Jan. 2, 2019
ISTANBUL — For 17 years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won elections by offering voters a vision of restoring the glories of Turkey’s Ottoman past. He extended his country’s influence with increased trade and military deployments, and he raised living standards with years of unbroken economic growth.
But after a failed 2016 coup, Mr. Erdogan embarked on a sweeping crackdown. Last year, the economy wobbled and the lira plunged soon after he won re-election with even greater powers. As cronyism and authoritarianism seep deeper into his administration, Turks are voting differently — this time with their feet.
They are leaving the country in droves and taking talent and capital with them in a way that indicates a broad and alarming loss of confidence in Mr. Erdogan’s vision, according to government statistics and analysts.
In the last two to three years, not only have students and academics fled the country, but also entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and thousands of wealthy individuals who are selling everything and moving their families and their money abroad.
Some 113,000 Turks emigrated in 2018, a sharp increase over the previous year, when more than 69,000 left the country, according to the Turkish Institute of Statistics.
Turkey has seen waves of students and teachers leave before, but this exodus looks like a more permanent reordering of the society and threatens to set Turkey back decades, said Ibrahim Sirkeci, director of transnational studies at Regent’s University in London, and other analysts.
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Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, once declared his political mission as "raising devout (Muslim) generations." Research in recent years has shown that Turkish youths have defied Erdoğan's most ambitious social engineering project.
Konda, a pollster, found in 2019 that Turkish youths were less likely than the wider population to identify themselves as "religious conservative." They were less likely to fast, pray regularly or (for females) cover their hair. Ipsos, an international pollster, found that only 12% of Turks trust Islamic clerics. SODEV, another pollster, found that 60.5% of youths that support Erdoğan said they would prefer to live in Christian Switzerland with half the salary they would earn in Muslim Saudi Arabia. SODEV's study also found that 70.3% of respondents think a talented youth would never be able to get ahead in professional life without political/bureaucratic "connections," i.e., without a hidden touch of nepotism. And only 30% of them think one could freely express his opinion on social media.
There is new data suggesting that younger Turks have a Western mindset instead of "religiously conservative/devout" one, as Erdoğan hoped they would. According to one study, 72% of Turks aged 20 or younger support full membership in the European Union for Turkey. This is in sharp contrast with the official teachings of a country where the top Islamic cleric said that "children who do not read the Quran are with Satan and Satanic people."
"These kind of social engineering efforts targeting the younger mind almost always end up with opposite results, primarily because the new generation do not like to be told what's good and what's bad for them," said one Turkish university professor who asked not to be named. "Freedoms for most youth are more important than prayers. This is what conservative politicians often miss."
In 2014, a 16-year-old student was arrested for insulting Erdoğan. In 2015, a 15-year-old was detained for insulting Erdoğan. And in 2016, a young university student was arrested on charges of insulting Erdoğan and making propaganda for a terror organization -- all that for a social media message. She was arrested while in class.
It is not surprising, then, that the young Turks want to build a life for themselves not in their own country, or an Islamic country, but in countries where civil liberties are sacrosanct. In 2019, a total of 330,289 people left Turkey to live abroad. Official data shows 40.8% of those who emigrated from Turkey were between the ages of 20-34.
Seren Selvin Korkmaz, executive director of the Istanbul Political Research Institute, explained the youth brain drain to Arab News:
"This is not the country I dreamed of," said A.B., a 19-year-old student, asking for strict anonymity for fear of prosecution. "I don't feel I belong to my own country anymore. I see no sign of a free life. I will go to Europe for further studies and probably visit Turkey just for holidays."
"This is not the country I dreamed of," is perhaps the best portrayal of how a young Turk feels about the increasing democratic deficit in his homeland. There are signs that that democratic deficit will widen.
Erdoğan's ruling AKP party has submitted draft legislation to parliament that would enable the government to tighten its control on social media, prompting fears of a new era of even greater censorship. The draft bill would force social media companies with more than a million daily users in Turkey — such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — to establish a formal presence or assign a representative in Turkey who would be accountable to Turkish authorities legally and for tax purposes. If those companies do not comply they may be fined up to millions of dollars. The law also grants authority to the Turkish government to reduce their bandwidth by 50% to 95%.
The draft bill came amid reports that Netflix has cancelled a Turkish drama on the eve of filming: its writer said that the government had blocked it because it included a gay character. Screenwriter Ece Yörenç said Netflix scrapped "If Only" after the government refused to grant it a license.
It is not surprising that young Turks in the 21st century do not want to be strangled by the unpredictable dictates of an Islamist regime. Erdoğan might sit down and ask himself: Why do the youths whom he wanted to make "devout" want to flee their Muslim country and live in "infidel" lands?
ISTANBUL — For 17 years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won elections by offering voters a vision of restoring the glories of Turkey’s Ottoman past. He extended his country’s influence with increased trade and military deployments, and he raised living standards with years of unbroken economic growth.
But after a failed 2016 coup, Mr. Erdogan embarked on a sweeping crackdown. Last year, the economy wobbled and the lira plunged soon after he won re-election with even greater powers. As cronyism and authoritarianism seep deeper into his administration, Turks are voting differently — this time with their feet.
