| 5 |
| Mean Pop Hhs Mean |
| 1950 |
| 636 103 6.2 - (4?) - |
| 1971 |
| 906 137 6.7 252 65 3.9 |
| 1986 |
| 894 153 5.8 849 163 |
| 6 |
| 5.2 |
| Table 1 |
| In Table 1, I give some simple data about households, inhabitants and migrants from S village, for which our coverage is close to complete; notice that by 1986, more of the households patrilineally descended from the original 103 of 1950 are living outside the village. In fact, the outflow accelerated after 1986, and by 1993 there were said to be about 110 households left. Households from S in Antalya rose from 24 in 1986 to 63 in 1993. . Migration and Turkey's Revolutions. When Mustafa Kemal, Ataturk, created the Republic of Turkey in 1923, it was a poor, agrarian country. Eleven years of war had severely disrupted the traditional agricultural and craft based productive systems, and almost destroyed its small modern industry. Since then, Turkey has experienced a truly startling rate of change. Ataturk himself called his political changes a 'revolution' - inkilap, later devrim, in the singular. I would prefer to talk about revolutions in the plural. Exactly how many is a matter of drawing arbitrary - and fuzzy - boundaries, but I list here ten. Perhaps revolution is not the best English word. There was certainly no overturning by popular demand; changes were imposed from the top down, or just happened. Ten major changes; or ten revolutions? Neither word is quite right. I can only make the briefest comments here. I hold that these ten are distinguishable; and ‘important’. Each influenced and was influenced by the others. Or rather, each summarises a whole set of specific interacting changes and events. No descriptive or |
| 7 |
| theoretical model can do full justice to this intense complexity . Add time, - none of these ten happened harmoniously in a time scale with the others - and model building becomes even more approximate. I once coined the overstatement `labour migration is the engine of social change'. But it is at least a necessary and central factor in Turkey’s demographic and economic processes. In some ways, perhaps, migration is less directly relevant to the first two on my list, about politics, and the ninth, about Islam. But not much less. (i). The State The establishment of a totally new kind of State, a sovereign nation state claiming to be validated by the Will of the Turkish People [Berkes 1974, Kili 1969]; and not by loyalty to a Sultan or a Caliph. (ii). Ataturk's Reforms As everyone knows, from 1924 to 1928, Ataturk and his supporters set out to make the formal institutions of this new State as close as possible to a secular version of western European states. He closed the medreses and tekkes,and changed the state education system to a secular one closely modelled on Europe. He replaced Islamic courts with a European type judicial system, using a new set of legal codes translated from European ones. He prohibited religious clothing outside mosques, introduced European hats, changed the script from arabic to latin, and in 1928, removed the reference to Islam from the Constitution. Later, he introduced a European week and a European calendar, and European style surnames in Turkish for all citizens regardless of ethnic origin. These well known changes affected both the formal bases of the social structure - property, marriage, education, trade, organisations, groups - and people's personal habits - clothes, writing, names, learning, |
| 8 |
| worship. (iii). Demographic Growth The population grew from about 13 million in 1923, to 21 million in 1950, to 50 million in 1986, and is still rising at about 2% per annum. These numbers are very much in line with world growth. Plainly, such an unprecedented population put immense strain on the resources of thousands of villages, and forced people to look for an outside income. (iv). Economic Growth From 1923 to 1940, and from 1945 to 1978, the Turkish GNP grew on average at close to 7% p.a.: 7% p.a. doubles every ten years. So in round numbers, it tripled from 1923 to 1940, multiplied more than eightfold, 1945 - 78, and around twentyfold, 1923-1986. With minor setbacks it has continued to grow overall. Again in round numbers, GNP per capita increased fivefold from 1923 to 1986, threefold from 1950 to 1986. These numbers are constructed by economic historians on certain conventions, and are measured at `constant' prices [Hale 1981, World Bank 1986]. I am well aware that econometrics of this kind are open to charges of professional collective fantasy. All the same, very large real changes in the standard of living that correspond to these statistical measures are clearly visible. This rise in the standard of living is both a main cause and a main effect of labour migration. A main cause because it reduces village death rates, raises village expectations, and offers jobs in other sectors. From 1950 to 1986, industry grew at about 8-10% p.a., services at about 6-7%, agriculture at only 2- 5% [Hale 1981, World Bank 1986]. A main effect, because the villagers supply the labour necessary for growth, and many villagers set up businesses and production units which directly generate that growth. |