The 'Global Citizen' myth

 Our generation grew up during the Cold War era.

China had not yet entered the scene, and cheap toys had not yet flooded our borders.

We used to make our own toys.

Cars made of wood or ball-bearing wheels, multi-shot blowpipes made from electrical conduits, and marbles.

There was hardly anyone around us except for the 'Almancı' (guest workers in Germany) who went abroad.

We rarely heard the word passport; besides, no one at home had one.

Later, I saw my father's green passport, and it intrigued me quite a bit.

In 1994, when I was going to go abroad for education, I needed a passport too, and I worried about whether I could get one because of the tragic stories we had heard.

We had asked a neighbor who was a police officer to help, just in case, so we could get it easily.

Later, when I read the story of Hrant Dink's ordeal with his passport, I realized once again how justified my concern had been.

Many of my friends also got passports and went abroad.

Many years passed.

Some returned like me, while others continued their adventures.

Most of those who returned managed to make something of themselves.

Those who stayed were crushed and crushed again under the glass ceiling.

It is not that no one achieved the brilliant life they wanted, but those who could not were in the majority.

A trend of trying to escape abroad has started in the country once again.

Desperation and feeling overwhelmed are driving people crazy.

They feel under pressure.

Especially the youth.

They can no longer dream of even a beat-up car, let alone a small house.

Everyone is fleeing.

My close circle is on the same path.

The boy is in Helsinki chasing a visa.

It has become a well-trodden path.

Seeing Turks on social media learning about cheap flights and cheap hotels is now considered normal.

In a place where people are constantly knocking on foreign doors, it was inevitable that nonsense like 'Global Citizenship' would emerge.

People worked themselves to the bone to make their children 'Global Citizens'.

They poured their savings into private colleges, foreign schools, and missionary schools.

They went through crises so their children would learn English, French, and German, and if possible, speak two of them like a native language.

They said, 'Let them escape and save themselves.'

They wanted them to be free, earn good salaries, chase their dreams, climb the social ladder, and interact with people in civilized countries.

They did not want them to be ground like cornmeal in the inquisition of a tyrannical state—and our generation was indeed crushed quite a bit, between the millstones of our village's own river-powered mill.

They did not want their children, whom they raised with such care and great hopes, to be beaten by police.

They did not want their son, who waves the Turkish flag, to be thrown into a cell.

With such concerns, they spent everything they had to the last penny so their children could become 'Global Citizens'.

Just like me.

And then, the applications and the results did not turn out quite as we had hoped.

They hit the glass ceilings of foreign lands, just like being ground between millstones.

The brains we raised, unable to adapt to cultural differences, turned into millstones spinning in vain and ground themselves down.

They got stuck on the career ladder, could not enter intellectual circles, and always remained outsiders.

While they were supposed to become 'Global Citizens', they began to become slaves to the world.