Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
Paul Stirling
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE VILLAGE AND THE WORLD
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Page 266
The Urban-Rural Divorce
Villagers live in a national society, which they share with people far wealthier, far more educated, far more powerful than they are themselves. In Turkey this wealthier and more powerful section of the society lives almost exclusively in towns. The villages are dependent economically on the national economy and formally subordinate to the administrative and party political machinery of both local and national government; and they are well aware of their dependence and subordination. Yet they have comparatively little to do with these people who control their existence, and see only a tiny proportion of them. Moreover, most urban people know little about the villages and fill the gap of their ignorance with unshakeable misconceptions. in a country where four-fifths of the people live in villages, where government expects and is expected directly to control the economic life and the general welfare of these four-fifths, and where they have the vote, these misconceptions have interesting consequences.
One of the most often repeated statements about Middle East society is that town and countryside are completely divorced. Yet obviously both sides are dependent on each other economically and politically, and the rulers must have a machinery for enforcing their rule, a machinery whose complexity and efficiency grows with the growth of the functions of government. All this implies considerable and complex social relationships. What is it then that people who assert the divorce of town and country wish to say? Firstly, they are struck by the great difference between relations between Middle East intellectuals and the countryside and the corresponding relations in Western
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