PINAR ÖĞÜNÇ

The last few years have been a period in which every problem that can be discussed under the heading of agriculture has deepened and multiplied for Turkey, which continues to boast of being an agricultural country because it does not face the real landscape. Agricultural lands are being sacrificed for investments in other sectors such as energy, mining, construction and tourism, which are seen as the main vein of the growth fetish.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72 years old, has won so much admiration and respect for the way she handled the judicial process concerning the gang rape of which she was the victim, that she has become a symbol of courage in recent years, going beyond 2024. “Shame must change sides” she said, “it's not us who should be ashamed, it's them. I don't want any woman who has been raped to feel shame anymore."

One of the distinctive features of this year is that the number of children who are out of education despite being of compulsory education age is at the highest level of the last three years. Income inequality has reached its highest level in the last 18 years, signalling the severity of the economic crisis in education. 42 out of every 100 children are poor. ERG's report reveals that the number of students between the ages of 6-17 who are out of education increased by 38.4 per cent compared to the previous year.

Amnesty International has examined and documented Israel's policies and actions against the Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October 2023 and, within the framework of international law, has named what has happened and is happening: Genocide. This new 300-page report, the first of its kind, is based on interviews with 212 people, including Palestinian survivors, local officials in Gaza, health workers, humanitarian NGO workers, analyses of a wide range of visual and digital data, published news reports, and statements by officials representing various institutions of the Israeli state. We talked to Ruhat Sena Akşener, Director of Amnesty International Turkey, about the report titled ‘You Feel Like You're Not Human-Israel's Genocide against Palestinians in Gaza’, which leads to the determination of ‘genocidal intent’.

‘’Politicians does talk about family but the conventional family consisting of mum, dad, children and the elderly does not exist in Turkey. The family is transforming, the family has never been a sterile environment. Besides, Turkey is trying to provide all the care service through this conventional family. How will people living alone receive support? What about the elderly who have lost their children or the elderly who have chosen to live differently? This is a policy blind to society. It also has nothing to do with increasing fertility because the number of poor elderly will not decrease when the number of babies increases. As well as the existing elderly population, let's also think about the old age of children who are forced to work in temporary, mobile jobs and in the agricultural sector, young people who are currently working in flexible employment. Moreover, retirement means becoming poorer and poorer in Turkey."

I wander around Suriçi, using both my own testimonies and the memory provided to me by journalism by listening to witnesses and as a map. After a hundred days of conflict, the police barricades and screens that I last saw in 2019 have been removed from some streets that were closed for years. They have removed, but many of them seem to have opened neither to the old nor to the new, but to gaps that freeze space in time. As I wander around, I listen to the old inhabitants of Sur. One of them is a construction worker, he migrated to another district when his house was demolished. What is significant is that now, if there is a job in construction, he comes to his old neighborhood to work. Another is a plumber whose house, shop and tools were leveled in Sur. They are collectively paying installments to own a new Sur house.

The last destructive blow of the holding that gets sturdy as it leans on the political power. Preparations for the ‘Halilağa Copper Quarry Capacity Increase, Ore Enrichment Plant and Waste Storage Facility’ to be built in Hacıbekirler village of Çanakkale Bayramiç have begun by cutting down trees on 5200 decares of land. On 9 November, minibuses, buses and vehicles departing from different parts of the Aegean, Thrace and Anatolia park on both sides of the road. When a person cries with choking breath for a tree, it brings to mind the mythic past of this geography, the Homeric texts. As in the tragedies where pain rises from human bodies to the clouds of Zeus, where vows of revenge and anger do not fit in the mountains, women cry out “do not cut down our trees”, doubled over from shouting.

Words get mixed up with words. Railway porterage which ended when wheels were invented for suitcases... Trains and porters carrying the gold coming from Europe while the Central Bank was opening... The killing of public spaces and the concept of public interest... Tugay Bey always reads the industrial heritage and the plans of capital through labour. If the skyscrapers rent project, which was put forward at the time, could not be realised, those who resisted by looking at the railway stations from this perspective, those who forced both the judicial path and the streets, are of great importance in this. What 668 weeks means! Haydarpaşa Solidarity will come together for the 668th time this Sunday and raise their voices against this new project for Haydarpaşa Station.

It is important for those who do not want to waste the slightest chance of a permanent solution and an honorable peace to calmly make sense of this ebb and flow of politics. The report titled “Looking at the Kurdish Problem with its Changing Dynamics after 2015 in Terms of Authoritarian Conflict Management” puts some of the pieces in place and offers a perspective that can serve as a source. The report is based on the basic idea that authoritarian regimes consider keeping conflict processes at the ‘unresolved’ stage as a kind of solution for themselves, and that they realise this not only with military force but also by supporting it with a series of political, spatial and economic policies. The underlying structural causes of the conflict are not specifically addressed, any democratic space for a solution is seen as a threat, and the involvement of international actors is not recognised. It can be coordinated with neoliberal policies and corruption can be used as a tool.

The rising right, not only in Turkey but all over the world, together with the strengthening "fascist international", has gone beyond the timid tone that begins with "I am not a racist, but..." and comes to a point where "certain race" exclamations are flying in the air and they are rebelling against the "taking away of the right to racism". A dose that has become a part of everyday language, mixed with humour, demanding not invisibility but extinction from the target audience is becoming normalised. The conference on ‘Racism in Turkey’, organised by Istos Publishing with the support of the London School of Economics on 19-20 October, aimed to bring all these issues to the visible side of the table and discuss them.