I am just repeating the 500 billion dollar claim

I will start my second article with a reference to my comrade-in-arms, Lieutenant Prof. Dr. Doster. When Doster told me, 'Write something from time to time; once you kick the bucket, your thoughts will have no value,' I was reminded of the words of the late founding boss of Güriş Construction, İdris Yamantürk, whose character lived up to his surname. 

By the way, İdris Yamantürk would easily make it into the top 10 list of great men raised in our immediate geography over the last century. Yamantürk also possesses a fame in the Eastern Black Sea region close to that of Trabzonspor's Ali Kemal, who stunned the Liverpool players (in 1976) who were fed on Angus beef while he grew up eating salted anchovies. 

The late Demirel had also told 'Laz İdris' (which was his nickname among friends), who was also his classmate from university, to write his memoirs.

Laz İdris replied, 'Mr. Prime Minister (he would address Demirel this way out of respect for the gravity of the state, even though they were school friends), why should I write? Our people are Muslim but don't read the Quran, they love Atatürk but don't read his speeches; why would they read me?' However, he could not withstand the pressure and 'We Owe a Debt to This Country' wrote the book titled as such. It is a good thing he did; it has become a work that guides many of us. 

When I first heard my army friend Doster's advice, it suddenly came to my mind. 

May whatever is best for us happen.

With the momentum of the Renaissance and Reformation movements that followed the centuries of war in Europe, the Turkish nation, which had been on the mat since the 16th century and only managed to pin its opponent to the mat in 1922, saw its victory immediately turned into an advantage by Turkish contractors, who put on their boots and returned to the desert sands. The Turkish entrepreneur, who had been operating like a 'sleeper cell' for 500 years, suddenly woke up. 

Construction activities in the Ottoman Empire date back to the report written by Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi after his one-year mission in France in the 18th century (I wish he had extended his mission, though he didn't seem to like the Western lifestyle much).

Following the report, Sultan Ahmed III, without wasting time lamenting, formed a 'shock squad' to take immediate action and sent some heads to the museum as a warning to the world. Later, after agreements made with the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, many infrastructure investments were made, such as the Hejaz Railway, the Konya Irrigation Canal, and the construction of high schools. However, it was not possible to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Unfortunately, we had to sadly leave the Balkans, where we stayed and built for 500 years but clearly could not take root, on oxcarts. Of course, only the lucky ones among us reached Anatolia. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives either on the front lines or on the road.  

Anyway, let me not stray from engineering jargon; it is hard to get back. 

It was not until the 1970s that Turkish contractors independently set foot on their old lands again. Two great Turks, Sezai Türkeş and Fevzi Akkaya, went to build a port in Sirte (Libya) at a time when our people had very limited ability to travel even within the country with a suitcase—or perhaps it is doubtful they even had a suitcase (let's call it a bundle).

From that day to this, they have created a total business volume of nearly 500 billion dollars, which amounts to approximately 20-25 billion dollars when divided by the years. They carry out projects in 130 countries, and very few people know the names of that many countries. Therefore, they more than deserve the 'Turkish Contractors Independence Medal'.

Following the Turkish army, which scorched in the heat of the Palestinian deserts during the First World War and froze to death in the Allahu Ekber Mountains during the Russian War in December 1914, Turkish contractors began undertaking industrial construction projects 50-60 years later, despite all odds, in both the 50-degree heat of the desert and the minus 50-degree cold of Russia.

Leading names include Şarık Tara of ENKA, İdris Yamantürk of GÜRİŞ, Ersin Arıoğlu of Yapı Merkezi, Sani Şener of TAV, Feyyaz Berker, Nihat Gökyiğit, and Necati Akçağlılar of TEKFEN, Nurettin Çarmıklı of NUROL, İshak Alaton and Üzeyir Garih of ALARKO, and Erol Üçer of GAMA.

Currently, over 40 Turkish construction firms are among the top three in the world for executing the most voluminous and technologically advanced projects. And I don't mean the bottom three, mind you. The top three. 1, 2, 3. America-Turkey-China.

During that era, when harsh natural conditions were somehow normalized through engineering principles, other obstacles that Turkish contractors had to overcome included foreign currency restrictions, the socialist structure, heavy bureaucracy, the Cold War, the Cyprus operation, oil disputes, a closed market economy, and military activity in the region. 