They are leaving the country in droves and taking talent and capital with them in a way that indicates a broad and alarming loss of confidence in Mr. Erdogan’s vision, according to government statistics and analysts.
In the last two to three years, not only have students and academics fled the country, but also entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and thousands of wealthy individuals who are selling everything and moving their families and their money abroad.
Some 113,000 Turks emigrated in 2018, a sharp increase over the previous year, when more than 69,000 left the country, according to the Turkish Institute of Statistics.
Turkey has seen waves of students and teachers leave before, but this exodus looks like a more permanent reordering of the society and threatens to set Turkey back decades, said Ibrahim Sirkeci, director of transnational studies at Regent’s University in London, and other analysts.
Spurning Erdogan’s Vision, Turks Leave in Droves, Draining Money and Talent (Published 2019)
Driven by fear of persecution and economic mismanagement, the exodus threatens to reorder the society permanently and set Turkey back decades.
Turkey's Brain Drain: Why Youths See No Future There
SODEV, another pollster, found that 60.5% of youths supporting Erdoğan said they would prefer to live in Christian Switzerland with half the salary they would have earned in Muslim Saudi Arabia. "These kind of social engineering efforts targeting the
Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, once declared his political mission as "raising devout (Muslim) generations." Research in recent years has shown that Turkish youths have defied Erdoğan's most ambitious social engineering project.
Konda, a pollster, found in 2019 that Turkish youths were less likely than the wider population to identify themselves as "religious conservative." They were less likely to fast, pray regularly or (for females) cover their hair. Ipsos, an international pollster, found that only 12% of Turks trust Islamic clerics. SODEV, another pollster, found that 60.5% of youths that support Erdoğan said they would prefer to live in Christian Switzerland with half the salary they would earn in Muslim Saudi Arabia. SODEV's study also found that 70.3% of respondents think a talented youth would never be able to get ahead in professional life without political/bureaucratic "connections," i.e., without a hidden touch of nepotism. And only 30% of them think one could freely express his opinion on social media.
There is new data suggesting that younger Turks have a Western mindset instead of "religiously conservative/devout" one, as Erdoğan hoped they would. According to one study, 72% of Turks aged 20 or younger support full membership in the European Union for Turkey. This is in sharp contrast with the official teachings of a country where the top Islamic cleric said that "children who do not read the Quran are with Satan and Satanic people."
"These kind of social engineering efforts targeting the younger mind almost always end up with opposite results, primarily because the new generation do not like to be told what's good and what's bad for them," said one Turkish university professor who asked not to be named. "Freedoms for most youth are more important than prayers. This is what conservative politicians often miss."
In 2014, a 16-year-old student was arrested for insulting Erdoğan. In 2015, a 15-year-old was detained for insulting Erdoğan. And in 2016, a young university student was arrested on charges of insulting Erdoğan and making propaganda for a terror organization -- all that for a social media message. She was arrested while in class.
It is not surprising, then, that the young Turks want to build a life for themselves not in their own country, or an Islamic country, but in countries where civil liberties are sacrosanct. In 2019, a total of 330,289 people left Turkey to live abroad. Official data shows 40.8% of those who emigrated from Turkey were between the ages of 20-34.
Seren Selvin Korkmaz, executive director of the Istanbul Political Research Institute, explained the youth brain drain to Arab News:
In just the first 65 days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 510 Turks were arrested for "spreading baseless and provocative messages in social media." Before that, by the end of 2019, Turkey's censors had blocked access to 408,494 web sites, 7,000 Twitter accounts, 40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos and 6,200 Facebook accounts.
"This is not the country I dreamed of," said A.B., a 19-year-old student, asking for strict anonymity for fear of prosecution. "I don't feel I belong to my own country anymore. I see no sign of a free life. I will go to Europe for further studies and probably visit Turkey just for holidays."
"This is not the country I dreamed of," is perhaps the best portrayal of how a young Turk feels about the increasing democratic deficit in his homeland. There are signs that that democratic deficit will widen.
Erdoğan's ruling AKP party has submitted draft legislation to parliament that would enable the government to tighten its control on social media, prompting fears of a new era of even greater censorship. The draft bill would force social media companies with more than a million daily users in Turkey — such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — to establish a formal presence or assign a representative in Turkey who would be accountable to Turkish authorities legally and for tax purposes. If those companies do not comply they may be fined up to millions of dollars. The law also grants authority to the Turkish government to reduce their bandwidth by 50% to 95%.
The draft bill came amid reports that Netflix has cancelled a Turkish drama on the eve of filming: its writer said that the government had blocked it because it included a gay character. Screenwriter Ece Yörenç said Netflix scrapped "If Only" after the government refused to grant it a license.
It is not surprising that young Turks in the 21st century do not want to be strangled by the unpredictable dictates of an Islamist regime. Erdoğan might sit down and ask himself: Why do the youths whom he wanted to make "devout" want to flee their Muslim country and live in "infidel" lands?
