They are no longer migrants, they are a part of us

As Turkey entered the age of nation-states, although it defined itself as a closed country rather than a country receiving immigration, it constantly received migration, and its population composition was constantly shaped by these migrations. Most recently, after the Arab Spring, it faced a new wave of migration, perhaps so large as to be incomparable with the earlier ones.

Migration was not a planned sociological event; indeed, a migration of this scale is never something planned or expected in advance. But the capacity, once it is understood to be unavoidable, to quickly make planning appropriate to it and immediately put in place the necessary measures against the problems that such a wave of migration may produce is a sign of the greatness of a state.

While receiving 3.5 million Syrian migrants in 7 years, Turkey at the outset welcomed them with a hospitality unparalleled in the world. With the camps it established through institutions such as AFAD and the Kızılay, it demolished the standards of the world's refugee camps and set the bar at an unsurpassable height.

With this selfless attitude toward refugees, Turkey both enabled the arriving Syrians to take possession of the place they came to as their own homeland and set a level to be taken as a reference in humanitarian aid in the world. Likewise, the Turkish people did not show any of the negative sociological complications that such a large wave of migration can create. The people of Turkey stood by the Syrians who mingled among the public outside the camps as if they were their own. This gave an opportunity to show that the attitude toward refugees was not merely a government or state attitude.

This formed one of the best examples showing that state administration in Turkey is carried out in extreme harmony and parallel with the values of the people. We have also seen that a much smaller number of refugees has overturned all the political and social balances in Europe. Europe's greatest trouble at present is refugees, and the way of coping with this trouble has reached a point that can determine the fate of even the EU.

Compared with this situation of Europe, everyone admits that Turkey came out of its test regarding refugees with great pride, with its people, its state, and its institutions.

But the matter is not only about accepting refugees at the outset and giving them high humanitarian aid when they first arrive.

When those who came from Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and other Arab Spring countries are added to those who came from Syria, a mass of migrants numbering 4.5-5 million has been in Turkey for about 7 years.

These people are no longer in the condition of their first days of arrival. Most have settled and built new lives, formed new networks of relations. On one side, they are an extremely hardworking and dynamic community, as is characteristic of the sociological condition of migrants. In matters such as forming networks of relations, entrepreneurship and investment, they display an advantage compared with the existing settled society. Because they have to hold on, and this makes them more lively, more solidary among themselves, and more self-sacrificing regarding human values.

These are, of course, observational results we have been able to record at the first stage and quickly. There is certainly a need for deeper sociological analyses. But unfortunately it is not possible at present to say that there are sufficient studies on this. What are the troubles of these migrant masses, what problems do they suffer from, what kind of contribution would they make in the future to Turkey's demographic, professional, brain etc. inventory? There are no serious studies on these.

They have a serious academic accumulation, but these academics' joining Turkey's academic inventory can only happen through entirely coincidental relations. Yet Germany, Canada and some European countries immediately take in those Syrians who have careers in particular and include them directly in the citizenship process.

Some have very significant assets and have immediately converted them into investment in Turkey, but because they cannot travel comfortably, they are subject to great restrictions in developing these investments. Some people who have significant investments in Turkey, when they have to go abroad, need to obtain a visa to come back, and there may be those who cannot obtain this visa because they are Syrian. We encounter countless examples of people who, though they have considerable investments in Turkey, once they went out, could never enter Turkey again.

A significant portion of those here are divided as families, with parts of the families scattered to other countries. Because of our latest visa practices, their reunion, that is, "family reunification", which is regarded as a practice valid all over the world, has become extremely difficult for them. This makes them unhappy where they are. Sometimes, in order to achieve the family reunification they cannot achieve through normal means, they have to resort to various ways, and this can put them in difficulty with the laws in the countries where they are. They have many more problems...

Leaving aside everything, we now have before us a mass numbering five million. They are now a part of our society and, be assured, people who will make very important contributions to Turkey's development in the future one way or another. But there is no comprehensive planning and institutionalization regarding the integration of this new society into Turkey.

There is no institutional structure they can turn to when they are in trouble, or to which they can apply to develop an idea when they have one. There is now a situation that exceeds the limits of AFAD, the Kızılay and the other institutions that welcomed them with great warmth and hospitality when they first arrived.

The Directorate of Migration Management, too, by virtue of its duty, naturally sees them as migrants, and deals with their residence permits, their visas and the situation of those who violate the rules. But they need to be seen as people who are now a part of our society, and their needs need to be approached with a different understanding.