ISTANBUL, Turkey — One image captures many of the contradictions that characterize Turkey's taboo-breaking First Lady, Semra Ozal, and her countrywomen.
Wrapped in a white cloth, the wife of Turkish President Turgut Ozal appeared a picture of Muslim modesty during a recent pilgrimage to Mecca. But then she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband, ignoring other Islamic customs by which women should be more deferential.
"I am different from the old presidents' wives," Semra Ozal explained in answer to written questions about her role. "I don't sit in the corner and do as protocol dictates. I am an active wife."
Turks may soon find out how active. Semra Ozal, 56, brushes off consistent reports that she plans to become the Muslim world's second prime minister, after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. But she is quick to add that "in the future, I will not hesitate to enter politics if necessary."
The Turkish First Lady gave the same message to Barbara Bush at the White House last month, said a correspondent for Istanbul's Sabah newspaper, who sat in on the meeting. America's First Lady even offered to come and help if Semra Ozal goes on the campaign trail.
"Semra is her own woman in a way that no other president's wife has been," said Nilufer Gole, a professor of international relations and expert on women and Islam in Turkey. "Love her or hate her, we have to admit that she represents the aspirations of a broad cross-section of Turks that the elite does not."
That may be so, but she is clearly not without opponents. A poll earlier this year for the Turkish Daily News found two-thirds of respondents opposed to the idea of her becoming prime minister.
Older Istanbul moneyed classes look down their noses at her as a \o7 parvenu, \f7 the daughter of a shipyard welder who was a typist when she met her future husband. "She just doesn't have enough class," said one Istanbul professional woman, an importer of luxury accessories.
Others disapprove because Ozal is part of the president's "all-in-the-family" management style, in which relatives seem unusually often to land top jobs in business and government. Turkish caricaturists enjoy depicting the Ozals as would-be Ottoman sultans.
\o7 "Palace \f7 and \o7 dynasty \f7 may be the wrong words in our age," said the respected Cumhuriyet newspaper in an editorial. "But there is the word \o7 nepotism \f7 in the political vocabulary."
