Interview
Muzaffer Eryılmaz: Towards a healthy Çankaya
By Bernard KENNEDY
As the home of the Turkish administration in Ankara, Çankaya is a household name not only for our many readers who live there but for everybody in Turkey. The administration of Çankaya itself is in the hands of urban district mayor Muzaffer Eryılmaz. The son of a military officer, Eryılmaz was born in Sarıkamış (Kars) in 1949, but attended school in Ankara and later graduated from the medical faculty of Hacettepe University. He became secretary general of the youth branch of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 1974 and director of health affairs at Ankara Municipality in 1978-1980. In the wake of the 1980 coup, he was tried but acquitted under the now-defunct, “anti-communist” articles 141 and 142 of the Penal Code. Eryılmaz specialised in radiology and became a professor in 2000. He has been an active member of innumerable clubs and associations in areas as diverse as sport, social work and the protection of animals. He was elected mayor for a five-year term in 2004. We talked to him about Çankaya and the work of its municipality.
Q Let’s begin by talking a little about your district, Çankaya. I understand it is Turkey’s largest district…
A That’s correct. Çankaya is not an ordinary district. According to the 2000 census results, its total population is 769,331. This makes Çankaya Turkey’s sixth largest city, on a city centre basis, following Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bursa. From the standpoint of its total population, Çankaya is larger than 54 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, including Bolu, Çanakkale, Edirne, Erzincan, Eskişehir, Muğla, Sakarya and Tekirdağ.
Çankaya is also important because it is home to almost all the major national institutions including the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the Presidential Palace, the Prime Ministry and the armed forces commands. The great leader Mustafa Kemal, who made Ankara the capital of the Republic, entered the city from Dikmen, which is within the borders of our district. All the embassies are also located in Çankaya.
The cultural and commercial activities of the capital are also mostly concentrated in Çankaya. There are 800,000 taxpayers, which is more than the total number of taxpayers in the other three central districts of the capital. In the daytime, the population of Çankaya reaches two million.
Just to give one or two more figures, Çankaya has an area of 22,000 hectares and 104 neighbourhoods. There are 350,000 dwellings, 70,000 workplaces, eleven hospitals, 166 primary schools, 35 high schools and eight universities. Out of Çankaya’s population, 17 percent live in ‘gecekondu’ (squatter settlements).
Q As a long-term resident of Çankaya, what do you personally consider to be the district’s biggest problems?
A The biggest problem of Çankaya is the lack of empty space. The population is dense and every square metre is full of buildings. We would like to establish new parks - open areas which enable the city to breathe. The number of parks is just as important for Çankaya as for the other districts. The congested development has negative effects on the psychology of the people. If only there were fewer dwellings in Çankaya and more open spaces which we could turn into parks and green areas! We want Çankaya to be a place which has solved its basic problems, where arts and culture thrive and where tranquil, healthy and happy people live.
Q You are a medical professor. Why did you choose to engage in politics and seek mayoral office?
A I have been involved with the social democracy movement ever since I was young. Even though I became a medical professor, I never lost my interest in politics. To me, becoming a mayor was just a natural extension of my devotion to social justice.
Q What was your basic aim when you became mayor of Çankaya, and to what extent do you think you have achieved your targets so far?
A My basic aim is to run a social municipality. I wanted to recreate healthy ties between people and their environment. I still have more than half of my mandate ahead of me. But already I think we have had some success, particularly concerning women, children, the handicapped and the elderly. For example, we have opened training courses for people to render services for the old, the ill and the handicapped in their own homes. We have opened the ‘Çengel Café’ in order to contribute to the education of mentally handicapped people. We have established a Social Solidarity Center called TODAM. In principle we are dedicated to helping poor people. The TODAM market which we have set up gives the poor the opportunity to acquire all the clothing which they need in a way which does not offend their dignity or turn into an advertisement.
Q You mentioned the importance of parks, but at the same time there seems to be a lot of tree-cutting and trimming going on. What are you doing for the environment?
A I believe the environment should be protected in the best possible manner not only for the benefit of people but also for the sake of every living being. It is very important to create green areas, to raise the people’s awareness of the environment and to take measures to protect it.
