Grapes of Wrath
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#6.13 PERSPECTIVES Political analysis and commentary from Turkey THE TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AREAS IN TURKEY GRAPES OF WRATH DEMOCRACY FOREIGN POLICY HUMAN LANDSCAPES The Gezi Park Resistance Objective versus Process in Turkey’s Memet Aksoy: and the Peace Process EU Membership Bid This is What Being an Artist is: Nazan Üstündağ Erhan İçener Taking Sides Page 54 Page 62 Ayşegül Oğuz Page 66 TURKEY REPRESENTATION Contents From the editor 3 ■ Cover story: The transformation of agriculture and rural areas in Turkey The dynamics of agricultural and rural transformation in post-1980 Turkey Murat Öztürk 4 Europe’s rural policies a la carte: The right choice for Turkey? Gökhan Günaydın 11 The liberalization of Turkish agriculture and the dissolution of small peasantry Abdullah Aysu 14 Agriculture: Strategic documents and reality Ali Ekber Yıldırım 22 Land grabbing Sibel Çaşkurlu 26 A real life “Grapes of Wrath” Metin Özuğurlu 31 ■ Ecology Save the spirit of Belgrade Forest! Ünal Akkemik 35 Child poverty in Turkey: Access to education among children of seasonal workers Ayşe Gündüz Hoşgör 38 Urban contexts of the june days Şerafettin Can Atalay 42 ■ Democracy Is the Ergenekon case a step towards democracy? Orhan Gazi Ertekin 44 Participative democracy and active citizenship Ayhan Bilgen 48 Forcing the doors of perception open Melda Onur 51 The Gezi Park Resistance and the peace process Nazan Üstündağ 54 Marching like Zapatistas Sebahat Tuncel 58 ■ Foreign Policy Objective versus process: Dichotomy in Turkey’s EU membership bid Erhan İcener 62 ■ Culture Rural life in Turkish cinema: A location for innocence Ferit Karahan 64 ■ Human Landscapes from Turkey This is what being an artist is: Taking Sides Memet Aksoy 66 ■ News from HBSD 69 Heinrich Böll Stiftung - Turkey Represantation The Heinrich Böll Stiftung, associated with the German Green Party, is a legally autonomous and intellectually open political foundation. Our foremost task is civic education in Germany and abroad with the aim of promoting informed democratic opinion, socio-political commitment and mutual understanding. In addition, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung supports artistic and cultural as well as scholarly projects, and co-operation in the development field. The political values of ecology, democracy, gender democracy, solidarity and nonviolence are our chief points of reference. Heinrich Böll’s belief in and promotion of citizen participation in politics is the model for the foundation’s work . Editor in chief: Dr. Ulrike Dufner; editorial team: Özgür Gürbüz, Semahat Sevim, Umud Dalgıç, Yonca Verdioğlu; contributors Banu Yayla, Saynur Gürçay Heinrich Böll Stiftung Turkey Representation, İnönü Cad. Hacı Hanım Sok. No. 10/12, Gümüşsuyu İstanbul; Telephone: +90-212-249 15 54 Fax: +90-212-245 04 30 email: [email protected] web: www.tr.boell.org Editor: Yücel Göktürk Translation: Barış Yıldırım, Esin Aslan, Hande Eagle. Proofreading: Clare Frost Print Production: Farika Tasarım Date: October 2013 Printing House: zgi Matbaacılık, Sanayi Caddesi Altay Sok. No:10 Yenibosna / İstanbul Tel: 0.212.452 23 02 Perspectives – Political analysis and commentary from Turkey will appear quarterly and distributed for free. For subscription please send your request by email to [email protected] The magazine and each article can be downloaded from our webpage www.tr.boell.org Articles published in Perpectives represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Heinrich Böll Stiftung – Turkey Representation ■ Democracy ■ International Politics ■ Ecology ■ Culture ■ News from hbs COVER PHOTO: HÜSAMETTİN BAHÇE / NARPHOTOS Editorial hree months passed since the protests with in the next issue. In the meantime, a special exploded allover Turkey. Many people web dossier on the Kurdish issue will be published from within and outsideof Turkey are in German language at the website of Heinrich Böll keen to get more information about Stiftung (www.boell.de). further developments, the consequences In this issue of Perspectives, we would like to Tof the protests and the results. In the July issue draw your attention towards the ongoing structu- of Perspectives (No 5-2013) we presented the ral reforms on rural development and agriculture Gezi protests as a milestone towards democracy. of Turkey which is leading to social, economic In this issue, we want to analyze the protests from hardship especially for small farmers. Furthermore, different angles, among others, from a Kurdish the effect of international politics and especially perspective and from the perspective of a rep- European Union agricultural politics are discussed. resentative of the Republican People Party, two In this context, Gökhan Günaydın’s article titled “ important streams in Turkey’s politics. Although Europe’s Rural Policies a la Carte: The Right Cho- we could observe intensive debates inside the ice for Turkey?” deserves an attentive reading. Do ruling AKP party about the government’s stance please permit me to commit a “spoiler” and quote during the protests, the leadership of the party the final part of Günaydın’s article: “A correction did not respond positively towards internal critics of injustices in land ownership, the prevention and maintained its harsh position, splitting society of increasingly widespread misuse of rural and into two camps: adversaries or supporters of the agricultural areas, and solving the problems of government - a policy which has been conducted scattered rural areas that do not have adequate since the referendum on the constitution in 2010. access to public services remain as matters of Even in his speech about the newly announced importance although they do not even qualify as democratization package, Prime Minister Erdogan “optional” in the EU’s selection of rural policies. repeated such a stance: “we conducted our politics Obviously, for a better Europe and a better Turkey, in spite of a very big resistance”. Interestingly eno- a better political understanding and a better set of ugh, Erdogan distinguished between the “always policies are possible.” criticizing opposition” and the “people/society A related subject matter to be highlighted is (halk)”. The opposition, Gezi park protests and the case of land grabbing which not only affect the other protests in Turkey, therefore, are accordingly poor and the fragile segments of the society but not considered as a component of the “people” pose a threat to producing healthy food, as Sibel and, therefore, can be ignored according to AKP’s Çaşkurlu examines in detail in her article. And, for understanding. It is visible that the “majoritarian” an over all picture, Murat Öztürk’s “The Dynamics approach to democracy still prevails over a “plura- of Agricultural and Rural Transformation in post- listic” understanding of democracy. 1980 Turkey” and Abdullah Aysu’s “The Liberali- The dramaturgy around the latest democratiza- zation of Turkish Agriculture and the Dissolution of tion package itself strengthened the authoritarian Small Peasantry” are a must read if you allow me character of the system, an almighty Prime Minis- to make such a recommendation. ter, who makes a gift to his followers by presenting And the last but not the least: As Turkey a democratization package. A democratic reform Representation of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung we are package from above, without debating it before- working together with civil society actors in rural hand with the public and political parties, is in areas in order to address their problems, discuss itself an expression of a problematic understanding alternative approaches of rural development and of society-government relations.“The society is not enable the exchange of ideas. yet ready for further reforms”, was the main argu- ment of Prime Minister Erdogan when he personall presented the package to press. As the package was only presented two days before Perspectives On behalf of the Perspectives team goes to the printing house, its details will be dealt Ulrike Dufner Heinrich Böll Stiftung 3 The Dynamics of Agricultural and Rural Transformation in post-1980 Turkey he dynamics that changed Turkey’s agriculture accounted for a large portion of GDP. history, economy, and social structure Early Republic governments pursued various effected Turkey’s agriculture and rural policies to increase agricultural production and life are the same. The transformation productivity, to establish national markets and to of rural structure, which includes a enhance trade. In the earliest stages, the objective Tnumber of intertwined conflicts, shows the joint was to support small-scale agriculture. Public effects of historical trend, modern technologies lands and lands owned by ağas were distributed and lifestyles, as well as the neoliberal policies of to private owners, and land was provided for the last three decades. The main drivers of this Muslims brought into Turkey from abroad with transformation process were increased agricultural the population exchange. Agriculture, which and rural commodification and financialization was to meet food demands, provide raw material due to deepening capitalist relationships that were to industry and to generate export revenues, strengthened by neoliberal policies. Technological was enhanced in the 1920s when the state and social developments forced social structures implemented modern agricultural production and settlement patterns to shift and also set methods. The state also established support the rural population into action to protect institutions