Read Online Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol - Free Book Online Page B

benefited us? As we said, there are more than a thousand unlicensed factories. Leather, paint, textiles, glass, pharmaceuticals – everything you can think of. And what does the government do? Nothing. The industrialists get rich and the governor drives a Mercedes. Matter closed. I’m all right, Jack. The businessman who creates the most pollution gets elected industrialist of the year. What don’t you believe? It’s all there before your very eyes!”
    â€œThe governor has a Mercedes?” I asked.
    â€œYep. The industrialists got together and bought a Mercedes for the governor of Kocaeli so that he would leave them in peace to pollute the environment. It was in all the papers. Didn’t you read about it?”
    Obviously not. That’s what comes of not reading the papers.
    â€œCan’t the villagers get together and do something?”
    â€œThat’s what our dear Saniye was trying to do,” said the blond man, his hand resting on Rıfat’s shoulder.
    â€œOur villagers are timid and inactive. They’re scared of falling out of favour with the government, and it seems to be impossible to shake them out of their passive way of thinking. They believe they’ll lose their land or get sacked if they stick their necks out. What do you do with people like that?” said Rıfat angrily.
    Once started, there was no stopping him.
    â€œBut you’ve already lost your jobs,” said the man sitting at the far table, who seemed to take Rıfat’s comments as a personal threat.
    â€œEveryone complains about the factories and pollution,” said Rıfat, “but most of them have children working in those factories. If the villagers hadn’t sold their land to the industrialists, there wouldn’t be any industry here. They sold fertile land for a handful of gold and became factory workers. Eventually they were sacked, and now they go hungry and spend all their time hanging around in cafés. It’s too late for regrets now.”
    â€œWere you with Sani when she visited the villages?” I asked, with a growing suspicion that these industrialists might have arranged to get rid of Sani because they feared she’d be able to get the villagers organized. If industrialists could collectively organize the purchase of a Mercedes for the Kocaeli governor, it was surely not beyond the bounds of possibility that they could cooperate over a murder.
    â€œWe went from door to door, village to village, explaining the problem,” said Rıfat. “The environmental pollution created by industry isn’t our only problem. There’s also population growth, or the migrant issue.”
    â€œWe noticed some tents outside the village on our way here.”
    â€œThey’re not migrants,” said Rıfat with a rueful smile. “They’re Gypsies. They live in Lüleburgaz and come here as seasonal labourers to work in the fields. The other villages won’t let them set up their tents. Our village is the only one they can persuade to let them stay. People say Gypsies steal, yet our government deprives our unborn children of bread. If a Gypsy goes stealing, at least it’s for a chicken. And good luck to him! But we’ve seen no sign of them stealing anything so far.”
    â€œDo they work in the fields for cheaper rates?”
    â€œOf course. What else can they do, poor wretches? Around here, both our Bulgarian kinsmen and the Gypsies get taken for a ride. Bulgarians get twenty lira a day, while Gypsies get fifteen.”
    â€œSo why do you complain about the rise in population, then?”
    â€œThe government wants to make this area completely industrialized. The papers say the population of Thrace will rise to four million within a decade. They’re going to build ten thousand new houses in Gebze and Çorlu and send Istanbul’s surplus population out to us. Everyone knows that Thrace can’t even cope with its