A doctor who doesn't know anatomy, a hafiz who doesn't know the Quran, a tour guide who doesn't know a language

Of course, it shouldn't be…

I mean, it shouldn't happen!

Some professions have their own specific requirements. Just as it is impossible to perform a profession without fulfilling these requirements, claiming the opposite is inconsistent with reason and logic.

You have read the title of this article. 

For example, in the simplest terms, one cannot be a doctor without knowing human anatomy. 

Just as one cannot be a hafiz without knowing the Quran, an engineer without knowing mathematics, a journalist without knowing spelling rules, a diplomat without knowing political history, a captain without knowing how to read a compass, or a judge, prosecutor, or lawyer without knowing the law!

But the government is now attempting to make those who do not know a foreign language into tour guides!

Even if those hearing it for the first time say, “Is this a joke?”, the government's legislative proposal, which includes clauses such as Turkish-language guiding and assigning guides only to museums and archaeological sites, has been approved by the commission and referred to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) general assembly.

Since 2002, the government has been burning and destroying everything in this country like an elephant in a china shop. 

No institution, person, or profession is exempt from this.

If Turkey were under occupation, it would only suffer this much damage.

Since we have learned that there is always a hidden agenda behind every step they take in line with their own mentality, we could not help but wonder what they are trying to achieve with one stone this time.

“A journalist is not someone who knows everything; it is someone who knows who knows what well and asks them the right questions,” our elders used to say.

I asked my friend of over 40 years, Aykut Uzun, who is among the best tour guides in Turkey, about the issue.

He began by saying, “The legal requirement to have a licensed guide on vehicles during tours is being abolished, and licensed guiding is being limited only to museums and archaeological sites. The way has been paved for Art History and Archaeology graduates to become guides without undergoing any training.”

Then he continued.

“Limiting guiding only to knowledge of Archaeology and Art History is the work of those who have not the slightest knowledge about the profession… Being a guide requires mastery of many disciplines that I cannot even count, such as botany, geography, geology, history, anthropology, fauna, sociology, folklore, and the like, in addition to knowing archaeology and art history.

Beyond all this, guides ensure that their guests engage in cultural interaction with the people in the places they visit, allowing them to leave with great love for the geography and people they arrived at with a thousand prejudices. 

I say this without distinguishing between domestic or foreign tourists.

A person cannot choose where they are born. People set out on trips outside the geography where they were born, raised, and live with prejudices they have acquired until that day, which are mostly negative. Guides play an important role in ensuring people leave these prejudices behind when they return to their countries. A person who travels understands the meaninglessness of the concept of the 'other'. We guides have been providing these experiences to the guests we have been showing around for years.”

So, is the government aware of what it is doing with this law?

My dear friend was, as always, well-intentioned.

“I don't think they are aware that by confining guiding only to museums, they will cause an incredible drop in quality,” he said.

Yet, the government, saying “I am in Gülhane Park, I am aware of everything,” has knowingly and willingly lowered the quality, made mediocre, and vulgarized everything it has touched in the country for 22 years. 

It feeds on this politically. 

It sacrificed quality for quantity and paved the way for this country to be condemned to a medieval mentality. 

This suited its interests; the masses it condemned to ignorance became its natural voters.

Another point that Aykut Uzun draws attention to is this:

A profession that is the face of Turkey opening up to the outside world could completely disappear.

“The conditions for being a guide were to be a Turkish citizen, to know at least one foreign language, and to have completed the necessary training and trips until today. In this case, all our guide friends, that is, all of us, are also 'Turkish-language Guides'. It is really very difficult to understand where the need for guides who do not know a foreign language came from. I would say that this law, which will cause a profession to disappear and sectoral quality to drop, should be abandoned, but I don't have much hope.”

This is what a 30-year experienced tour guide has to say…

Let us continue to dig a little deeper. 

Let us ask what the government's real concern is.

As we have written many times before, since the political algorithm of His Majesty is only and solely to win elections and stay in power, this step taken just before the local elections has nothing to do with the tourism sector or making tour guiding more qualified. 

They are concerned with selling the issue domestically!

With this law, they will pave the way for those who have graduated from sub-standard universities and cannot be employed by the state, as well as archaeology and art history graduates, to obtain a tour guide badge, and they will say, “Here, we have provided you with job opportunities.”

They are calculating that they will get a few votes from this.

Every university they have opened recently has a tour guiding department. Some of those studying here are also from Imam Hatip backgrounds. Because the quality of education is at rock bottom, they cannot get into any department, and those who try a little bit end up here.

Let's skip the education they provide and its quality; most of those who graduate from here cannot even pass the foreign language exam.

That is why they are demanding to be Turkish-language guides.

With the law in question, they will have pleased the tourism guiding graduates who could not pass the foreign language exam.

Well, a few more votes from here…

Let's not skip the agency dimension of the issue.

The removal of the foreign language requirement will most benefit agencies operating in the domestic market, and it is no secret that we have reached these days as a result of their pressure.

Since “labor” is almost free in Turkey, agencies want to employ guides cheaply. They think that the daily wages of guides are too high. Let us underline here that very few agencies are already paying the daily wage legally determined by the ministry.

In addition, since there will be no guides in vehicles carrying tourists, they will most likely manage only with group leaders, will only hire guides in museums, and will add profit to their profit.

They even put a special clause for China in the law. Because it is a “Big Market” in their own words, they will make anyone who claims to know Chinese a guide.

Of course, this also has an aspect that will serve to feed the sick fantasy world of the political Islamist mentality and consolidate its masses.

No matter what anyone says, a very important part of tour guides today constitutes the bright face of this country.

They are open-minded people who know at least one foreign language very well due to the nature of their work, who know the world and their country, their country's culture, who closely follow current developments, politics, and the economy, who know how to speak, sit, and stand, and who have strong communication skills.

In other words, a professional group that political Islamists do not like and even look at with hatred…

Let's say the law is passed and, so to speak, anyone who comes along becomes a tour guide. Then, who will prevent some self-proclaimed individuals from brainwashing people with complete lies and deceit?

It is not as if there are no examples of this.

For example, everyone knows that there are guides on the Gallipoli tour who tell people that the Çanakkale War was won by saints in green turbans. 

Just as there are guides who conduct tours in Çanakkale without ever mentioning the name of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk…

Recently, in a video on social media, a guide, who was claimed to be Syrian, was shamelessly and brazenly saying that Atatürk took a milk bath in a bath made entirely of gold at Dolmabahçe Palace.

Let's say a guide who was showing a tourist group around the Grand Mosque in Bursa said, “The CHP mentality had turned this place into a stable.”

Who will stop these lies and deceit?

We know, of course, that as long as they carry water to the government's mill, no one will speak up.

Let us conclude our article by pointing out that the issue carries an importance far beyond being a professional regulation. 

Let us put a period to our article by saying that just carrying a tour guide badge is not enough to truly perform tour guiding, and that anyone who does not speak at least one foreign language like their mother tongue should not even come near this profession.