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Index Self Service City: İstanbul | Imprint |
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Orhan Esen |
Material production of the city of İstanbul
on the part of small actors Gecekondu, classic: Self-made
garden towns Basically, gecekondu implies the conquest of land from the bottom. Gece means "the night" and kondu "settled or landed". Consequently, gecekondu means "landed at night", which gives us a clue to the kind of settlement taking place during the first wave of migration. The term thus designates some kind of massive-scale, spontaneous action to deal with the housing issue under conditions where the conventional model of individual house building - which was successful at the times of rapid rural exodus and industrialization after World War II - simply failed, while neither the state (through promotion or regimentation) nor the capital (through profit generation) were ready or able to intervene. As the nation's limited resources were to be used to promote industrialization, there was not much left for urbanization: Immigrants were asked to do as they pleased as long as they did it on their own! The genesis of the gecekondu is steeped in myths: As legend has it, anybody who was able to put up four posts and a roof overnight was entitled to keep it. This myth indicates that there were still traces of the ancient sultan law in the rural consciousness - a relict from the old times when all land was owned by the state, i.e., the sultan, while individuals were entitled only to a hereditary right of use granted against labour and tax. Against this background it made sense that a farmer was allowed to build a house next to the field he cultivated. This perception appeared to suit all the parties involved. Those working in the factories thought nothing about building houses in the immediate vicinity: one-storey, often with a garden for personal use. The building of houses and settlements often was in keeping with the traditions of the Anatolian imece, rural collective work. This led to the emergence of settlements which were not produced for a market value, but built by users with their own hands for personal use. This land-taking was by no means legal under applicable law. Nevertheless, it was considered legitimate not only by the occupiers. So the legalization was promoted in a "multilateral" approach where everybody had a stake. The state was able to save urbanization costs (<.> Bilgin, Modernisierung …) and counteract political conflicts resulting from the traumatizing impacts of urbanization. In calculating the cost of labour, businesses were able to disregard housing expenses. And politicians had come upon a treasure trove with a huge potential of new voters, whose loyalty to party structures could be secured against entry into the land register. Last not least, the gecekondu people themselves had a chance to socially support their "becoming a city dweller" while it was easy to finance and somewhat mitigated in its impact. This was made possible by the availability of a lot of developable state- or foundation-owned land. The new inhabitants of the gecekondus had been spared the very painful experience of a full-scale expropriation and economic expulsion from their lands usually related to conventional types of urbanization. A full and merciless proletarianization was incompatible with the corporative instinct the republic had inherited from the Ottoman class-ruled society. Industrial labour was considered to be some kind of replacement for field work, which was not abandoned altogether: During the summer holiday, the harvest, people were back "home", a place where they could stock up for the winter and cut the cost of urban living. The gecekondus usually developed within walking distance to the industrial sites, mostly on the (steep) slopes surrounding industrial valleys like Dolapdere, Kağithane and Alibeyköy, or west of the old town walls of Zeytinburnu which was situated between two industrial zones by the Sea of Marmara, as well as along the southern slope of the Kayişdaği-Aydos range on the Asian side, parallel to İstanbul's eastern industrial zone stretching along the arterial road to Ankara. People would walk down the hills from the gecekondu settlements - which almost always had names ending with tepe, "hill" - thereby saving the fares for transportation to the workplace. In the beginnings, there were some conflicts between security forces and the new settlers. These quarrels were usually related to policing acts of local functionaries who had a middle-class attitude towards cleanliness and urban aesthetics, which made them feel obliged to restore urban law and order. This kind of bulldozer action, which reflected an allergic reaction and ideological motivations (aesthetics / order / cleanliness), often made the front page, which is confirmed by a look into press archives. But demolished houses were soon to be rebuilt, and the gecekondu life was back to normal. Gecekondu was the generally accepted solution, which was officially confirmed in the early sixties. Gecekondus came into being not only in the periphery, but also in the gaps in the urban fabric, in