Post by Bozur on Feb 17, 2005 13:38:43 GMT -5
Turks ‘poor but happy’
Stoic acceptance, rooted in Ottoman heritage, could explain survey findings
Although most Turks are poor, according to a recent government survey, the majority would not blame the state for their misfortune. According to the income survey, whose results were recently made public, 1 million Turks are living in ‘absolute poverty’ and 18 million others live in ‘relative poverty.’
By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition
Per capita income is measurable, “per capita happiness” is not. A recent government survey has revealed that the majority of Turks are a happy nation, despite everything...
The results of the survey were made public at a time when a separate government survey disclosed that almost one-third of Turks are living in poverty and the latest crime statistics showed that Turkey is now a much less safe place to live.
The government’s income survey has revealed that 1 million Turks are living in “absolute poverty,” that is, they can hardly find anything to eat or a roof to sleep under. Eighteen million others are living in “relative poverty,” that is, they are not starving but they live in what international institutions describe as “pure poverty.”
Separately, the government’s crime statistics have shown that petty crime across Turkey rose by 30 percent in 2004, the year Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the International Monetary Fund maintain they sealed Turkey’s miraculous economic recovery. Drug-related crime rose three-fold, and — in Istanbul alone — 70 percent of all criminal investigations failed.
Making something of a parody of Istanbul’s crime, half a dozen businesses on one particular street in Beyoglu (the old Pera district) were robbed in recent months. However, there is one lucky building on the street with no reported theft, people joke these days, and it belongs to the police force.
Government services are a mess. The health system is on the brink of collapse. Nearly 20 million people are either unemployed or underemployed. Every year, parents leave 8,000 children with the government’s childcare authorities because they are unable to feed them.
All the same, the government’s nationwide survey on “life satisfaction” has revealed that a majority of Turks were “happy” with their standard of living. For example, according to the survey, 42 percent of those who earn a mere $230 (about 177 euros) a month say they are happy with their lives.
Are the Turks secret masochists? Well, there is not yet any scientific evidence for that. Could the government’s statistics office have dodged the figures? Possibly, yet unlikely in this case. Then what is the explanation?
The answer lies in Turkey’s demography, its culture, as well as in the “missing link” between welfare and happiness which economists automatically assume exists.
In reality, welfare is only one of the explanatory variables of personal satisfaction/happiness — an important one, no doubt, but not the only one. Otherwise, suicide rates would not traditionally be the world’s highest in Europe’s Nordic zone nor in Japan, all of which are welfare states. In other words, there is no scientific evidence to prove, for example, that the Duke of Edinburgh is a happier man than the unknown fisherman in Mikrolimano.
Culture and demography should perhaps explain the rest of what, on the surface, looks like an immeasurable inconsistency.
Partly, it’s the “Ottoman heritage,” and partly religion: One must be content with what the state/God has given him. For this reason, the Turks, unlike their Aegean neighbors, have never been anarchists. They traditionally call the state “the Father State,” in reference to the obedient behavior a son should feel for a father, no matter how the father treats the son. Ask the poorest soul in Ankara’s heavily populated shanties, and he will tell you he does not blame his misfortunes on the state. If, one of them told this columnist, the state had enough bread for all like him, it would have given him a piece.
The culture urges the poor to become individualistic profit-seekers, rather than rebels. That, supported by demography (Turkey has Europe’s youngest population), makes millions of poor but happy Turks.
A “young” population means people full of hope, rather than grief. In another culture, a “young” population in a country where per capita income is less than $4,000 (3,083 euros) could have meant “rage and uprising,” but not in Turkey.
In Turkish thinking, “rage and uprising” would distract one from one’s “profit-maximizing ventures” and minimize one’s chances of becoming the hero of one of the millions of rags-to-riches stories. Why should one expend energy to confront the Father State instead of trying to become one of the nouveau riche? After all, the Crescent and Star is full of opportunities for the “get-rich-too-quick” minds.
