and Feminisms” Journal of International Women’s Studies. Vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 99-116. 2008. Print.
Gokberk, Ulker. Beyond Secularism: Orhan Pamuk’s Snow and the Contestation of “Turkish Identity” in the Borderland. Red College. 2008. Print.
Goknar, Erdag, Orhan Pamuk, Secularism, Blasphemy. New York, Routledge. 2013. Print.
Hasan, Mahmudi. “Islam’s Encounter with Women’s Rights and Feminism: The Need for Greater Engagement of Muslim Women” International Journal of Islamic Thought. Vol. 2, pp. 81 – 94. 2013. Print.
Kietzman’s, Mary Jo “Speaking ‘to All Humanity’: Renaissance Drama in Orhan Pamuk’s Snow.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language. Vol. 52, no 3, pp. 325-353. 2010. Print.
Morrow, Collette & Fredrick, Terri, Ann. Getting in is Not Enough: Women and the Global Workplace. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2012. Print.
Pamuk, Orhan, Snow. New York, Vintage International. 2002. Print.
