Turkish Awakening (8 page)

In May 2012 I visited the regional project headquarters in Diyarbakır, Urfa, Mardin and Gaziantep, where I interviewed
many of the women and the people who run the project. It was founded in 2003 by Dr Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning creator of the microcredit concept, and Aziz Akgül, a former Turkish MP with Kurdish origins, from Diyarbakır. After much initial scepticism, both from the Turkish government and rural women unexpectedly offered the chance to be self-employed, the scheme has had resounding success; so far more than $100 million has been given out in loans, there is currently a hundred per cent payback rate and around sixty thousand women are actively enrolled in the scheme as I write. Groups of women from any particular area sign up to secure each other’s loans in the event of someone being unable to repay, which simultaneously gives the participants confidence while galvanising entrepreneurial energy – no one wants to let the side down. Moreover, the enormity and novelty of being entrusted with money means that these women are extremely cautious investors. Those who fund TGMP do not expect huge returns, but there is easily enough interest generated to cover costs, consistently.

TGMP serves as a significant counter-example to Turkey’s generally poor reputation in the areas both of gender equality and interaction with Kurdish and other minorities. These women, as former victims of religious suppression, terror and domestic violence, are at face value the least likely of successful business people. Yet here they are, proudly independent and quietly working away, while women’s-rights NGOs, despite sterling efforts, achieve very little in the face of ingrained patriarchy.

Most of the TGMP loan holders I met were shy, unassuming
ladies who looked nothing like entrepreneurial social pioneers, although that’s exactly what they were. You got the sense that while they were ambitious for their children, particularly their daughters, they themselves were working because they had to, and the benefits of social and financial independence were secondary to supplementing the household coffers.

Occasionally, however, I came across some unabashed feminists. Safiye Hanım, whom I met in Diyarbakır with the local TGMP co-ordinators, was in her element as she showed us into the restaurant she bought six months ago, chattering all the while and sporadically shouting instructions to her all-male staff in the kitchen. She belongs to the flamboyantly covered class of ladies I mentioned earlier, more common to countries like Lebanon; her vivid purple eye shadow demanded notice, and her personality burned through the headscarf she wore as if it were an accessory of purely sartorial choice. Safiye sat us down and ordered
pide
(a kind of bread filled with cheese or meat), obliterating our protests with a dazzling hostess smile.

‘Of course you must eat! Alev
hanım
, you are new to Diyarbakır? Welcome, eat, eat!’

Safiye, with impressive initiative, approached TGMP when her husband was laid off work as a
dolmuş
driver as the result of an accident. Most newcomers are referred to the programme by friends, or are gradually persuaded to join by TGMP employees who conduct a sort of conversion crusade, methodically targeting local homes. Safiye, however, approached the organisation herself, bullying the Diyarbakır office staff with relentless charisma into advancing an unprecedented
amount of money, straight up, so that she could put down the deposit for the purchase of the restaurant. The TGMP girls accompanying me on this visit fell silent, intimidated, as Safiye turned to the subject of her monthly credit allowance with all the assurance of a seasoned City trader: ‘Three thousand lira? What a joke! Girls, how can I run this lot on that? I need at least ten thousand. Tell Mehmet Bey [the chief of the Diyarbakır office] what I want, he won’t refuse me. We understand business, Mehmet and I.’ When I asked Safiye whether her male staff resented being subordinate to a woman, she laughed and yelled out to the kitchen: ‘Ali! Serdar! Do you resent me? No? Back to work then!’

I spent my last day in Diyarbakır, a Monday, in the TGMP headquarters speaking to women who came in to collect their weekly allowance, plus the odd insurance payout. The first of them arrived at nine in the morning, and by eleven the offices were packed with seated and standing women, but it was oddly quiet save for the calling out of queue numbers and a low hum of conversation. It was like a very refined and sedentary market, wads of cash handed here and there, women waiting patiently in turn for the means to run their lives. A few of the women were pregnant and many had children with them. When I asked one lady why her son was not in school, she told me that state schooling is only provided from the age of seven; before that age parents have to pay for private schooling. This is a hindrance for mothers trying to work; in an attempt to solve the problem, some mothers choose to take their older children out of school to look after younger siblings, and, unsurprisingly, those chosen are generally girls. This was yet another example of the inadequacies
of an archaic education system affecting the future chances of girls or the freedom of their mothers, and I had to temper my reaction in the presence of this quietly resigned lady, steadily answering my rather impertinent questions.

