Esin – Turkey

Esin’s hometown, Aksaray, is a conservative little town

next to Ankara, in the very middle of Anatolia. There are
usually gossips around even about teenagers’ loves.
That’s why it has been boring for her for 17 years. She has
tried to keep her distance during high school years
because she said that it was a boarding school with
students from various cities around Ankara. However, she
moved to Istanbul during her university years but she still
has a few friends and some relatives at her hometown.
At Esin’s last visit in Aksaray, in some sense she felt at
home at the time she was very disappointed about her
love, her bachelor, and her health. That visit was an old
and familiar arms embracing her. She doesn’t know how
Aksaray is nowadays so but it is the time to visit her old
friend again.

About Turkey, her country, she thinks it is a shame that

she hasn’t seen a lot places in her own country.

Esin loves the chaotic or mixed structure of her country,

signs of various civilizations, religions, language and other
riches of Turekey. Yet, the lost of this mixture is the biggest
problem for her. One thing she thinks is wrong with her
country is that in Turkey, people barely accept themselves.
Esin thinks her country is more nationalistic that it needs
to be and it excludes or ignores some parts of society.

In her freshman year, Esin had a hospital experience that

made her much sensitive about the world around her.
Also, the disputes in both Palestine and Iraq during those
years made her think about activism more. There was big
debate in Turkey whether Turkey would have supported US
and entered in Iraq with its military or not. She
participated in some protests both in her campus and in
Istanbul. She went to protest against the permit to military
in Ankara through a train of colorful anarchists with a big
passion and belief in influencing the parliament on the day
of voting the permit. Esin with other protesters organized
a very peaceful protest in Ankara where the parliament is.
At the end of the day, they learnt that the permit did not
have enough votes. So her participation made a big
difference and she felt good about it and the power that
civil society CAN change something or influence politics.

Esin thinks she is so passionate about immigration issues

around the world that she believes she is a little bit
obsessed with it. She criticizes migration policies, even the
terms used in migration or multicultural policies such as
assimilation, tolerance, integration etc. So, Esin would
eliminate all the borders around the world and see what
will happen.

Esin believes in creating some migration policies regarding

multiculturalism and racism. Because there are various
people from diverse backgrounds here and all these
backgrounds have their own migration histories, mostly
emigration. Esin believes that people in the LT Network are
very promising, as well. She believes that we can aim to
keep this network and feed us with challenging
perspectives, which are the source of creative policies.

By: Jetmir Bakija - Kosovo