This is because there is no one left in the village of Dilekkaya, located near Anavarza, who has not been the subject of a legal case filed by Dilci. Thus, with all the local villagers angry at her, Dilci’s retirement years are not going as smoothly as they should be. Noting that she does not regret that her job required her to file complaints with the government, Dilci explains: “There is no one in the village who likes me nowadays. If I die, my funeral will be unattended. But the government does like me.”

The story of Hatun and Amber Dilci’s caretaking jobs is one that goes back 47 years. A poor couple, the Dilcis worked in the fields and tended livestock. One day they decided to build a new home in their garden so they could stop living in the tent-like home that had been sheltering them up until then. As they starting digging away at the ground, they uncovered an ancient mosaic depicting fish, though since they did not realize just what a treasure they had stumbled across, they were not very excited. It never occurred to them that this fish mosaic might one day open the doors to a new livelihood.

When news reached the local Adana museum director, he arrived at the site and examined the fish mosaic. The director immediately gave Amber and Hatun Dilci a prize of TL 500, asking them to do their best to protect the mosaic and suggesting a new site for the home they wanted to build. And so the Dilci couple set off to dig the foundation of their new home in a different spot, but this time around, uncovered a new mosaic, one depicting snakes. They decided not to tell the other villagers about their most recent discovery but instead covered it up and set off to tell the Adana museum director about this new mosaic.

Interestingly, they did not even have enough money at the time to pay for the ride into Adana, so they sold one of their chickens for TL 10 and headed off, finding museum officials to give them news of their latest discovery. The news of the “King’s Daughter Mosaic” was met with great excitement by Museum Director Hadi Altaylı. He again offered to reward them with money, but this time (upon the suggestion of other villagers) they refused the offer, instead requesting to be made official caretakers of this first-degree protected area. Their request was accepted; the region where the mosaics were found was far from the provincial capital and there was a shortage of museum personnel to staff every site at which they were needed. And thus Amber and Hatun Dilci were given uniforms and firearms, and set to the task of becoming caretakers.

After receiving this new task, the Dilci couple from that date onwards made it one of their greatest responsibilities to see that the mosaics as well as the world heritage site of Anavarza were not looted or mistreated by visitors. While Amber Dilci worked nights, Hatun worked days, protecting the 1,300-hectare site from looters and even from local Dilekkaya villagers. In fact, the couple wound up facing much resistance to their efforts, even being fired upon by some. They warned people not to touch even one stone in the valuable mosaics and at the historic site, and in the process they made enemies far and wide among other locals. The Dilci family even wound up taking about 90 percent of the local villagers to court over one matter or another, traveling on foot and sometimes by horseback to Kozan, 60 kilometers0 away, to lodge their formal complaints.

Hatun Dilci admits that “there is no one left who did not get in trouble with the law because of us,” but explains the reason for this in her own special style: “Well, for God’s sake! We tell them, ‘Don’t build a new house there,’ and what do they do? They try to break our heads with rocks. We warn them: ‘This is living history here. Don’t dig illegally, don’t break down ramparts you find,’ and they don’t listen to us; instead, they rush in to do just that. Every time we filed a formal complaint, they would have to go to prison. In time, there was no one left in that 115-home village with whom we weren’t enemies.”

Pointing to her head, she adds: “My husband and I had our head and arms broken so many times, but we never abused our positions of duty. Since we ourselves experienced much poverty, we never turned the other way and winked at anyone trying to get away with things.”

Despite the many threats that came to the Dilci couple over the years, they never crumbled. In fact, she explained their strength as caretakers, saying: “God protected us. A wall built well and sound cannot be broken.” Hatun Dilci explains that her husband, Amber Dilci, died 15 years ago, and she herself retired officially from the job with a state ceremony three years ago. So while Dilci, who has received a Certificate of Gratitude and Appreciation from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Adana Governor’s Office, is satisfied knowing she and her husband did the best they could, the fact is that she is still not liked by many of the villagers.

Despite her age, Hatun Dilci’s eyes sparkle, and she has a smiling face that exudes positive energy. She says she feels the problems in the air but does not wish to make too much of them. “The whole nation does love me, but the local villagers don’t. It doesn’t matter, let them not love me. If I were to die now, no one would attend to me. But even though the villagers are my enemies, the state does love me. I am thankful for God’s kindness

For Turkish citizens in particular, obtaining a visa from one of the 25 countries in the Schengen area remains a lengthy and often very pricey ordeal. In the process, up to 40 different documents have to be provided by the applicant -- and that still is no guarantee that a visa will actually be issued in the end.

The difficulties are all the more unjustified, as according to legal experts and the EU’s own jurisdiction, visa requirements for Turkish citizens are not in accordance with EU law.

