http://www.turkishdailynews.com/FrProbe/latest/dom2.htm#d23
Turkey on the Threshold of a Social Explosion
· While the economic crisis in Turkey deepens day by day, the number of unemployed and poor people has increased and created a social depression in society. Depressed people show their reactions with suicide, murder and usurpation, but it is a fact that Turkey is on the threshold of a social explosion
· Unionists, who state that the crisis will not be overcome merely by recovering economic indicators, note that the social and psychological dimensions of the crisis are more important and it will take a long time to bring it to a simple level
· Besides millions of unemployed people, in a country where the minimum wage is TL 122 million and a civil servants wage is approximate TL 295 million, the figure, which is necessary for a four-person family to survive, is TL 825 million
· According to a State Planning Organization report, 15 percent of the Turkish population survives on $1, which is the minimum daily food expenditure per person, and 38 percent survives with $1.5, which meets only basic needs.
Guzin Yildizcan
The Economic crisis, which occurred on the 78th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 2001, caused the public to become poorer and brought it to the threshold of a social explosion. While $1 was 1 lira 68 kurus at the time of the establishment of the Republic in 1923, now in Turkey, which could not overcome the crisis despite the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the dollar rate now varies between TL 1.5 and TL 1.6 million.
While banks, industrial facilities and a number of small-sized enterprises were closed during the process of the economic crisis, 1 million people lost their jobs. Those who did not loose their jobs are continuing without wage increases, despite 80 percent annual inflation. Moreover, they survive with less earnings in comparison to last year. While all these are taking place, the fact that the state has restricted social services, such as health and education creates a lack of confidence and worry about the future of society.
Yes, people in Turkey become poorer day by day in an environment where injustice in income distribution increases, and they are in a social depression. However, the dimension of the crisis is always determined with economic indicators and it is discussed how foreign currency rate, inflation figures and interest rates will come to a smooth level. The social and psychosocial dimensions are passed over with the words: "Turkish society is patient, the Turkish Republic is powerful. We previously experienced economic crises and got away from them, we will also overcome this."
Many people are going mad, and murder is also becoming a fact of life. According to sociologists, it is not logical to explain the reasons why an unemployed father who could not pay a TL 200 million debt committed suicide; another father killed his children for similar reasons; a mother whose children had to go to sleep hungry went to the mental hospital; a non-commissioned officer rained bullets on bank branches; and a young person who left his school to work but got involved with usurpation gangs, as individual depressions. They state that such events are social depression.
In addition, the statistics which showed how Turkish families got poorer within a year, are definite enough to prove that depression is not individual. Besides millions of unemployed people, in a country where the minimum wage is TL 122 million and the approximate civil servants wage is TL 295 million, the minimum figure necessary for a four person-family, that means the "poverty line," is TL 826 million according to the August data of Turkey Kamu-Sen (Public Union). The poverty limit was 550 million lira in August 2000.
One third of Turks are poor
The State Planning Organization (DPT) announced Turkey's "Poverty Report" last month. The report divided poverty in two ways, "the cost of minimum daily food expenditure per person" and "the cost of basic daily need expenditures per person."
According to the method in which daily food expenditure was determined as $1, some 15 percent of the Turkish population (about 68 million) lives on the poverty line. Besides food expenditures, when daily expenses for basic needs is determined as $1.5 per person, about 38 percent of the population, which is 25 million people, is poor. Therefore, some 34 percent of the urban population and 30 percent of the rural population are poor.
According to the account, which was made with the basic needs method, 42.2 percent of poor people consists of children between 0-14, 52.7 percent are between 15-64 and 5 percent are above 65. Some 26.9 percent of poor people are illiterate, 22.7 percent are literate but did not obtain an education, 42.5 percent graduated from primary school, 5.1 percent from middle school, 2.7 percent from high school and 0.01 percent from university. Some 46 percent of poor people don't work because they are retarded, sick, retired, students or old. Some 53 percent of them are employed. Some 44 percent of people who live on the poverty line, despite working, consist of people employed in a family business. Looking at this table, which reveals that one third of the population is poor, it seems that it hard to say, "Turkey will overcome this crisis. Social explosion will not occur."
While the government does not look at the crisis from the perspective of the social dimension, the officials of employee's unions state that there is a serious crisis in Turkey. They point out that poor people, who think that they are footing the bill for the crisis, are depressed psychologically. Unionists say: "You can overcome the economic crisis by balancing foreign currency and interest figures and receive supplementary funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it is very difficult to abolish the criminal gangs which appeared during the period, make young people return to school, bring dissolved families together and get rid of psychological depression, which was created by a lack of confidence in the future." Unionists, who note that Turkey is in a social crisis, explained the dimension of the crisis to the Turkish Daily News.