A further benefit of the TGMP programme is the social support which is not explicitly planned but comes about organically due to the clublike nature of the organisation, and is as valuable to the women involved as the monetary help. Because the programme is restricted to women, husbands of prospective members are relaxed about allowing their spouses to attend meetings and work with the other women involved. This is actually quite rare, considering that many women in these communities are not allowed to socialise out of the house alone. They are given the opportunity to discover solidarity in these group scenarios, they realise that they are not alone with their problems of marital disputes or violence, and it acts as a form of therapy.

On the flight back from Diyarbakır, I tried to work out what it was that had impressed me so much about TGMP, aside from the extraordinary cases and individuals I had met. Something was missing, but in a good way: an agenda. There is no rhetoric about gender empowerment or social change, or any political content to the programme whatsoever. It is completely direct and straightforward, giving money to the women running their own businesses, ensuring independence and self-respect through the very simple procedure of giving a manageable loan. Even better, the secondary effects of the project are beginning to be felt, and at the very least, sixty thousand women are successfully running businesses in some of the most patriarchal, impoverished and conservative areas
of Turkey – something which I very much doubt any government could have achieved, even if they had the inclination.

Seeing these kinds of women makes me optimistic about social progress in the east; TGMP is of course a catalyst, but I have seen signs of change in other cases, which gives hope that, gradually, the idea of education and independence in women as a positive thing is catching on in the area. It is not something that can happen overnight; I hope it happens within my lifetime.

One evening in the old quarter of Mardin, my boyfriend and I were toiling up the hill to the castle and its unparalleled view of Mesopotamia. It was one of those occasions when both of us were rather tired and secretly would have happily given up to go and have some
çay
and narghile somewhere, but neither wanted to be the first to voice this. Occasionally we encountered a shepherd or villager coming down the hill, exchanged our
selam
s and eyed them enviously as they descended. Suddenly, happy voices hailed us from on high and we looked up to see a child and young woman in an almond tree by the side of the path, vigorously shaking the branches and scattering furry green almonds onto laughing family members assembled below. We were invited to share the almonds (surprisingly delicious when unripe) and to inspect their small garden and house.

Jumping down from the tree, the young woman, headscarved like every local woman I had seen in the area, cheerily held forth on the magnificent view of Mardin stretched out before us. It turned out she was about to leave her hometown and head off to Mersin University to take a degree in religious studies. Her family were very proud of her. I have to admit
that when I heard the subject of her degree my heart sank a little, before I forced myself to consider her situation fairly. Here was a confident young woman, devout but unfazed by a foreign couple, so far showing herself to be more open-minded than I was. The attitude of a Kemalist, which I have undoubtedly absorbed to some extent, is always that of automatic suspicion and distaste when confronted with a mix of religion and education: it produces a sort of mental curdling akin to the mixing of yoghurt and lemon. Put in perspective, however, this young woman’s prospects were very much preferable to the fates of girls who, for generations, have spent their formative years in fields rather than classrooms. This girl had been to school; she was making her own choice to go to university and will lead a relatively independent life, compared to her grandmother or even her mother.

The older generation, while not in a position to enjoy educational opportunities themselves, are also getting used to the gradually shifting lie of the land. On the bus from Urfa to Mardin, I chatted to an old lady who told me with great pride that her granddaughter was sitting exams for university entry, but she was prouder still that all her daughters were married and mothers themselves. This lady came from a generation whose foremost priority for their daughters was security, and in the east that still means marriage and cementing family life with children and more children (the average number per family in the eastern region comprising Mardin and Siirt was seven in 2011). Unfortunately, it does not look like the government is interested in reducing the poverty and strain caused by huge family sizes – in fact, quite the opposite. Erdoğan has repeatedly called for Turkish couples to have at
least three children in order to ensure a booming economy. He explained it succinctly: ‘One or two children mean bankruptcy. Three children mean we are not improving but not receding either. So, I repeat, at least three children are necessary in each family, because our population risks ageing.’ During the Gezi protests in 2013, Erdoğan claimed that unspecified ‘forces’, jealous of Turkey’s growing power, had tried to scupper the Turkish economy by encouraging birth control and abortion, but declared that he would not let this pernicious situation continue.

