International relations concern human beings
International developments are gaining unexpected speed. Usually, it is good news for a columnist - your only task is to choose from among a variety of important subjects. On the other hand, if the columnist is a social scientist (like yours truly), the different disciplines of social sciences only give a retrospective approach to events, which is perhaps not the best method to carry out pertinent analyses and forecasts for the short-term. Still, talking about long-term developments has its charm too. While we live in interesting times, our perspectives on events diametrically differ depending on where we are located. Imagine living in a poor, distant and relatively under-developed town in southeastern Turkey. There would be a significant difference between your life and that of someone living in Nişantaşı, a fashionable part of Istanbul. Or, imagine your parents living a mere couple of kilometres away from your house in southeastern Turkey. If their house is located on the wrong side of the frontier, in Syria, your very humble and difficult lifestyle would look heavenly to them.
I write these lines sitting in my office by the Golden Horn, in a renovated industrial site that has become the main campus of Istanbul Bilgi University. Just at the entrance of the campus, there is a nice park created by the local municipality, with a playground for children. Indeed, you can always find children in the park, but they seldom play together. Their job is to beg when the traffic lights turn red. Their ages vary between 6 and 16. They are all Syrians - I know this as a fact because some of my colleagues took the initiative, almost a year ago, to go and see these children, in order to help them. Almost every conceivable state or local institution has extended to the university their helping hand for the project called "Children of Nilüfer Park." The municipality, the prefecture, the Red Crescent, the Ministry of Education, environment schools, their directors, and teachers have all mobilized their efforts to help these children.
We discovered very quickly that practically none of them knew how to read and write in Arabic, their mother tongue. So the university has allocated time, space and finances to give these children half a day's basic education, hot meals, afternoon collations, and some of my academic colleagues have spent a great deal of their time taking care of these poor children's basic education. A couple of months later, we came to understand that these people from Syria did not want to go to the nearest police station where they would be given a temporary citizenship personal serial number (like any other Turkish citizen) that would allow them to apply for a job, to legally rent a flat, to benefit from social health services, et cetera. These people were just taught not to trust anyone wearing a uniform. In order to solve this issue, the serial numbers were transferred by the government to the discretion of the prefecture, rather than police stations. To no avail, because we have discovered that these people approach bureaucratic institutions only if they have enough money to pay a bribe. The corruption was so deeply institutionalized in their countries that they have immense trouble understanding that Turkey is a functioning democracy. The regime in Turkey has its shortcomings, including a degree of corruption, but relatively speaking, Syrian refugees do not understand how institutionalized solidarity can also exist in a society free of charge.
There is no happy ending to my story, most of the children, after six months of voluntary efforts, especially from a very talented schoolteacher willing to experiment, learned most of the alphabet and they can easily converse in Turkish now. Most of their families did not legalize their situation, because they do not trust anyone. One of the children lost his life while riding a bicycle, he fell on his head and died instantly. One of the children's families lost a baby, but we also welcomed another baby to life in Istanbul, he has blue eyes, like his mother.
This is the situation in Syria, as seen from my window, a thousand kilometers away from the Syrian border, in a cozy part of historic Istanbul. Some of the children still continue to beg at the traffic lights. The thing that has changed is the fact that they love the university, the academics, the janitors and above all, their teacher. I must also add that they fight among themselves less often than before. This is the situation of Syrian refugees, amounting to almost 2 million in Turkey, with the government spending $1 billion per year just to support them, with the state and nongovernmental organizations really expending laudable efforts to help them. This is not just international relations, this has also become part of my daily routine. And I do not have any hopeful political forecast for them, not now, and not for the long-term.
I write these lines sitting in my office by the Golden Horn, in a renovated industrial site that has become the main campus of Istanbul Bilgi University. Just at the entrance of the campus, there is a nice park created by the local municipality, with a playground for children. Indeed, you can always find children in the park, but they seldom play together. Their job is to beg when the traffic lights turn red. Their ages vary between 6 and 16. They are all Syrians - I know this as a fact because some of my colleagues took the initiative, almost a year ago, to go and see these children, in order to help them. Almost every conceivable state or local institution has extended to the university their helping hand for the project called "Children of Nilüfer Park." The municipality, the prefecture, the Red Crescent, the Ministry of Education, environment schools, their directors, and teachers have all mobilized their efforts to help these children.
We discovered very quickly that practically none of them knew how to read and write in Arabic, their mother tongue. So the university has allocated time, space and finances to give these children half a day's basic education, hot meals, afternoon collations, and some of my academic colleagues have spent a great deal of their time taking care of these poor children's basic education. A couple of months later, we came to understand that these people from Syria did not want to go to the nearest police station where they would be given a temporary citizenship personal serial number (like any other Turkish citizen) that would allow them to apply for a job, to legally rent a flat, to benefit from social health services, et cetera. These people were just taught not to trust anyone wearing a uniform. In order to solve this issue, the serial numbers were transferred by the government to the discretion of the prefecture, rather than police stations. To no avail, because we have discovered that these people approach bureaucratic institutions only if they have enough money to pay a bribe. The corruption was so deeply institutionalized in their countries that they have immense trouble understanding that Turkey is a functioning democracy. The regime in Turkey has its shortcomings, including a degree of corruption, but relatively speaking, Syrian refugees do not understand how institutionalized solidarity can also exist in a society free of charge.
There is no happy ending to my story, most of the children, after six months of voluntary efforts, especially from a very talented schoolteacher willing to experiment, learned most of the alphabet and they can easily converse in Turkish now. Most of their families did not legalize their situation, because they do not trust anyone. One of the children lost his life while riding a bicycle, he fell on his head and died instantly. One of the children's families lost a baby, but we also welcomed another baby to life in Istanbul, he has blue eyes, like his mother.
This is the situation in Syria, as seen from my window, a thousand kilometers away from the Syrian border, in a cozy part of historic Istanbul. Some of the children still continue to beg at the traffic lights. The thing that has changed is the fact that they love the university, the academics, the janitors and above all, their teacher. I must also add that they fight among themselves less often than before. This is the situation of Syrian refugees, amounting to almost 2 million in Turkey, with the government spending $1 billion per year just to support them, with the state and nongovernmental organizations really expending laudable efforts to help them. This is not just international relations, this has also become part of my daily routine. And I do not have any hopeful political forecast for them, not now, and not for the long-term.
Last Update: March 03, 2015 22:36