For years, the right to wear the Islamic headscarf in schools and universities has been heavily debated. Although the issue is most discussed in terms of French schools, this article discusses the large number of Turkish students that have decided to attend university in Bosnia in order to avoid headscarf bans in Turkish universities. Over 1,000 Turkish students have left home in order to obtain the right to wear religious headscarves in schools, one they would not have if they decided to attend a post-secondary institution in Turkey.
Although economics and politics are two issues heavily discussed in international relations, conflicts dealing with religion are not as widely discussed. Yes, issues between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims appear in the news on an almost regular basis, but issues like this one, which deals with more day-to-day aspects of life, do not appear in the news as often. This is a tragedy of sorts, seeing as these daily issues affect more people than the large-scaled, overpublicized issues.
This issue is interesting for a multitude of reasons. First, it discusses a small-scale migration of sorts from one country to another cause by a ban that encroaches on the freedoms of religion. Personally, I find the notion that an entire group of people would leave one country for another based on issues of religion very interesting. Why do these countries let these people go instead of changing policies? The answer is simple. Governments would rather lose a small number of people rather than spend hours of tedious work changing policies. So, people who are persecuted by the law, aka Muslim Turks, are almost forced to leave the country in order to regain their rights.
My big question is this: how does the outflow of Turkish students to Bosnian schools affect the citizens and governments of Bosnia? The schools in Bosnia are funded by Turkish investors, but since these Turkish citizens are living in Bosnian territory, I wonder how Bosnian citizens react to the foreigners.
Overall, I feel that religious issues need to be more properly addressed in international relations as opposed to economic and political issues. Although I feel that economic issues and political issues are quite important to IR, I also think that religion is a topic that needs to be discussed more in depth as it does do a great deal with how countries interact with each other.
This is another example of how everyday, personal issues impact and are very much impacted by interactions among states, as several of the critical theories we read have also highlighted. We know that arab and muslim migration to France has had profound effects and many negative reactions on the part of French citizens, so it is quite possible that similar issues will arise in Bosnia. I agree with you, Lora, in that it does not much matter to Turkey that a small part of its population has left the country, and that this is more Bosnia's problem than Turkey's. Hopefully the Turkish university students will be able to study in peace without the threat of backlash from Bosnians. While immigration for religious rights is an important political issue and has been occurring for many years. This will only become an international political conflict if Bosnia makes it one.
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