However, the fact that the EU is violating legal agreements when it demands visas from Turks to enter the Schengen zone has become watered down in lengthy negotiations. The EU has made negotiations about visa facilitations for Turkey conditional on Turkey’s willingness to readmit illegal migrants who have entered the EU through Turkey. Yet, despite Turkey’s willingness to do so, some in Europe are still blocking a solution.        

Ever tried getting a visa?

Any Turk who has ever tried to obtain a visa for an EU country will know how tedious the process can be. Amongst the problems most commonly mentioned by disillusioned applicants are the costs involved, the long waiting periods and the sheer number of documents that have to be provided. Zeynep Özler and Melih Özsöz from the Economic Development Foundation (IKV) have worked on a visa hotline project carried out with the support of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) and the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS). The project documented the problems faced by Turkish citizens in the visa application process for a period of three months. Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Özler and Özsöz say the rate of visa rejections was unreasonably high and the procedure unnecessarily long. “Sometimes no reason at all was provided by embassy staff, and even where reasons were provided these were dubious. In other cases, academics were given an appointment with embassy staff after the date of the conference they wished to attend.”

Another common complaint involves both the amount and the content of the documents. A simple look at the German Consulate’s website verifies this claim. A leaflet detailing the standard set of documents that needs to be provided in order for a business visa lists as many as 13 different documents. These include an official invitation letter by the German counterpart, notarized proof of the signature of the applicant, company registration documents and many other things. Mind you, this is only the standard set of documents. It is still at the discretion of the embassy staff to ask for any additional information. 

Speaking on the condition of confidentiality with Sunday’s Zaman, a Turkish businessman who recently applied for a visa to a Schengen country explains: “In total, I had to provide 17 different documents, some of which were asking for very sensitive information like personal bank statements, credit card details and the company’s turnover.” Özler confirms that applicants often have to provide very detailed information which breaches common standards of confidentiality in private and business life.

Visa requirement a trade impediment for Turkish businesses

But the disclosure of important information is not only awkward for the individual who may not want to lay open his bank accounts. It also gives European businesses an important advantage over their Turkish competitors, says Harun Gümrükçü, a professor at Akdeniz University and head of the Europe Without Visas Research Group. “The consulates want all sorts of papers, sometimes 23 different documents. Of course that makes you wonder, what for? After all, we have no way of guaranteeing that all this information stays at the consulates.”

But that’s only one side of the coin. The other side is that visa requirements actually amount to a serious trade impediment for Turkish businesses. Since Turkey and the EU set up a customs union in 1996, goods can be exchanged freely between them. This has greatly advanced trade relations between Turkey and the EU but has also made the need for barrier-free travel even more pressing. While Europeans can travel to Turkey on a whim, Turkish businessmen and academics regularly miss out on important conferences and meetings. Even worse, they are left to the mercy of their European associates in the process. “Imagine you encounter a conflict with your European partner,” Gümrükçü says. “If he refuses to provide you with an invitation letter, you simply cannot go.”

Yet, the question of improving Turkish access to Europe is not only one of an economic nature. There’s more at stake. The EU’s unwillingness to allow Turks into their countries also carries psychological implications. The ongoing visa worries have resulted in an increase in euroskepticism, Özler points out. By being kept out of Europe, many Turks today feel less European. This is reflected -- amongst other things -- in Europe becoming less popular as a tourist destination. Turks now tend to go to countries like Croatia or Morocco instead of France and Germany. So, ultimately, the EU is losing out, too. More importantly, though, the unfair visa policy has discredited the EU in the eyes of those who once respected it for promoting cultural exchange, civil-society dialogue and the idea of a borderless Europe. “On the one hand the EU is promoting civil-society dialogue and people-to-people contact; on the other hand it’s erecting a barrier in the form of visas. Here, the EU is really standing in the way of Europeanization,” Özler remarks.

Visa requirements breach of European law

The problematic practice of demanding visas from Turks has come under even stronger attack, because according to many legal experts, it constitutes a breach of European law. Wolfang Voegeli, director of the Euromaster Program at Hamburg University, says the visa requirements for Turkish nationals are not in keeping with the Association Agreement and the Additional Protocol signed by Turkey and the European Union in 1963 and 1970. These two treaties formalized relations between Turkey and the European countries and aimed at Turkey’s eventual accession to the bloc.

In the Additional Protocol, the signatories committed themselves to “refrain from introducing between themselves any new restrictions on the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services.” As Voegeli explains, this particular provision, known as the standstill clause, has provided the basis on which a number of Turkish individuals have taken their cases to the European Court of Justice -- usually with success.

Since the “freedom to provide services” can be interpreted both as an active right to offer services and a passive right to consume services, any Turkish national should be allowed to enter the Schengen area freely. “Anyone entering the European Union will at some point consume services there, even if it is just the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. And since in 1973, Turkish nationals did not need visas to enter most European countries, the EU-wide visa requirement for Turks, which was introduced in 2001, amounts to a new restriction.” 

