We are quietly disappearing in the shadow of poverty!

Yesterday marked 23 years since the AKP came to power. Almost a quarter of a century.

Those born back then are now grown adults. They have started families of their own.

Let's not call it a lifetime, but one way or another, a generation has opened its eyes to the world under the administration of the political Islamist mentality; they have grown up, lived through their childhood, adolescence, and youth, and continue to do so.

The balance sheet of all these years, from the economy to politics, from justice to education, and from health to national security, is very heavy for all of us in every single field without exception.

Let us put aside the decay, corruption, and degeneration in politics, as well as the existential issues the country is facing for now, and make them the subject of another article.

The people on the street are crying out in agony; let us listen to them.

Everyone is asking:

“What happened to us like this?”

There is a severe impoverishment felt not just in the numbers, but on the streets, in the kitchen, and most of all, in the soul of the nation.

We are experiencing such a cost of living that we have almost lost our perception of price. We can no longer tell what is expensive and what is cheap.

How logical can it be to pay 300 TL for a glass of coffee or a portion of chicken doner?

The minimum wage has become the “average salary” across the country.

Our rational relationship with money has been broken. For four people going to a mid-range kebab restaurant, the bill could be 2,000 TL, 5,000 TL, or 10,000 TL... Whatever your luck brings on the receipt!

We do not know what the banknote in our hand will cover and what it will not.

The labels we see in the bazaar, the market, and the grocery store have lost their meaning. They change day by day.

The picture is extremely dire.

Looking at it from afar, we are all quietly disappearing in the shadow of ever-increasing poverty.

When I say all of us, I am not talking about the lucky servants the government feeds with what it takes from us, the rabid Islamist minority, the nouveau riche contractor crowd, or the fake bourgeoisie that collaborates with imperialism.

They are comfortable, at least for now.

My concern is the vast majority of my country's people; that is, the silent majority who oscillate between poverty and the hunger threshold, and who often try to survive on the two bites they can manage to put in their mouths.

Along with our pockets, our souls are also becoming impoverished; along with our money, our conscience is also being depleted.

There is a visible tension on the street, on the bus, on the subway, in the market, and at school. Everyone's patience is about to run out; let's say, the remainder of their patience is equal to the money in their wallet.

The nation is like a powder keg. It is about to explode at any moment.

It is not just the struggle for livelihood, but a terrible state of entrapment blended with a broken sense of justice, distrust, fear, uncertainty, and lost hopes for the future.

It is enough to look around us just a little to see the deep unhappiness that is crushing the nation's throat!

The AKP's concern was never to spread prosperity to the base. It never cared about social justice, income distribution, or anything of the sort.

On the contrary, by saying religion, faith, God, book, and Quran, it united my country's people in poverty.

Yet, when it came to power in 2002, it had promised the exact opposite. It had placed its surfboard on top of Kemal Derviş's economic program and fed the performance it put on to my country's people as a success story.

At the point we have reached today, poverty has not only grown; it has become chronic and turned into a form of governance. A system has been established where aid has become a mechanism of loyalty, and where allegiance, not labor, is rewarded. They have created masses dependent on them through social assistance.

So much so that nearly five million households in Turkey still benefit from this aid.

But the most dangerous aspect of the transformation initiated by the AKP has shown itself with the collapse of the middle class.

The main pillar that keeps democracy standing has disappeared.

In the old Turkey, teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, in short, the educated segment of the country, were the backbone of society.

The AKP broke that backbone.

More painful and dire is the crisis that the youth are in!

They are not looking for a future for themselves in their own country, but at websites that will help them build a life abroad.

According to the 2024 youth research by TÜİK, 72 percent of young people between the ages of 18–29 say, “I want to go to another country permanently.” Yet, this rate was 29 percent in 2010. As Tayyip Erdoğan says, from where to where...

They realize that they will not be able to buy a house in 20 years by working here; they know that even if they wash dishes in a foreign country, they can at least build an orderly life.

This picture shows that poverty is no longer just about income, but also about justice. Unfortunately, there is a feeling among the youth that “working is useless,” and they are right. They do not want to live in a country where labor is not rewarded.

Here, social decay must be set aside as a separate issue.

Because, even if the tide turns one day, it will not be easy at all to get rid of the diseases caused by this decay.

For example, moral dissolution...

News of murder, extortion, rape, fake diplomas, nepotism, corruption, and violence against women has become so commonplace that it no longer attracts anyone's attention.

In short, if “seeking one's rights” has started to be considered courage and “stealing rights” has started to be considered a skill in a country, we can understand that poverty there is not just economic.

People say, “What will happen if I send my child to a good school? They won't be able to find a job without nepotism anyway.”

And nepotism requires pledging allegiance to the AKP. This sentence shows that poverty has taken root not just in our pockets, but in our minds.

At the end of the day, poverty has ceased to be a destiny; it has become the fuel of the system and has become sustainable. This sustainability has accelerated social decay.

And social decay has weakened social bonds. According to the World Bank's “Social Resilience Index” report, Turkey ranks 31st out of 35 countries in social resilience among OECD countries.

In other words, we are among the most fragile societies against economic shocks, crises, and disasters.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

We cannot say it is visible yet, but we do not have the luxury of losing hope.

It is clear that the country's salvation from this impasse will not come solely through a change of government. For this, first a change of mentality is needed, followed by a restructuring based on production and social justice.

The compass is already clear: the founding settings of the Republic.

Before concluding the article, let us underline it with a thick pen: it will again be the people of my country who turn this wheel; if they truly have such a will.

Let us put a period to our article by saying that there is no exit for those who remain silent, but the door is still ajar for those who stand up.