14 March Romani Meeting, Istanbul
Abdi Ipekci Spor Salonu, Istanbul 12:00-16:00
Today, some 16,000 Romani people from all parts of Turkey were literally packed into the Abdi Ipekci Sports Centre to hear the Minister of State, Faruk Çelik, Eleni Tsetsekou (Programme Manager from the council of Europe’s Roma and Traveller Unit), Dr. Ivan Ivanov (Director of the European Roma Information Office) and the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speak about the situation for Romani people and their desire for positive change for the future. The commitment of the AKP government to achieving meaningful change in health provision, educational opportunities, employment and housing in Turkey, for Romani people across the country, is one of the government’s priorities with this ‘democratic opening’.
Mr Erdogan spoke of his childhood in the Romani neighbourhood of Kasimpasha (Istanbul), growing up with Romani people as “brothers and sisters” and understanding their situation very well from this early experience. His friendship with Mr Balik Ayhan in particular had been important to him and Mr Ayhan was at the meeting today to pay tribute to the Prime Minister and his initiative for Romani people. Mr Erdogan’s speech was greeted with enormous enthusiasm by the Romani people, each point followed by thunderous applause and the beating of the big ‘davul’ drums, so famously associated with the Romanlar as musicians in Turkey, from Ottoman times. When Mr Erdogan outlined the situation in many European countries for Roma, mentioning the persecution they faced and the suffering they experienced through deportations and exclusion, he was explicitly drawing attention to the major shift in policies that this meeting heralds in Turkey, laying a justifiable claim to the position of the most positive approach to Romani people in times of increasingly negative governmental attitudes in the rest of Europe.
The actual impact of Mr Erdogan’s initiative and the ‘democratic opening’ for Turkish Romani people, as equal citizens of the Republic before the law and under the Constitution, remains to be seen. Whether the recent attacks upon the Romani community in Manisa, or the destruction of Romani neighbourhoods in Istanbul, Mersin, Diyabakir and other Turkish cities over the past few years will now cease, particularly in the context of the complex political situation that this series of democratic initiatives has opened up (with the Alevi and Kurdish peoples), is also open to question. The increasing polarization of Turkish society around these issues has led to a fractious and potentially divisive situation where those who support such moves are pitted almost intractably against those who represent the older, traditional secularist and military-political alliance in Turkey.
These competing versions of modernization in Turkey are struggling for dominance and it is still possible that the Romani people will be caught between the two. Today’s huge meeting indicates that the forces for democratization are able to drive the social inclusion agenda in particular directions and encourage the support of the wider European Romani organizations and international institutions that promote Roma rights. However, in Turkey such innovations are often derailed, as the history of the late Ottoman Empire and Republic have shown.
Today however, the atmosphere was one of positive promise and the long awaited recognition of the Romani people, as entitled to equality and deserving of respect in Turkey. Today, the Turkish Romani citizens felt themselves to be so and to be spoken to as such by their Prime Minister. Citizenship and equality in Turkey, “Ille’de Roman olsun!” Mr Erdogan said, and the crowd roared it’s approval; “I insist that this will be Romani!”
Dr. Adrian Marsh
Researcher in Romani Studies, Istanbul
adrianrmarsh@mac.com
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