Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

84 islamic political identity in turkeynot exactly equivalent to the slums one confronts in places in Latin Americaor South Asia. While squatter towns originally did not have electricity or sewageservices, this underclass participated in local politics, managed to gain verybasic social services, and linked the gecekondus to the city. The inhabitants ofthe gecekondus are not alienated and isolated from urban life in the mannerof many impoverished rural migrants to Sao Paulo or Calcutta; rather they tendto be upwardly mobile, energetic, and initiative oriented. They seek integrationrather than isolation. Moreover, they generate a sense of cultural dynamismthat allows them to succeed in their reinterpretation of rural traditionsand adaptation to urban life.In the beginning, Turkish government oYcials did not have a clear visionor plan regarding urban development. However, the governments graduallyaccommodated themselves to these new patterns of urbanization, and electoralpolitics became a tool for bringing public services to these areas and mobilizingthem politically. Governments have been forced to legalize these public landappropriations, either by selling the occupied lands at nominal rates to their newtenants or giving them away for free. Such policies, in fact, have encouragedthe further occupation of lands and the establishment of new squatter neighborhoods.As a result, over 70 percent of the population of Ankara live in squatterhousing; this Wgure is 55 percent in Istanbul, Izmir, and Adana and 40 percentin the case of Erzurum and Samsun. 9 In 1985, 30 percent of the total urbanpopulation lived in the gecekondus of the squatter towns. 10 Since 1983, conXictssuch as that between the Turkish army and Kurdish insurgents have resulted infurther massive population movements from southeastern Anatolian villagesto the large urban centers of western Anatolia. 11 The anomie of modern urbanlife raised a whole set of issues concerning social ethics, justice, aesthetics, andthe broader search for meaning and identity in the context of rapid socioeconomicdevelopment. It was exactly these pressing issues that Kemalist ideologynever addressed adequately because of the vacuum it had created by forcefullydisplacing traditional Islamic norms and ethics.In squatter towns, new migrants become laborers without the support oftrade unions to protect their interests and provide a sense of security and solidarity.This has forced the newcomers to rely on networks centered around older,rural-based solidarity associations (hem7erilik) and religiously oriented welfareassociations. 12 The hem7erilik (“hometowners”) is an informal group that formsto assist members in social, political, and economic Welds. It does not mobilizenationalism but rather fosters pre-nationalistic loyalties (to the rural, hometown,and religious solidarity networks) that emerge as dominant markers of identityand loyalty in the urban market economy. Newcomers “gravitate toward networksbased on places of origin, ethnicity, or religious beliefs partly to maintain theirties with their villages but more importantly as a means of integration into thecity. ” 13 These pre-nationalist networks have been modernized and reinvestedto meet the needs of urban society—housing, jobs, education, and a degree ofsecurity against the corrupt bureaucratic system. The existence of “crime-freeslums . . . demonstrates how formidable is the fabric of which Turkish Muslimculture is made.” 14