‘There’s nowt so queer as folk’

For those who may be morbidly interested, I had been refused the job seekers allowance due to the fact that I have no National Insurance credits for the last two years. Of course not: I was working in Turkey and was paid “under the table” as so many of us in the teaching profession are. As a non-EU and Schengen signatory, Turkey remains beyond the pale, and therefore I do, too. No matter. Strangely, I have just had confirmation that the Housing Department will pay my rent. No legitimate income then, but at least a guarantee of keeping a roof over my head. It gets even more complex: I am registered at a local health center and can see my doctor gratis as well as obtain such medication he sees appropriate to prescribe me. However, as I discovered today, I have to pay for dental treatment despite having letters that prove I am, officially, of no income. Fair enough. It just seems that the system here is in an oblique position; the right hand clearly doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and vice versa.

Comments on this Web site have chided me with being a scrounger, of benefiting from the apparent largesse of Turkey's “invisible economy,” of being naive, selfish, or self-serving and much more besides. Ignorant of just how bad the situation in the UK has become is one accusation I will put my hands up to. Even stupid, if you like. My mother asked me the other day why I didn't simply return to Turkey. It is a question I ask myself every day whilst shaving. I am here, however, for one very poignant and personal reason: to rebuild my relationship with my daughter, who has barely seen me over the past 20 years.

Rebuilding relations

Divorce seems to be de rigeur these days, but it is a traumatic, terrifying and tawdry experience which usually leaves no party truly satisfied. Least considered, but largely damaged, are the children. My daughter was 6 years old at the time her mother and I divorced, and I can still picture her questioning and misunderstanding face as she watched from the top of the stairs while I packed what belongings I could carry into my car. She blamed herself and it was years before that misconception was resolved. She visited me twice in İstanbul, and on the second occasion made a hard-to-misinterpret request that I come “home” so that we could develop a mature and adult relationship that would go some way, not to erase, perhaps, but to rescue and recover us from the disastrous past. This is, therefore, what I decided to do. No one, whether among my family, friends or foes, seems to grasp this point. My daughter and I are strangely alone in knowing what we have embarked upon and why. It is with some surprise and consolation that my daughter, on our weekly meetings either for dinner or to visit a sports center, remarks upon the tastes, traits and thoughts that we hold in common. I am not so surprised; but then I have the advantage on her both in age and retrospective knowledge. She is, without a doubt, her father's daughter even to her mother's chagrin.

This is not the point, however. I have now been granted basic benefits to cover my living expenses as well as rent. I am very grateful for that. In a society and an economy that is clearly breaking down, it is always going to be of some succor that the system can provide a minimum of social support that guarantees the basic necessities of life, which include a roof over one's head and the bare essentials of life to buy food and other needs.

Worse, in my opinion, is the actual state of the average person on the street. Sitting at the terrace of my favorite bar in a small street that runs from the central market, past Tescos -- a major supermarket chain -- to a street where the local Job Center is housed, I can hear and observe the people who populate this city. It reminds me of sitting in a similar situation in Kadıköy. Why? Because the level of conversation has become so, on the one hand, banal, and on the other hand, aggressive. The brutality of inter-personal relationships was starkly brought home to me when I accepted an invitation to go out with an ex-business partner of mine whose son is my godson. The music was deafening, and the underlying ambiance was threatening to the point that I actually had to leave. Visiting some of the more-frequented bars and clubs off İstiklal Caddesi in Taksim or “Bar Street” in Kadıköy generates the same sense of fear combined with total incomprehension. Maybe I am just getting old; or maybe there has been a sea-change in how people socialize and in their demands and expectations when they go out.

Turkey remains, in my opinion, one of the most hospitable and pleasant places to live. Yes, of course there are economic problems, as there are almost all around the globe. Yes, there are the unemployed, the homeless and the also-rans of society that we see and confront every day on our commute to work. There is, too, an underbelly of deprivation and poverty which needs to be addressed by the government. Jesus once famously said, “The poor will always be with you.” Just so. The imbalance between the rich and the poor remains an intractable problem that faces every country and no one has really been able to resolve this dichotomy.

Thinking of others

This is the month of Ramadan. It is traditionally a time to reflect upon the state of the poor or underprivileged in our society. It is also a time to consider how we can aid the increasing number of those who may be unemployed, disenfranchised or dislocated from traditional society -- through, perhaps, no fault of their own. Ramadan is a time of fasting -- a time to make a personal sacrifice. It is personally beneficial both in terms of our health, as well as our interaction with the people we see and meet every day, despite the discrepancies between our economic and social situation.

We see the poor and disenfranchised begging on the streets, trying to sell us a packet of tissues, or a pen, or any other number of things that we need, use, abuse and take for granted every day. What we may not appreciate is the actual mental, physical or psychological state of these people. Listening to those who walk past my table, as comfortable as I may feel I am, I have come to the conclusion that all is not as it appears to be. Albeit in İstanbul or Norwich, the fact of the matter remains that a large percentage of people are in dire straits and are trying to defend themselves as a way of reacting to their perceived injustice in a world where highly paid bankers can cream off bonuses on the back of failure while the rest of us try to find a way to pay next month's rent, home insurance or grocery bill. People are strange, we think, and “There's nowt so queer as folk,” as they say in the North here. But before making a judgment call on a person you deem to be in some way inferior to you, think how you would feel in the same circumstances.