Perspectives

Worldwide, annual pesticide use is 3 million tons on average, whereas it is around 33 thousand tons in Turkey. Actually, this number does not mean anything; one has to delve further. Around 700 grams (Reference 1) of pesticides per hectare are used in Turkey. In comparison, the Netherlands, which has the highest pesticide use in Europe, uses nearly 13 kilograms and in Finland, the country with the lowest pesticide use, it is around 1.2 kilograms. From this perspective, the amount of pesticides used in Turkey seems quite low. However, this is not the case.

The region’s economy is directly tied to the volume of trade with neighboring countries and border trade. When Gaziantep is added in, 40% of the exports to Iraq are made via Southeast Anatolia. Gaziantep alone accounts for 30% of total exports. Profiling the economic relations between the provinces in the region and neighboring countries by taking Iraq as an example, we see that 50% of the exports from Diyarbakir go there, with ores and metals taking the lead in volume at 38%. Marble probably makes up 80% of this amount.

Turkey’s traditional security-centered policies to deal with the Kurdish problem became stuck during the rule of the AKP governments that enjoyed a powerful majority in parliament for ten years. Instead of laying groundwork for a peaceful solution along the lines of social consensus, democracy and liberties, the AKP governments chose to raise false hopes by means of so-called “reforms” and “initiatives” and to rely on policies which, in essence, were security-centered in spite of strong support they had in parliament and international circumstances that were favorable to democratization and liberties such as the process of full membership in the EU, not to mention possibilities served up by political developments in the Middle East.

The city of Al Bab to the northwest of Aleppo that the Syrian regime had been forced to totally withdraw from was like a test ground where one could clearly observe the difficult and painful steps the people had to take in order to build democracy. The townspeople of Al Bab were engaged in a struggle to plot the course of their own destiny when a bloody battle was raging in Aleppo only 35 km away. Who will emerge victorious from the fighting in Aleppo would doubtless determine the fate of the smaller Al Bab.

Just as change does not necessarily mean progress, political scheming in Hatay fell short of raising the city to the level of the rest of Turkey. We residents are people who live freely in peace and security regardless of what religion or sect we belong to. Our lives had no traces of blood, tears, grudges, hatred, suspicion or fear. Our level of tension would be less than one percent of the tension existing in the Southeastern province. It is apt to use a well-worn adage: In peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children.

This clear-cut position adopted by Turkey against the Assad government is, before all else, a choice made by Prime Minister Erdogan. Over time, one can see clearly that Erdogan initially believed he could put his cozy relationship with Assad to use in order to find a way out of the crisis; to create dialogue between the regime and the opposition; and project Turkey, an emerging power, as a regional leader capable of overcoming crises without Western intervention.

The acute problems in the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Middle East pressured Turkey to continue playing its regional harmonizing role between its strategic allies and neighbours. The challenge of managing these tensions also appeared to put Davutoglu’s foreign policy formulations and above mentioned principles to the test. The changing nature of the economic and political set-up forced a reconciliation of domestic issues with foreign affairs; in other words, international relations that are now used to meet Turkey’s economic, democratic, social and religious ambitions as defined according to the perceptions of the ruling cadre within the AKP of the “existing realities of the world” setting.

Habap (aka Ekinözü) is a village in the Kovancılar district of Elazı€, inhabited by Armenians until the beginning of the 1990’s, featuring two churches, two schools and a monastery. Fethiye’s grandmother, Heranuş is from this village. Just like many others who survived the 1915 disaster, Heranuş, as well, could not make it back to these lands where she was born and raised. Her grandchild Fethiye Çetin, together with Zeynep Taşkın, took the initiative to restore the two multi-niche fountains with the contributions of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as well as the Hrant Dink Foundation and in collaboration with young Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian volunteers. Don’t let the word “fountain” mislead you into underestimation. These are amazing structures, each with three niches.

The scholarship program is based on our values such as ecology and sustainability, democracy, human rights, justice and gender equality. We are questioning what we should change radically in practice and at an intellectual level to attain a sustainable life and trying to develop policies accordingly.

RDI is an initiative consisting of a group of people and institutions who believe that there is a growing need for rural and local development in an environment which is marked by increasing unemployment, immigration, poverty, lack of clarity in policies; and this need has become more obvious with globalization and the EU accession process.