Letters to the Editor
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Possible to be Tolerant
It is possible for Muslin societies to be tolerant and accepting of a wide range of women's wearing apparel, and Turkey is a good example. I visited Istanbul and a number of cities and towns in western Turkey last year, and was amazed and then really pleased to see women in all manner of public places in the full gamut of dress: from complete burqua to flowing hair, jeans, tank tops and bare midriffs. Sometimes a mother and daughter arm-in-arm: mother in burqua-daughter in cutoff jeans and tank top. Sometimes girls in short skirts and bare midriff also wore head-scarves. And the cutest anomaly was a girl with her mother in a mosque, both in head scarves, kneeling over in prayer with the teen-aged girl pulling up her jeans in the back so her thong wouldn't show.
I know there's current concern in among Turkish secularists that the new president, Gul, with his headscarf-wearing wife will be leading them back down the slippery slope, but it seems to me that the women of Turkey value their freedom of choice - and the people of Turkey have demonstrated that they understand and respect separation of church and state, and agree that one size doesn't fit all.