backyards and vegetable gardens, even in the midst of historical building stock. The exodus of capital from the historical peninsula and the ensuing (as of 1850) decay and decline in value, as well as the general shrinkage of the city in the wake of the world economic crisis and the relocation of the capital city to Ankara had contributed to the creation of many open spaces in the now loosened urban fabric, which were comparatively inexpensive for small farmers migrating from the country. The residents of the gecekondus had not much confidence in the civil law. Instead, they chose to depend on practical survival strategies, societal ties, and the consolidation of (urban) development measures. For instance, they would fly the Turkish flag - as a symbol of their being part of the nation - to protect their houses from being torn down. They enlisted patrons from political circles and named their settlements after them. They organized their communities and, simultaneously, their own economic networks in the fields of building, transport (minibus / dolmuş and people's bus) and distribution of consumer goods, thereby creating crisis-proof zones of local economy. Whenever they found there was no electricity or running water, they just tapped it elsewhere and installed their own transformers and cables. As they got noticeably smarter, they discovered their voting potential and were in turn discovered by politicians. They got themselves organised in local committees of political parties, showed a lively interest in local policy and knew to swap their votes for urban achievements such as running water, power supply, sewers, streets, and not least the legalization of occupied land. The formal ceremonies held to hand out the deeds certifying the land register entry (tapu) were symbolic acts of public presentation. A picture taken in the fifties shows three parties to such a convention: There is the distinguished politician surrendering the tapu (high politics is still a privilege of his caste). Standing on the opposite side of the picture is a woman, as a representative of the gecekondu residents, who is receiving her tapu. The extraordinary role women played in the shaping of the gecekondu environment is a subject of study which to date has been largely neglected. Of historic significance as a prototype is the moustached man of darker complexion standing next to her. Sporting the emblem of the governing right-wing liberal, conservative Democratic Party which is sewn onto his breast pocket, he displays an industrious expression, looking straight into the camera (or the future), thereby pushing into the centre of the picture. The self-, or better, city-made immigrant without conventional school education, who according to right-wing policy is yet to remain in the shadow and under the patronage of his upper middle class brothers, is all set to climb the societal ladder in the not-too-far future. Starting out as a self-appointed urban planner in the decision-making committees of newly founded districts in the eighties he will work his way up to becoming a town father, or even a senior mayor, in the nineties. He is an early incarnation of today's head of state Erdogan, who represents this very collective career of new citizens in two generations. Yet in the period in between - during the sixties and seventies - İstanbul had experienced the development of a unique socio-political climate: The initial scepticism and distance between the "northern" middle classes and the gecekondus had somewhat decreased. The then radicalised urban members of the educated classes gradually recognised the gecekondu as a beneficial form of urbanization which emphasized the human utility value, welcoming it as a new supplementary form of using the urban space. An all-İstanbul spirit seemed to rule. The socio-political alliance arising out of this milieu put the social democrats in (municipal) power in the seventies, and both groups joined forces to fight the extreme right-wing 'Grey Wolves' during the "undeclared civil war" 1973-80. Even İstanbul's literal occupation by hundreds of thousands of workers on June 15 and 16, 1970, apparently did not alienate the two groups, but triggered a wave of sympathy and identification which continued beyond the coup d'état of March 12, 1971. (1) The gecekondu people succeeded in converting their inherent rural poverty into comparative wealth within the space of one generation. The initially barren settlements soon became literally flowering garden towns. Among other things, they thus fulfilled an ideological objective of the Kemalist republic, which called for a "united people without classes or privileges" whilst seeking to avoid dichotomies such as urban / rural or capitalist / worker. The garden town, which was neither country nor city or both rural and urban, was perfectly convenient (<.> Erkarslan). As far as the gecekondus were concerned, there had not even been a need for public spending. This kind of archetypal gecekondu as integrated settlement has now disappeared from İstanbul's face, with the exception of a few enclaves (e.g., Karanfilköy) following an autonomous course.
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