My sister swerved the car out of the way as an armored police vehicle rumbled past us and disappeared into the night. It was the summer of 2019, and she was taking me back to my in-laws where I was staying with my wife and daughter during our visit to Turkey.
“What was that?” I asked as I turned back to try to catch a second look at what appeared to be black tank on wheels, a formerly unusual sight in the posh neighborhoods of Istanbul we were driving through.
“The police are everywhere now,” she said, pointing at officers in dark tactical gear carrying machine guns at the next intersection. “It’s been like this since the coup.”
Photo: Doruk Sargin
She was referring to an attempted putsch by a faction within the Turkish army three years prior that left hundreds dead, including civilians. The mutiny prompted a widespread crackdown by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which imprisoned thousands of people and sacked tens of thousands of government employees.
It also gave Erdogan the opportunity to tighten his grip on society: Critics of his authoritarian regime were detained and branded as coup plotters, while numerous newspapers, publishing houses, news agencies and even universities were shuttered. One of our friends’ father, a retired judge in his 60s, was detained for two years on accusations of attempting to overthrow the government before being released without charges.
Seeing Chinese-style paramilitary police roam the streets in a country that once hoped to join the European Union was a sobering sight. We have been living in Taiwan since 2014 and our daughter was born in Taipei. But we always had the lingering hope that we might someday return to Turkey, preferably the Aegean coast, and maybe open a small bubble tea store using our savings.
Photo: Doruk Sargin
However, we had not realized that the country that we left behind had ceased to exist. Erdogan was remaking Turkey in his own image, and there was no room for dissidents, ethnic and religious minorities or LGBTQ people.
To make matters worse, his one-man rule has since extended to the central bank, resulting in a disastrous monetary policy that caused the local currency to tank and crippled the country’s economy. The meltdown triggered an exodus of Turkey’s educated elite, including doctors and engineers.
NATURALIZATION
Photo: Doruk Sargin
The way things seemed in 2019, it was obvious that we were going to build our lives in Taiwan. Knowing that police will not kick down our door if we were to bash President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Twitter clearly outweighed Taiwan’s bad drivers and sleazy landlords.
My wife, Irene, is a third-generation immigrant born and raised in Turkey. She obtained Taiwanese citizenship one year after we arrived in Taipei. That also made me eligible for naturalization.
However, according to Taiwanese law, one must relinquish their original citizenship to obtain Taiwanese citizenship. That requirement, and the hurdle of going through the application process, had put me off of naturalization. Irene and I had discussed the issue and believed I could do just as well with an APRC while we lived in Taiwan.
But our brief trip home and Turkey’s sinking economic prospects forced us to re-evaluate. There was clearly no going back for us. My background in journalism meant I would have to work for a pittance at one of the few remaining independent news outlets in Turkey or find a job in pro-government media, which is unacceptable for me.
Furthermore, we had also lost our social circle. All of my friends, save for a handful, have left Turkey to build new lives in North America or Europe. Irene’s friends are also now scattered around the world, from Uruguay to Australia and Japan. None plan to go back.
There were also matters of practicality: Many countries that allow visa-free entry to Taiwanese require Turkish citizens to obtain visas. For instance, a Taiwanese would have an easier time entering Turkey’s neighboring Greece than a Turkish person. It would have been more difficult for us to travel as a family if I had a Turkish passport, which also has the unfortunate effect of triggering red flags in Western countries, prompting “random” searches and rude behavior by airport security.
Last but not least, we had to consider our daughter’s future. Could we provide her with a proper education if we returned home? Most public schools in Turkey have been transformed into religious institutions, meaning we would have to opt for private schools, whose prices average the equivalent of NT$300,000 to NT$400,000 per year, something we could not hope to afford, bubble tea store or not. Could we offer her a nurturing environment? Most Turkish cities have become concrete jungles with no public spaces for children to play, except for shopping malls. During our time in Istanbul, we could only find one playground near our home, but we had to leave because another parent was constantly smoking and started a fight when Irene asked her to put one out.
So, I did some online research into the naturalization process and took the plunge in early 2020. The process, which took a whole year, turned out to be much smoother than I expected, with a few minor bumps along the road.
However, prospective applicants should bear in mind that each application is handled on a case-by-case basis. So, what is smooth sailing for one person might turn into a bureaucratic nightmare for another. Luckily, my application started out easy because the local household office had just processed an Indian man’s naturalization papers and the clerks still remembered what they were supposed to do.
DISCRIMINATION, HASSLES
Still, I faced hostility and discrimination from some government employees. For instance, after I obtained Taiwanese citizenship, I visited the Bureau of Consular Affairs to apply for a Taiwanese passport. But the clerk there flat out refused to take my application form and kept demanding non-existent documents. She relented only after her colleagues intervened and said she was taking the matter too far.
Becoming a citizen certainly makes it easier to live in Taiwan. Opening a bank account, taking out a loan, getting a credit card or applying for a driver’s license become normal inconveniences of daily life instead of the bureaucratic hellscape that ARC holders face.
However, there is a catch. Taiwan is not a country of immigrants and its private institutions are not equipped to deal with naturalized citizens. Employers seeking foreign workers don’t know what to do with me because I no longer have a foreign passport, while those seeking Taiwanese employees deem me a foreigner. That has left me in a limbo I have yet to learn how to navigate.
Still, I cherish the freedom and opportunities that Taiwan offers, and rest easy that my daughter will grow up in a country that has cast off the shackles of authoritarianism.
Doruk Sargin is a former deputy head of the copy desk. He currently lives with his wife Irene and their daughter in Tainan.
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