At the end of the day, one sees 70 million Turks, mostly young, happy and full of hope for a better life; and, on the other hand, moral hazards and increasing crime rates.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=52973
Stoic acceptance, rooted in Ottoman heritage, could explain survey findings
Although most Turks are poor, according to a recent government survey, the majority would not blame the state for their misfortune. According to the income survey, whose results were recently made public, 1 million Turks are living in ‘absolute poverty’ and 18 million others live in ‘relative poverty.’
By Burak Bekdil - Kathimerini English Edition
Per capita income is measurable, “per capita happiness” is not. A recent government survey has revealed that the majority of Turks are a happy nation, despite everything...
The results of the survey were made public at a time when a separate government survey disclosed that almost one-third of Turks are living in poverty and the latest crime statistics showed that Turkey is now a much less safe place to live.
The government’s income survey has revealed that 1 million Turks are living in “absolute poverty,” that is, they can hardly find anything to eat or a roof to sleep under. Eighteen million others are living in “relative poverty,” that is, they are not starving but they live in what international institutions describe as “pure poverty.”
Separately, the government’s crime statistics have shown that petty crime across Turkey rose by 30 percent in 2004, the year Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the International Monetary Fund maintain they sealed Turkey’s miraculous economic recovery. Drug-related crime rose three-fold, and — in Istanbul alone — 70 percent of all criminal investigations failed.
Making something of a parody of Istanbul’s crime, half a dozen businesses on one particular street in Beyoglu (the old Pera district) were robbed in recent months. However, there is one lucky building on the street with no reported theft, people joke these days, and it belongs to the police force.
Government services are a mess. The health system is on the brink of collapse. Nearly 20 million people are either unemployed or underemployed. Every year, parents leave 8,000 children with the government’s childcare authorities because they are unable to feed them.
All the same, the government’s nationwide survey on “life satisfaction” has revealed that a majority of Turks were “happy” with their standard of living. For example, according to the survey, 42 percent of those who earn a mere $230 (about 177 euros) a month say they are happy with their lives.
Are the Turks secret masochists? Well, there is not yet any scientific evidence for that. Could the government’s statistics office have dodged the figures? Possibly, yet unlikely in this case. Then what is the explanation?
The answer lies in Turkey’s demography, its culture, as well as in the “missing link” between welfare and happiness which economists automatically assume exists.
In reality, welfare is only one of the explanatory variables of personal satisfaction/happiness — an important one, no doubt, but not the only one. Otherwise, suicide rates would not traditionally be the world’s highest in Europe’s Nordic zone nor in Japan, all of which are welfare states. In other words, there is no scientific evidence to prove, for example, that the Duke of Edinburgh is a happier man than the unknown fisherman in Mikrolimano.
Culture and demography should perhaps explain the rest of what, on the surface, looks like an immeasurable inconsistency.
Partly, it’s the “Ottoman heritage,” and partly religion: One must be content with what the state/God has given him. For this reason, the Turks, unlike their Aegean neighbors, have never been anarchists. They traditionally call the state “the Father State,” in reference to the obedient behavior a son should feel for a father, no matter how the father treats the son. Ask the poorest soul in Ankara’s heavily populated shanties, and he will tell you he does not blame his misfortunes on the state. If, one of them told this columnist, the state had enough bread for all like him, it would have given him a piece.
The culture urges the poor to become individualistic profit-seekers, rather than rebels. That, supported by demography (Turkey has Europe’s youngest population), makes millions of poor but happy Turks.
A “young” population means people full of hope, rather than grief. In another culture, a “young” population in a country where per capita income is less than $4,000 (3,083 euros) could have meant “rage and uprising,” but not in Turkey.
In Turkish thinking, “rage and uprising” would distract one from one’s “profit-maximizing ventures” and minimize one’s chances of becoming the hero of one of the millions of rags-to-riches stories. Why should one expend energy to confront the Father State instead of trying to become one of the nouveau riche? After all, the Crescent and Star is full of opportunities for the “get-rich-too-quick” minds.
At the end of the day, one sees 70 million Turks, mostly young, happy and full of hope for a better life; and, on the other hand, moral hazards and increasing crime rates.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=52973