This interpretation of the applicable law has been confirmed in a number of rulings by the European Court of Justice as well as by national courts in Germany and the Netherlands, which have ruled that the visa requirement for Turkish citizens amounts to a violation of EU law. Unfortunately, however, the European Union has so far been unwilling to act upon these judgments and is currently appealing the decisions. When asked to comment on recent developments, representatives of the EU in Turkey refused to discuss the issue with Sunday’s Zaman and relegated the question to the authorities in Brussels.

The acting spokesman for the home affairs commissioner of the European Commission in Brussels, Marcin Grabiec, finally commented in vague terms that the implementation of recent judgments was “one of the topics which the commission was willing to discuss further with Turkey and the member states in the framework of our dialogue on visa issues.”

Visa wavers in exchange for illegal migrants?

The visa dialogue referred to here is one of the issues that has in and of itself caused heated debate in Turkish politics. During a recent round of talks, the EU has promised “visa facilitation” to Turkey if in return Turkey accepts the condition put forward by the European Union: the signing of the Readmission Agreement. In doing so Turkey would commit itself to re-accept illegal migrants that have entered the EU using Turkey as a transit country -- something that the EU naturally has immense interest in. While the negotiations on the deal have already been concluded, Turkey refuses to sign the agreement until the EU makes a binding commitment to wave visa requirements for Turkish citizens. That, however, the EU is not prepared to do, and in fact, cannot do at the moment. In order for the EU to start serious negotiations on the visa question with Turkey, the commission would need a mandate from the member states. But Germany and France in particular are blocking such a deal, fearing that if the door were opened a little, they would not be able to stem the tide of migrants pouring into Europe.

While the government’s strategy of trying to link the visa issue to the signing of the Readmission Agreement may be understandable from a political perspective, Gümrükçü says things should never have come to this. “The rights that Turks have fought for so bitterly in the past cannot now be made the subject of political negotiations. No law-abiding state may negotiate court rulings, and particularly the EU cannot do so if it understands itself as a community that shares and upholds the principles of law.”

Legally, every Turkish passport holder should be allowed to enter Europe without visa. By negotiating this right, Turkey can only lose more than it can hope to win. The way forward must thus be for Turkish diplomats and individuals to insist on these rights at every possible opportunity. Only then can Turks hope to gain what, in fact, has been rightfully theirs for a long time.

Responding to the release of Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) data showing marriage and divorce statistics for the period between October and December 2010, Professor Yasin Aktay from Selçuk University´s faculty of sociology says that there is no need for alarm at the rising rate of divorce in Turkey.

“There is an increase in individualization and urbanization and parallel to an increase in urbanization is an increase in divorce rates. This should not be viewed as very serious,” Aktay said. TurkStat data reveals that divorce rates have gone up 6 percent, with statistics showing that 27,670 people were divorced in the last quarter of 2009, 29,326 were divorced between the months of October and December in 2010.

According to Professor Aktay, it should not come as a surprise that divorce rates are greater in the Aegean region. “The Aegean is known to be more open and cosmopolitan. Individualism is at the forefront in such regions,” he said.

Describing the particular nature of Turkish society, Professor Aktay said that the Catholic mode of marriage remained as the vanguard. “The famous Turkish adage, ‘To age on a single pillow,’ is reminiscent of the Catholic approach to divorce, whereby couples endure in their marriage no matter how difficult things are,” he said. Interestingly, in Aktay’s view Turkish society is even more conservative with regards to divorce than traditional Islamic societies. “This attitude has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Divorce is not seen as taboo in traditional Islamic societies where both women and men divorce more freely, as was evident in the time of the Prophet of Islam,” Aktay said.

TurkStat data consistently indicates that most divorces are seen in the first five years of marriage. According to Professor Aktay, this is because after this time, couples develop ways of dealing with each other or children make the option of divorce more difficult.

“When we look beyond five years, couples learn the art of dealing with each other. While in the first five years they see it as easier to turn back, while the road is still close, couples who cross this threshold learn how to carry on despite the circumstances. Children are also a mechanism that restrains people from seeking divorce,” he said. In Aktay’s view, divorce is also more difficult in situations where families are involved, as they tend to counsel couples to go on no matter what.

The number of marriages increased by 0.8 percent in the last quarter of 2010. According to their data -- revealed quarterly -- while 136,577 couples wed at in 2009, 137,637 couples were married and 29,326 divorced last year. The central Anatolian region holds the highest rate, with a 17 percent increase in divorce. The eastern Black Sea region. However, boasts a drop of 2.6 percent when compared to the same period in 2009.

The data also indicates that while the number of people getting married is showing a rapid decline in the nation’s central Anatolia region, the number of divorcees is rapidly increasing.

The average age difference between couples getting married for the first time was 3.3 years, with men at an average age of 26.4 years and women at an average of 23.1 years. The greatest increase in marriages was seen in the west Marmara region with a 4.9 percent jump, while the biggest drop, 7.3 percent, was seen in the central Anatolian region