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national identity; in order to orientate every citizen, their duties and their
obligations towards the Turkish Republic. The end result of these disciplinary
techniques, in the attempt to forge a collective identity, was the removal of dif-
ferent identities/social movements from the public sphere. Therefore, from the
early 1920s to the present, local bourgeoisie and religious sects have been located
at the periphery by the nation-state’s elites, which include military officers,
bureaucrats and Kemalist intellectuals (Mardin, 1973). For the sake of the regime,
as Kevin Robins (1996: 70) states, ‘the conditions of diversity and pluralism
necessary to democratic life were stifled from the beginning’. The difference
between the modernization process in the West and the modernization project in
Turkey must be emphasized (Göle, 1996).
Since the early 1990s, local bourgeoisie and religious sects have gained an
opportunity to intervene in the established meanings and positions of the centre
and the periphery. This is a result of the development of an Islamic bourgeoisie
with middle-sized investments ranging from textiles to the automotive indus-
tries, from the food sector to the media industry. It is possible that the Welfare
Party (Refah Partisi), representing political Islam in the Grand National
Assembly of the Turkish Republic, has also accelerated this process. When the
Welfare Party came into power at a municipal level in 1994, and took part in the
coalition government from January 1995 to February 1998, political Islam became
more visible. Furthermore, both the mainstream and Islamist media have helped
to bring political Islam into the public sphere. Also raising political Islam’s public
presence have been demonstrations such as the ‘headscarf protest’, which was
initiated by the demand by some Muslim women to be allowed to cover their
heads according to the Islamic principle while attending public schools, univer-
sities and working in public institutes (Göle, 1997: 62). 1
This new visibility has popularized Islam in the cultural realm in several
ways. The most important aspects of this popularization are twofold. On the one
hand, the emergence of the Islamist media and on the other, the rise of new con-
sumption patterns. The Islamist media includes newspapers, periodicals, litera-
ture, including some best-sellers, movies and radio and television programmes
that enable the voice of the Islamic other. The new consumption patterns include
new leisure-time activities for Islamic communities, such as tourism and fashion.
¸
For instance, Kanal 7, Samanyolu TV, Isik TV and to some extent TGRT are
both nationwide and transnational Islamist television channels (see Binark and
Çelikcan, 2000; Öncü, 2000); Akra FM, Dünya FM, Radyo Arifan are some of the
popular Islamist radio channels; and Islamist newspapers include Zaman, Yeni
S¸afak, Vakit and Milli Gazete.

Shifting meanings of the practice of veiling

Religious and traditional meaning

In Turkey, the practice of veiling is generally discussed in two contexts. First, the
practice indicates the ‘primary and pure meaning’ based on Islamic principles