Trees have to be trimmed so that they will live longer, but we do not tolerate cutting them down. We are very sensitive about this. In fact, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and TEMA – an organization set up to combat soil erosion - we have jointly established the Happiness Forest. This is an area where couples who are about to get married plant saplings. So far, we have had 1,600 plantings.
It is also very important for us that the city should be clean and that it should be kept clean in a systematic way. We are proud to be a member of the Healthy Cities Project. As you know, a lot of criteria have to be fulfilled. We did a lot of work in various fields before we earned the right to call ourselves a healthy city, and we continue to make very comprehensive efforts in this area.
Q Are you doing anything for the street animals?
A Yes we are gathering up street animals in our domestic animals shelter. Here we take care of them, neuter them and find new owners for them. We have also put a Mobile Care and Neutering Vehicle into service.
Q What is the municipality doing in the field of culture and sport?
A We have reorganized the Contemporary Arts Center. We have opened the Çankaya Municipality Show Centre, which is the biggest entertainment hall in Ankara with a capacity of 3,500. We organized a festival of one-person plays. Our Wednesday Concerts provide musical feasts for enthusiasts of classical music all year round. Then there are major concerts, there is the Çankaya City Theatre...
The Çankaya Municipality Sports Club is strong in many branches of sport, among them volleyball and handball. We channel young people towards a very wide range of sports.
Q Where do the responsibilities of district mayors begin and end? After all, there is also a Greater Ankara Municipality. Are there any things that you want to do but can’t?
A Recent legislation has practically turned the urban district municipalities into branches of the metropolitan municipalities. This prevents modern city administrations from spreading the initiative to the people. For years, the country has been debating the centralisation of government, but in practice our localisation efforts are being impeded by the new legislation. District Municipalities are unable to implement any project which is not approved by the Metropolitan Municipality Assembly. The implementation of major projects requires a budget. However, our budget is approved by the Metropolitan Municipality Assembly. Various restrictions and certain economic difficulties make it very hard to implement original projects. Even so, we can claim a number of “firsts”.
Q Are you generally in favour of increasing the authorities of local administrations? Who do you think should be responsible for what?
A We believe that the authorities of the local administrations should be extended. They should be given greater responsibility areas in the fields of health and education. In arts and culture, we consider that efforts made on a voluntary basis are insufficient, and that local administrations should be able to allocate serious amounts of resources. Provided the supervision mechanism functions properly, extending the authorities of local administrations will be very beneficial for our country.
Q What kind of relationship does the municipality have with the foreigners living in Çankaya and with the embassies?
A Like all people living within the borders of Çankaya, foreign nationals naturally expect services from us and benefit from our services. Every request which comes from the embassies is a priority issue for us. From our point of view, Çankaya is like a window opening up to the foreign world via the embassies. We carry out cultural and artistic work in conjunction with them, and at the Contemporary Arts Centre, we also organize exhibitions, panels and celebrations in order to make different cultures known to our citizens. There is a lot of cooperation with respect to marking national days. We also have twin city arrangements with many cities in many countries.
Q What are your targets for the remaining period of your mandate? Do you have any special projects?
A We will continue to do the things which we said we would do for Çankaya when we took office. Our work is ongoing. We attach due importance to basic municipal services such as asphalting, cleaning and maintenance. We have set up TODAM and we will now put our projects for women, children and elderly people into practice. We are going to open a hospital for elderly people and centres where women will be able to participate more fully in production. We will carry out work to ensure that our children develop healthily and receive sufficient education.
Q Are you able to find time between your work for your profession and your hobbies?
A My biggest hobby is animals. I love them a lot. We all know that there are many animals living on the streets. Some of them are now in our shelter, where they live in a healthy environment. I try to spend some time with my own dogs and with the animals in the shelter.
Q Would you like to be a mayor once again? Will you return to your profession one day? Or will we see you in politics in a different capacity in future?
A I can only give you a classic response. If your aim and intention is to be of service, then you will experience the same happiness whether you are a medical doctor, a mayor or a teacher. As long as people expect you to serve them, you continue to render services. We have done a lot of things in Çankaya but there are a lot of things still to be done. So for now I am seeking only to raise the quality of our services. It is difficult to know what will happen in the future. In essence, it is the conditions of the country which determine all our fates.
(DIPLOMAT - January 2006 - Ankara)