Divided by religion, united by EU aim

Inside Turkey:Three educated, high-profile women offer conflicting opinions on politics, the role of Islam, and their country's future

They are three upper-middle class Turkish career women, with degrees in sociology, economics and international relations. They have lived in Europe or America. All refuse to apologise for what they call the "tragedy" in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed by Turks in 1915, and reject Kurdish demands for independence.

But the well-known columnist and television presenter Mine Kirikkanat, the newspaper correspondent Belkis Kilickaya, and Suna Vidinli, a Harvard graduate who may soon work for Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, are deeply divided over the nature of the ruling AKP (Justice and Development) party and their country's future.

Kirikkanat is the self-styled passionara of secularism who was fired by Radikal newspaper two years ago for writing a column that portrayed AKP supporters as backward peasants. She lives between Paris and Istanbul, where her talk show on Kanal Turk, a hardline secularist independent television station, is largely financed by the EU and has a European flag on the set.

"It's them and us now" was the recent headline on Kirikkanat's column in Vatan newspaper. By "them" she means not only the Islamists whom she accuses of sending her repeated, sexually explicit threats by e-mail, but the ruling party. Kirikkanat says the AKP government is Islamicising Turkey by, for example, preventing the teaching of the theory of evolution in Turkish schools and moving to lift the ban on women wearing headscarves at university. She deplores government tolerance of the Islamist newspaper Vakit, which has several times published photographs of secularists who were then murdered.

The headscarf question is obsessing the country. "If you let women wear the veil at university, then you have to allow it in primary and secondary schools," says Kirikkanat. "Girls as young as three or four are wearing veils now. A girl who wears a veil to class won't sit with the boys. Teenage boys will start growing beards, carrying prayer beads. Then who'll tell students to keep studying when the muezzin makes his prayer call five times a day?"

Kilickaya, who covers Europe for Sabah newspaper, says the AKP has had five years to Islamicise Turkey if that was what it wanted. Sabah is Turkey's second best-selling newspaper, but was put under government control when it went into receivership because of sloppy management.

Though her background is left-wing, Kilickaya says she refuses to fear the AKP. "When I was growing up, we were told to be afraid of the leftists, then the Alevis [ a liberal Muslim sect], then the Kurds, and finally the orthodox Muslims [ the term she prefers to Islamists]. I refused to be afraid, because the army needed internal enemies to justify its power. You mustn't be afraid of your own compatriots."

Kilickaya believes the benefits of allowing headscarves at university outweigh the risk that some women will be forced by male family members to do so. "If you refuse to let veiled girls go to school, they're obliged to marry a man chosen by their father. If the secularists want to give them a chance, they should let them go to university, so they can achieve economic independence."

Vidinli (30) was the youngest candidate for the Turkish parliament in the July election. Though she did not win a seat, she considers it a victory that 40,000 votes were cast for a young woman in a provincial town. A former head of communications for Turkey's two largest press groups, and a former presenter for CNN Turk, Vidinli defended the AKP's record almost nightly on television.

"I think the AKP stand for a truly centre-right party," says Vidinli. "Some of the leaders come from religious backgrounds, but they are comparable to Christian Democrats in Europe. The past five years [ since Erdogan came to power] have been good for Turkey."

Vidinli describes herself as a practising Muslim. "I don't drink. I pray. I fast during Ramadan." She does not wear the headscarf, but believes it is a basic human right to be allowed to do so: "For those who cover their heads, I have utmost respect, because they do it out of religious conviction."

Both secularists and Islamists believe their side is under attack. "People feel they have to choose sides, which is dangerous for a country," says Vidinli. "Last week, in the middle of Istanbul, in the Sisli neighbourhood, a crowd forced a girl to take her headscarf off."

Kirikkanat was scandalised that lists naming students who are not fasting during Ramadan were posted at Erzurum University, in eastern Anatolia. "I'll tell you about lists," Vidinli counters. "When the government came to office, Hurriyet newspaper published a list of all the MPs whose wives wear headscarves. You don't polarise people like that."

Vidinli is often asked how she can be so religious, with her pretty face, privileged background and western education. "They think people who feel strongly about their Muslim identity are reactionary and poor and that they follow the AKP because it gives them money. It's not true. It's a middle- and upper-class phenomenon. The AKP does want to help the poor, but the deprivation theory isn't sufficient to explain their success."

Though they come from opposite ends of Turkish politics, Kirikkanat the secularist and Vidinli the practising Muslim share a belief in Turkey's European credentials.

"Eighty-four years ago, Attaturk [ the founder of modern Turkey] said our place was in Europe," says Kirikkanat. "In 1923, he changed our language from Arabic to the Latin alphabet. He banned the turban and made men wear hats. In the 1930s, Istanbul society was dancing the tango and the waltz. We listened to Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart. The Istanbul ballet and the conservatory of Izmir were famous. We're not an Arab country, even if we're in danger of becoming like them."

Vidinli traces Turkey's western leaning back further. "The Ottoman empire looked to the West. Its sultans were part of the European balance of power game." She admits "Europeans think Islam is a threat" and that Turks are pessimistic about entering the EU. The only way to give negotiations new impetus, she says, is for the Turkish economy to continue to flourish.