On 25 May 2012, Erdoğan announced at an AKP Women’s Conference that ‘abortion is murder’, sparking a media frenzy. Over the next few days, a bill effectively banning abortion was discussed. Significantly, this issue was raised smack bang in the middle of another incredibly controversial subject, namely the furore over the Uludere air raid which had happened five months previously and had recently been brought back into the media, much to the government’s detriment. Thirty-four Kurdish smugglers had been killed on the Iraqi border by Turkish soldiers, who had apparently mistaken them for PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) rebels on the basis of aerial images provided by US surveillance. Erdoğan has never apologised for the incident, and seized the occasion of a press conference to tell journalists that ‘every abortion is an Uludere’. The extraordinary nature of the bill’s announcement seemed to achieve what critics of the government saw as an attempt to distract attention from Uludere to something which would not, in the end, be put into practice, and which would in the meantime please the government’s religious voting base.

The new legislation would change the present ten-week limit for termination to four weeks, at which point most women do not even realise they are pregnant. It sought to eliminate any feasible exceptions, including pregnancies resulting from rape. The Turkish government, we were assured, would magnanimously take into foster care the babies born of rape. As an addendum to the abortion bill, it was also proposed that Caesarean sections should become less easily available. This seemed more reasonable, since around fifty per cent of mothers in Turkey are given Caesareans as a matter of course, because in state hospitals it is more convenient for the doctors to be able to schedule births, and in private hospitals, more profitable. But Erdoğan’s questionable claim that Caesareans limit mothers to two births immediately cast suspicion on his motives.

Of course, an outcry ensued, with protests all over the country, petitions, noted feminists writing impassioned articles like the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak’s for the
Guardian
, and a great deal of foreign interest, especially from the EU, who immediately cautioned the Turkish government against restricting women’s right to choose. Ironically, Turkey introduced the current abortion law nearly thirty years ago. It is hard not to view the current situation as a serious regression.

Bolstering theories that the bill was only proposed to draw attention from the Uludere raid, and to gratify the AKP’s considerable devout following, nothing concrete was passed, but the subject has not been dropped. It has resurfaced sporadically since its sensational introduction, with the AKP trying to include clauses in the proposed new constitution relating to the ‘healthy continuation of the human race’, which,
among other things, would prohibit sperm banks because ‘every child has the right to know his father’. A tour company which foresaw a gap in the market and started advertising three-day ‘abortion trips’ to destinations such as London, Northern Cyprus and Bosnia had its licence revoked by the Ministry of Tourism.

You can be as cynical as you like about the AKP’s political manoeuvring, the judicious timing and juggling of its contentious announcements, and claim that they are mainly for show, but there is an undeniable undercurrent of religious rhetoric that is, to my mind, disturbing. By all means, allow people to practise their religion, and to have an unexpected baby, or wear a headscarf, or fast during Ramadan. But it is when Mehmet Görmez, who as head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate is both government official and high-ranking Muslim cleric, says that ‘The mother is not the real owner of the foetus she carries [. . .] It is a gross injustice to handle this issue as a women’s issue, as men have always held the greatest responsibility in this issue throughout history’ that my blood really boils. It parboils on hearing this sentence uttered in a purely religious context, but what really angers me is the political voice this man has. Turkey needs to wake up to the real issues surrounding women’s rights. In 2011, women’s participation in the labour force fell to thirty-one per cent. In the same year, the name of the Ministry for Women and Family Affairs was changed to Family and Social Policies, at a time when women’s rights desperately need addressing. The last thing anyone needed was a bill limiting abortion.