Shadi and Nima

Shadi had been a schoolteacher in Iran before the government banned her from teaching in 1981. Now it was September 2002, and she and her son, Nima, were seeking permission to enter Europe. In the meantime, they lived at the end of an unpaved alley in Aksaray, a poor but developing neighborhood in Istanbul.

Most Iranians—migrants and tourists—knew of Aksaray before arriving in Istanbul. There are Iranian travel agencies, restaurants and cabarets, and real estate agents along its main streets, and it is famous for its bargain shopping. It is also home to many other migrants, including Bangladeshis, Afghans, and Africans. In some ways, Aksaray was a migrant city within the larger metropolis of Istanbul. For Shadi, its attraction was the relatively cheap rents.

When Shadi arrived in Istanbul, Aksaray was going through many changes. Two separate worlds were emerging. In the trendy part of the neighborhood, billboards advertised new fashions in clothing and displayed oversized photos of glamorous models. In renovated buildings, storefront boutiques sold popular Turkish and foreign clothing—Mavi and Levi's jeans, Nike sneakers. Other shops specialized in textile products and leather for markets in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and other countries in Eastern Europe. Their names resonated with imitations of famous brands from New York City: Proud Sportswear, Juris Collection, Murat Collection, Ronaldo Sport Collection, Lisa Collection, Joan Jeans, Premier Life, Bonny Jeans. Merchandise was priced in both dollars and euros.

This was the facade of Aksaray. Away from the main road, the boutiques were replaced by auto repair shops, small corner stores, men selling fresh produce from horse-drawn carts. This was the old Aksaray: run-down buildings with narrow dark stairways, back alleys, abandoned building lots. It was home to Roma, Kurds, and poor Turks living on the margins of society: street vendors, manual laborers working at incomes below a living wage, and those who hustled many long hours and dwelled in overcrowded tenements.

Aksaray had an unusually high number of hotels and hostels. In the 1980s, many migrants and their smugglers used such hotels for negotiations and deal making. Crossing the borders in the Turkish southeast, the migrants came straight to Aksaray. They checked into already designated hotels, sat in the lobby, and sipped tea with other hotel guests. In less than a few days, they found a smuggler, made the deal, and left Istanbul for their destination in Europe. Traveling was easier in those days. Border control was less strict. Europe was more receptive to migrants and asylum seekers.

"The job was easy," an Iranian-born British citizen told me. "You didn't have to do any searching. Everything was ready. Most people in the lobby were migrants themselves. They knew the routes and their prices, reliable smugglers, everything you needed to know." He spent one week in Aksaray in 1986. Soon he was on the road to Britain. In fall 2002 he returned to Turkey for a short visit. "Everything started here for me. I owe a lot to Aksaray."

All that changed in the 1990s. Trying to win the support of the European Union in its bid for EU membership and hoping to stop the influx of migrants through its eastern borders, Turkey imposed stricter border controls. Making travel plans became more difficult. Migrants and the smugglers were more secretive. The Aksaray hotels lost their old role. Then a new population of migrants arrived, with less money and different travel networks and arrangements. Aksaray became flooded with poor working men and women, unemployed urban youth, and villagers from the Middle East and North Africa.

Leaving Aksaray now took longer. Some migrants succeeded. They reached Greece and moved forward. For others, Aksaray became a morass of prostitution, drugs, and human trafficking. "Aksaray is like a swamp: once in it, you cannot escape it," an Iranian smuggler once told me.

On my first visit to Aksaray, I walked aimlessly, watched the passersby, and tried my best to avoid hustlers of all types. "Salam, agha," a Turkish man greeted me in Persian. He stood in front of a restaurant, and his job was to get people inside. "Hello, sir. Come in for a good meal. We have kebabs and soup." A block or two away, a young man dressed in a blue polyester suit walked behind me. "Khanoom-haye ziba, beautiful women," he said in bad Persian. I turned a corner to escape him. Walking toward the McDonald's on the main street of Aksaray, I noticed a tall, skinny African bouncing around like a star soccer player, kicking an imaginary ball in the air. He bought a pack of cigarettes from a corner store, turned into an alley, and disappeared from sight.

I stood by the McDonald's and stared at a police wagon parked by a police station only a few feet from the fast-food place. The van was packed with young men; some looked Pakistani or Bangladeshi, others Iranian. Earlier in the week I had read about the arrest of clandestine migrants in Istanbul. The men in the station wagon were perhaps the latest catch in that operation.

Busy restaurants, hotels, and confectionaries surrounded the McDonald's and the police station. From early morning until late at night, men and women crowded the street and the shops, which provided a feeling of security to the migrants living in the safe houses of Aksaray. The McDonald's was used as a meeting place by migrants and their contacts. In a strange way, its proximity to the police station protected it from the police. This arrangement was a common practice throughout Europe. Smugglers set up meetings between clients and their hired hands in McDonald's restaurants in London, Rome, and other capitals. Istanbul followed the rule. The fast-food chain, especially in crowded neighborhoods, seemed immune to police raid.

Arrests in Aksaray were common, however, and quiet back streets were the usual sites. Often the police had no real interest in detaining the arrested migrants; rather, they were out in the streets in search of extra income. Fifty million Turkish liras (TL) was the price they demanded. Those without money were robbed of their mobile phone, watch, or other valuables. Occasionally some were taken into custody.

I first met Shadi and Nima in the office of the Istanbul Interparish Migrants Program (IIMP). Helen Bartlett, the organization's director, had asked me to help with Persian interpretation every Wednesday.

It was minutes past noon, and I was translating a testimony written in Persian when I heard a knock. Opening the door, I saw Shadi and Nima, smiling, looking excited. They were clean and nicely dressed. Nima wore a blue shirt and a pair of trendy jeans. He looked like a shy teenager. Shadi had a motherly face. "Salam," they greeted me in Persian. I replied in Persian and introduced myself.

I invited Shadi and Nima into the office, thinking they wished to see the director. They declined. "We heard about you from other Iranians, agha Behzad, and came here to welcome you," Shadi said. Word was out that an Iranian writer from America was working for the IIMP, and the Iranian migrants were intrigued. Some saw in me their only chance to leave Turkey and find their way to America. I could get them a visa to America, they thought. Others were comforted by having someone who understood their language and patiently listened to their stories.

"Will you give us the honor of visiting our kolbeh, our humble home?" Nima asked. I accepted without hesitating, and we exchanged phone numbers.

Copyright © 2005 by Behzad Yaghmaian