City lights

摘要

Turkey is divided into two parts. There is Istanbul and its political appendage, Ankara, and there is the rest. This "other" Turkey, most of it in the east, is a vaguely defined area from which the cosmopolitan inhabitants of Istanbul and Ankara carefully insulate themselves. Until very recently they would have travelled mere only under firm instructions from the armed forces or the government. Conversely, people from the eastern regions hardly ever made it to positions of power. Now, however, there are some easterners in the ministerial team. Burhan Yenigun, the mayor of the remote eastern city of Van, says some ministers in office today were at school with him. In a country where whom you know still matters at least as much as what you know, that is helping Turkey's disadvantaged east feel more involved in the democratic process.