The Gaziantep model

In a sense, Turkey is Turkey through its cities. The coexistence and urban culture that each of our cities has produced in one period or another brings out the concrete product and manifestation of all the claims we put forward as a country. The city, in the full sense of the word, "displays" as a product all the feelings, intentions and quality within a society.

This is of course not something to idealize too much. Sometimes very beautiful products emerge that are perfect, that you can admire, express with pride, and see resting on a philosophical depth and a sensitivity of principle. But the city is not only a place where good people and their good intentions show themselves. In a sense, whatever is inside shows outward, is displayed, becomes the city.

Most of the philosophical depths that historians of civilization attribute to works that show outward and have come down to our day through repeated restoration are generally projected readings. Restoring is not reproducing the work as it was; it in fact takes the form of rebuilding its meaning from scratch today through a certain interpretation. That a considerable part of the beauties attributed to past civilizations is related to nostalgia seems a natural consequence of the way human beings think.

Gaziantep's being a deeply rooted city in the sense of civilization too, with an identity and a culture, undoubtedly makes it very special. These features enable it to play an active role in Turkey's general development, progress and civilizational performance. Of course, in this respect, though it is original, it has features that categorically must be considered alongside our other cities such as Bursa, Konya and Kayseri. The cultural and spiritual features coming from the depths of history meet the initiative-taking, entrepreneurial character of the city's people, and an exceptional Gaziantep model emerges.

An additional feature of this model is that it has been the first gateway of reception for the intense Syrian migration it has recently received. Historically Gaziantep and Aleppo have had an inseparable closeness both as cities and in human diversity, and both economically and culturally. The Gaziantep Citadel is like a small-scale copy of the Aleppo Citadel, and the two cities, which developed around a citadel built on a hill within the city, developed in the same direction in history. Now, of course, a serious difference has formed. But despite the border placed between them in Syria in the post-republic period, transport and trade between the two cities were never entirely cut off.

That is why Gaziantep's acceptance of the Syrian migrant, though of course not without problems, is the scene of very different experiences from the acceptance of other cities. It makes use of part of the migrants who arrive as labor. As we have mentioned before, Gaziantep has long received serious migration from the other cities of the region and integrates this migration into the city very successfully. Now, with those coming from Syria, it is to some extent experiencing a repetition of that experience.

Moreover, those who have come are not only unskilled labor; as we have also mentioned before, there is a serious class of employers, industrialists and merchants. When we describe this part of the matter, there are also businessmen who call from other cities, for example Istanbul, Konya and Bursa, and relay their impressions. According to these impressions, which also confirm many similar observations of mine, this is not the Syrians' only contribution.

That is, it is not only cheap or convenient labor, or the fact that some are businessmen and investors. Syrians who are currently working in many companies as consultants or international trade experts or trade partners come with their networks to form the busiest bridge for Turkish firms' exports to the whole Arab world, and they add these business networks to Turkey's social capital.

They have a very important share in the figures recently recorded in Turkey's trade with the Middle East and Arab countries. The leading figures of the trade of Aleppo, Damascus and Idlib, who earlier established their connection with the world from their own cities, have now established it through Turkey and have built intensely functioning bridges between Turkish industrialists and businessmen and the business world of Muslim countries. Moreover, this part of the matter tends to develop further with each passing day.

In fact, the Gaziantep experience, precisely in these respects, together with our other cities in a similar category, very much deserves to be studied more closely and modeled by our sociologists. Of course not only with its positive features but together with the problems and flaws we have recorded in our culture of urbanization and their social consequences.

NOTE: The expression "actual unemployment is almost near zero" that I used regarding unemployment figures in my previous article titled "One Should Look at Turkey and the World from Gaziantep Too" was an expression that, since I had no opportunity to verify the real figures, I thought included a margin of caution of my own. It was an expression used on the basis of the complaints of the many industrialists I listened to that they cannot find staff to work. Of course, unemployment in no economy is, or can be, "zero."