3. ANÁLISIS DESCRIPTIVO
3.1 MOMENTO DE GRADO: EGRESADOS ENTRE 2008 Y 2009
3.1.3 Situación laboral
Having seen the number of Greeks decline from sixty-five to thirty-five thousand between 1955 and 1965, or from 5.2% to 2.0% of Istanbul’s population,'*^'* Keyder argued for the existence of an ideological link between Menderes’s urban demolitions and the riots of 6-7 September. He described Laleli, a traditional neighbourhood of his childhood in the postWWII in the core of the historical peninsula, and indicated its radical transformation from a “multiethnic existence” into a Turkish city “in the name of planning” with large boulevards “cutting through densely packed Christian areas of the city.”"^^ Keyder gave a very dramatic and impressive account of the demolitions in the historical peninsula. He described Menderes’s passion for cars, traffic, and large avenues, and crucially indicated the possible links between the riots of 6-7 September 1955 and urban demolitions. Keyder’s discourse on the riots is reminiscent of architect Aydin Boysan’s memories, and of my family’s experiences living in Aksaray, another traditional neighbourhood in the west of Laleli, between the early 1940 and the mid- 1960s, who witnessed the departure of their non-Muslim neighbours in the same time period. And some Muslim families’ properties were demolished as well.'*®® Although personal memories are very persuasive, it is interesting to learn what non-Muslims thought about the aim of urban demolitions, whether they were intended to create a Turkification of the urban pattern. Regarding any possible links between the Turkification project and the urban design, Millas, a Greek Istanbulite researcher, has argued that there was no deliberate ethnic purpose in the urban demolitions of the
452 Millas and A. Boysan, interviews; also partly mentioned in Pope and Pope. 453 B.Boysan, interview.
454 Devlet Istatistik Enstit üsü (The National Institute of Statistics) 1958,1968. 455 Keyder, 1999:175.
456 Hülya Yürekii and AB Azeri, a lawyer at the Istanbul Bar, revealed that their families’ real estates were demolished; interviews.
1950s and the implementation of roads. He questioned whether Menderes’s executions had destroyed only ethnic minorities’ houses, for if that had been the case they would have reacted immediately, being highly sensitive to these issues. According to him, to see the destruction of the houses of ethnic minorities as a reason for Menderes’s urban demolitions would be a careless conclusion to draw. Furthermore, he pointed out the difficulty of identifying and targeting non-Muslims’ real estates among the mixed pattern of property ownership in the historical peninsula. He indicated that Menderes’s demolitions were neither unfair nor discriminatory in execution, like the wealth tax of 1942 was, and that the road programme was a pragmatic policy.'*^^
Personal memories tell us that many buildings of non-Muslims and Muslims alike were demolished, but no clear figures about the ratio of non-Muslims to Muslims’ properties had been released. In order to be more objective, some factual figures were obviously required. To give a closer investigation of the likelihood of the connection between the urban demolitions and the Turkification project by finding out the owners of the demolished real-estates, an important location in the core of the historical peninsula, Aksaray, was selected for collecting data (FIG.4.7). In Aksaray, the area expropriated was much larger than in other parts of the city, a research was carried out at the archive of TAPU in Sultanahmet-lstanbul. TAPU possesses both the official maps and registry data describing the republican real-estate ownership. The following part presents the primary results of this research.
At Aksaray, major urban axes of the city met: the east-west axis (Vatan, Millet, and their already existing continuity towards the eastern part of the historical peninsula Ordu), and the main south-north axis connecting the historical peninsula to the Beyoglu district. The last major road, Atatürk Bulvari, was one of the new roads in Prost’s plan (FIG.4.8). But it has always been Vatan and Millet, with significant meanings of motherland and nation avenues, for old Istanbulites that most strongly symbolised Menderes’s executions, creating powerful visual spatiality (FIG.4.9). Old Istanbulites even remember Menderes entering Ordu avenue and Aksaray leading the demolition team escorted by troops in 1956 and 1957."*®® These roads became the core part of the governmental public relation strategy not only at a local level but also at a national one. Adopted from Prost’s plan, but enlarged almost twice in scale during their execution, Vatan and Millet caused extensive urban demolitions in the historical
^57 Millas, interview.
^5® From the memories of my family; A.Boysan, interview.
peninsula in the m id-1950s, and the “A k s a ra y im m ig ra n ts ” had to m ove o u t to give w ay to this radical co n stru ctio n s ite /^ ^
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