In his novel "Hunger", Knut Hamsun opens the door to a world where corrupt order prevails by saying, "All this happened during the days when I was wandering around Kristiania hungry." The hero of the novel, published in 1890, is a young writer living in Kristiania, present-day Oslo. He tries to make a living with his pen. He doesn't have a penny. He can't even pay his rent. Over time, he disposes of his belongings one by one. He tries to protect his honor while wandering the streets hungry. What Hamsun describes is not just the hunger of the stomach. Hunger is a thought and it gradually settles in a person's mind. It changes his behavior, his relationships with people, and his understanding of reality. As a person starves, not only his body weakens; His presence in the world also changes, grows or shrinks. Unfortunately, the political record of Hamsun, who gave a shocking portrayal of man's helplessness in the face of a morsel of bread, was not innocent at all. He supported Nazi Germany and did not hide his admiration for Hitler. Perhaps one of the disturbing contradictions of literature lies here: A writer may see human hunger in all its nakedness, but may not be able to take a position with the same clarity against the political world that creates or deepens that hunger. Hamsun makes us think not only about poverty today, but also about the distance between seeing the political causes of poverty.
After all these years, the fact that we still talk about hunger not from literature but from life is an issue in itself. Because what needs to be discussed today in Turkey is the great class inequality that produces poverty. Numbers are sometimes crueler than words. Recently, Kansu Yıldırım also wrote in his column in Evrensel newspaper. The richest 10 percent in Turkey owns 68.4 percent of the total wealth. More strikingly, the share of the richest segment, which constitutes only 1 percent of the population, in the total wealth is 35.1 percent. The share of the poorest 50 percent of the population in total wealth is only 2.7 percent. On one side, half of the country's population. One percent on the other side. 35.1 percent against 2.7 percent. What we call inequality is just the distance between these two numbers. Moreover, when we go to the top of the wealth pyramid, the picture becomes even more clear. According to the calculation made based on Forbes data, the total wealth of only 42 people and families in Turkey reaches 105.3 billion dollars. Here, we are no longer talking about an income difference where we can say "some are a little richer, some are a little poorer". We are talking about an extraordinary concentration of wealth in certain hands. However, wealth is not just money in the bank: it is companies, shares, real estate, means of production, financial assets. Ownership of these is also ownership of future income. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between income inequality and wealth inequality.
Almost everywhere in the world, people would not live the same life if they lived in the same city. One eats well, the other calculates a meal to be distributed at school. One takes private lessons, the other works to contribute to his family. One of them thinks about which school will provide him with more opportunities when choosing a university, the other one thinks about how he will pay the rent in the city he will study in. One chooses one's future. The other tries to make ends meet. This is where what we call class becomes visible. When we look at Turkey, we encounter another historical irony. Once a critic of wealth, ostentation and luxury consumption; Over the years, a new capital and a new culture of wealth has formed around conservative politics, which defines itself with the values of a more modest life, contentment and sharing. In the last quarter century, new companies have grown in Turkey, new fortunes have been created, and new capital groups have gained power around public tenders and large infrastructure investments. Thus, in addition to the criticism of "a handful of rich people" directed at the old elites, the rich people of the period also became visible. The language associated with wealth has also changed. Examples of expensive automobiles, large residences, brands, ostentatious weddings and consumption displayed on social media have increased, replacing the "one bite and one cardigan" of the past. Contentment has been replaced by consumption, embarrassment by exposure. It is not a logical point of view to describe the contradiction here as merely moral. It is clear that this approach, which has examples in world history, is class-based. For this reason, reducing poverty only to the cost of living means talking about the results and leaving the causes silent. However, social morality also greets us in its deepest form. While in Spain the whole population took to the streets as a result of an old bedridden woman being evicted from her home, a similar situation does not occur in our country! It's not happening!
Clearly poverty is not just about what we can eat. It determines which house people live in, how they stay warm, what health care they can access, their child's education, even which book they can buy, whether they can go to the cinema or the theatre, and whether they can have a few days of vacation a year. Poverty also robs people of their time. Because a person who does not have money pays for many things with time. Travels longer. He works overtime. Waits longer. He endures worse conditions. And in the end, life boils down to mere survival. At this point, the real danger begins: Getting used to it. Thinking that inequality is the natural state of life. Seeing the accumulation of billions of dollars of wealth on the one hand, and the difficulty of millions of people in meeting their basic needs on the other, as two independent events. It is clear that poverty is neither a natural phenomenon nor inequality is destiny! There are many economic and political choices that affect how income and wealth are distributed, from tax policies to wages, working conditions to social security, public education to health.
This country has always turned into a testing ground for hunger and class inequality. Forty years ago there were at least writers writing about hunger. Now talking about hunger is reduced to a "shameful" point. Just as I write these lines, television is showing the news of the death of a mine worker who went down to the mine to bring home bread. In other words, inequality today is looking at us not only in the context of the funding crisis, which has been talked about a lot lately, but also from the gap where it will manifest itself in a very painful way.
Once upon a time, there were writers in this country who established a strong relationship between rich and poor. Let's think of Erol Toy's "Eyeblind": the drama of the workers in the city is conveyed. Hüseyin started working at the age of eighteen. Each of them strives to open the door to a humane life. Istanbul Tram Workers eventually went on strike, even though it was forbidden. In this process, Hüseyin will fight for not only himself but also his friends to have the same rights, and he will realize that his experiences have a class basis. He will also show the virtue of saying to his boss, who is trying to get him to join in breaking the strike: "I want nothing for myself, but everything for my class."
Or, while reading the traces of Orhan Kemal's master writing in his stories in his book "Drunks", we suddenly come across back streets, factories, workers' houses and districts, slums, coffeehouses, parks and taverns. A sentence he wrote in his story "Business Man" pierces our hearts: "I dropped my food, my friend, so neither God nor sin!" Without money, there is actually nothing: “Neither God nor sin.”
What I will say is that while the data is so heartbreaking, poverty has not been included in what has been written for a long time. Some politicians say, "Poverty has been eliminated!" Is it because his statement is taken into account? Unknown. In fact, we rarely come across literary figures like Yahya Kemal, who turns poverty into a virtue and salutes him: "He who eats dry bread and white cheese with pleasure/ Says thank God every time he drinks water from the fountain!" Maybe such lines are not written anymore to avoid being funny!
The issue is not whether a country is rich or not, but in whose hands that wealth is concentrated. Moreover, even the literature of those who live in wealth is fed by class inequality. This is normal! Just writing derivatives of love will not save the appearance! Because there is still a child living in a worker's home. He pulled his cardigan over his hands because of the cold. He runs around to avoid getting cold any more.