'There is a social crisis'
Stating that the crisis is being observed only from the perspectives of the interest-foreign currency-stock exchange, Labor Confederation (Hak-Is) Chairman Salim Uslu states that the social dimension of the crisis has been overlooked. Uslu, pointing to the social crisis, says, "What is more important is to see how poor people understand the concept of poverty rather than determine the poverty limit." He explains how they understand it as: "Poor people think that they are excluded from society. They are uneasy because they have no social security for unemployment, sickness and old age. They think that they are forced to foot the bill for the economic crisis, sunken banks, war and graft. They also think that they will be uneducated for many years because they cannot benefit from education and health services, therefore they will continue to work as an unqualified employee, and that equality in income distribution will never be provided."
Uslu, who states that many poor families had taken their children from school to make them work, recalls that 960,000 people had lost their jobs in 2001. Noting that these poor people, who have no social security, tend to become marginal, Uslu says, "These people have abandoned any hope of help from existing legal social and political organizations, and now try illegal ways, and they will continue to do so." Uslu explains what people who feel themselves being excluded from society, will do in the future: "They will be involved in usurpation gangs, car parking mafias or establish their own gangs. They will take shelter in ethnic and religious groups."
He notes that the share of the budget for expenditures, which are necessities of a social state, reduce day by day, and states that 26.1 percent has been allotted from the budget for education, health and culture expenditures in 1992, but this figure has reduced to 13.4 percent in 2002. Noting that unearned income in industry reached 43.6 percent in 2002, while it was 17.9 in 1992, Uslu states that social state activity was lost. He points out that society is under tension psychologically, and says: "There is a social explosion but it is claimed not to exist, there is individual violence in Turkey because of a lack of democratic reaction. Reactions cannot be organized, but is it possible to explain the increase in suicides, murders in families and usurpation with individual psychology? They are completely the results of social depression."
Uslu also thinks that the rich people's psychology is also not normal, and says: "People cannot spend their money and are also reluctant to deposit their money in a bank. They either keep it at home or transfer it abroad because they have money worries about the future. Nobody can predict the future of the country." He states that even if the economy came to a smooth level, it won't be easy to overcome intimidation, degeneration and depression in society, and thinks that it is not possible to change mentalities which accept everything be legal in order to have something, or want to abolish everything that cannot be owned, by increasing employment and production.
'Social explosion is within an ace'
Confederation of Turkish Labor Union (Turk-Is) General Secretary Salih Kilic says, "In an environment,where unemployment is at a high level, the wages of employees do not increase, and inflation is at 80 percent, it is not possible to deny that society is prone to a social explosion."
Kilic, who stated that people were queuing up at five a.m. in Ankara to buy cheap bread, and the number of people trying to find something to eat in the garbage early in the morning was very high in comparison to the past, says that this situation increases the fear of a social explosion.
Claiming that there are measures which will reduce the incomes of workers instead of preventing unemployment or increasing the wages in the programs, which are implemented to get away from the crisis, Kilic says that a social explosion is inevitable in a place where unemployment and poverty cannot be solved.
He said: "Poverty causes uneducation because people force their children to work in order for them to contribute to the family income. Some 1.6 million children are working today, and 1.1 million people are unregistered employees, they are fake workers. The number of unemployed people is 3 million according to some and 5 million according to others. What the state should do is to employ unemployed people rather than children and fake workers."
Not only employees' unions but also employers' unions state that there is social explosion. Noting that a social explosion cannot be defined by people working on the streets, Turkey Employers' Unions Confederation (TISK) Chairman Refik Baydur says: "If suicides, murders, robberies increase in a society, if families cannot send their children to school, this is a social explosion. If a person is hungry and naked, it is meaningless to say to him 'be patient'." Baydur, who states that the social situation should be considered in such a society after the economy recovers, says: "An intelligent employer should not overlook social crisis, because all of us are living in the same society. It is necessary to find a way to the benefit of everyone, including employer, employee and unemployed people. It is meaningless to resist the crisis by enduring poverty."
Baydur, who recalls that 400,000 places of employment were closed and 750,000 workers had lost their jobs, says everybody is low-spirited, those having money and jobs are reluctant to spend because of the indefiniteness and lack of confidence.