Remembering and Forgetting: Modernization in Islamic Geography and Women's Movements

It is possible to read the history of modernization throughout the Islamic World from the perspective of a collective memory construction. The women's movement is one of those considerable fields in which this collective memory has become crystallized within the personal memories and real practices of women individuals. In this context, this article tries to trace different women's movements of the modernization period and the effects of their remembering/forgetting strategies on our time. Moreover, this effort can throw new light on the debate about women in this region. Especially in Turkey, where the distinction between Islamic feminism and secular feminism is drawn very strictly and also maintained through the needs of the current political arguments, it is very important to notice that these two alternatives indicate different circumstances and different strategic choices. Women who live in the Islamic region follow different empowerment strategies due to peculiar cultural and political circumstances. For that reason, it is much better to regard them as active political and social agents instead of labeling them as victims of a religion (or heroines of a religion) for a better understanding of human sciences and historical perspectives.