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shared histories is now a complex and productive phenomenon that couldscarcely have been imagined even thirty years ago. It is in contradistinctionto the amoral role of much of the global fınance capital vvhich attemptsto svveep history, nationality and indeed culture aside vvithout careor responsibility 7 .But let us return to similarities and differences betvveen the tvvo nationalexperiences, bearing in mind that the population of Turkey is aboutthree times that of Australia; that vvhile Australia is a nation originallypopulated by one of the oldest coherent peoples on earth, the Aboriginals,it is also a changing home of many diverse peoples vvhich novv includes asizeable and productive Australian - Turkish population mainly in Melbourneand Sydney and vvhich accelerated after the 1967 bilateral agreement.Both countries are undergoing very rapid population conurbation 8 .Comparisons are often stimulating sometimes irrelevant and occasionallyodious. Yet it is instructive to examine some of the basic geographical,demographic and economic indices relating to Turkey andAustralia. The latter is an island continent situated to the south-east of Indonesia.With a land area of 7,682,300 square kilometres, most of its inhabitantslive around the coastal fringe, in the cities and on the grasslandsof the 'fertile crescent' of south-eastern Australia. The population densityis only 2.3 persons per square kilometre. The figures compare vvith Turkey'sarea of 779,552 square kilometres and a population density of 79.1per square kilometre, nearly 38 times that of Australia vvith its 'desertheart". Nevertheless, Australia's population, vvhich novv approaches nineteenmillion, is nearly a third of Turkey's 64 millions in 1998. What ishighly signifıcant is that vvell över ten million Australians live in the fivecities - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide - the first tvvoamounting to över 60% of the vvhole people. In comparison, vvhile istanbulvvith its seven and a half million souls outnumbers the tvvo Australianleaders Sydney (4.1 millions), Melbourne (3.8 millions), Ankara (2.8 millions)and izmir (2 millions) trail behind the Australian leaders. While farmore Turks, both numerically and proportionately, live in the countrysidethan Australians, both countries have, and are, experiencing a substantialdrift of population from rural to urban areas. In Turkey the urban populationis 65% of the total, in Australia 85%, reflecting Western Europeannorms 9 .In Australia the gap betvveen rich and poor is accelerating, foreignmultinationals control much of the national economy, banking deregula-7. The majör vvork on contemporary Australian developments is Kelly, Paul, The Age ofUncertainty, Sydney, 1975.8. Manderson, L„ "The Turks", in Jupp, James (ed.), The Australian People, Canberra,1989.9. These figures are drawn from current Statistical Yearbooks and OECD figures publishedin the Turkish Daily News, 29 October 1998.691