For Turkish engineers who managed to produce C40 concrete (just know that it is a very high-quality concrete) at 50 degrees, and who trained our country's villagers—who had never left their village of Haraptar in Urfa (the village where the film 'Züğürt Ağa' was set)—to work in different geographies, thereby both broadening their horizons and enabling them to earn money, the Cold War and currency crises were mere trifles. 

At least the data shows that. I am just repeating the 500 billion dollar figure. 

I even heard a short Aziz Nesin-style story. One of our contractors, who traveled to a business meeting abroad during a period when people went with dollars hidden in toothpaste tubes or pant cuffs and stayed in hostels, could not refuse the insistence of his hosts to 'drop him off at his hotel' after the dinner following the meeting.

No matter what he said—'No, I'm going to walk around London a bit,' or 'I need to go to the restroom, it will take a while, you go ahead'—the British refused to give up on their insistence on dropping him off at his hotel.

Our man, seeking refuge in God Almighty, recited a 'Qul huwallahu ahad' and, to be even safer, a 'Fatiha,' and with the feeling of 'Oh God, help your servant,' he could no longer resist their insistence and accepted.

They were all heading to the car together. When the Brit asked, 'Which Hilton are you staying at?' our man was backed into a corner and said, 'No, we couldn't find a room at the Hilton, there's a place that looks like a boarding house in the back. That's where we're staying,' all the while praying, 'Oh God, help your servant.'

After the Brit dropped our man off at the dilapidated boarding house, he sped off to his big bosses to express his disappointment. He said, 'We treated these men to a thousand-pound dinner, but they are staying at a 15-pound bed & and breakfast.'

Our man didn't get a wink of sleep that night. The next day, when he entered the meeting with red eyes, the atmosphere was incredibly heavy. The British had sour faces, and there was a nightmarish air in the room.

The Brit's eyes seemed to be saying, 'What is going on here? Are we being played? To hell with your business acumen, pack up your things and get out of here.' it was in that vein.

Our man, following the principle that 'the finger cut by Sharia does not ache,' made his final move. He said, 'It's do or die.' He began explaining the foreign currency problem he was facing to the British.

At the meeting, 'Where is the nearest post office' while struggling with the British using his English at that level, sweat was pouring down his back. Did he explain that he hid his foreign currency inside a tube of toothpaste? He probably did. I'm not quite sure about that part. Anyway, the British came to visit our man in Turkey, saying, 'Let's give him one more chance.' I won't write about what happened after that; our generation has already understood the situation.

A quick trip down memory lane with the words Erşan Kuneri and Yeşilçam will help. Even though our generation was single-core due to the effects of the Cold War, we had processors modified to the level of a quad-core.

I think the following example is enough to clarify the situation a bit more. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, Turkish contractors mobilized instantly like mechanized army units in the Russian region, took on projects, and successfully developed the area.

The construction cost of the Croatia-Eastern Europe tourism highway project carried out by ENKA is so large that most of us cannot even calculate it mentally. So I won't write it down, lest you pick up your calculator in vain and encounter a 'syntax error'.

Sani Şener, through TAV Construction, both finances the construction costs of more than 20 airports in various countries and operates these airports. I still haven't been able to understand how it's done.  

We also owe a special debt of gratitude to the professors at Turkish universities who trained the engineers who brought these projects to life. We didn't spend days sleepless in engineering faculties for nothing. If you recall, we used to stay up quite late during project submission periods. Our professors (may God bless them all) trained us like special forces. Always agile, fit, and alert.

Business models have changed drastically in the last century. 100 years ago, someone would immediately follow a foreigner arriving in the country and report on them daily 'What is this foreigner doing here?' they would ask. 

Now, dozens of engineers, hundreds of workers, heavy machinery, and billions of dollars are being used to roam freely in other countries and carry out projects.

I won't drag this out; let me wrap it up. What sensible person would dare to invest within such an algorithm? There isn't the slightest bit of data in our favor. It's exactly “Let’s get up and go back to our village” environment. Therefore, it is essential to deeply and numerically analyze the logarithmic contribution of the mental algorithm of Turkish engineers and contractors to the economy.

I am actually doing it; I can provide the analysis results to anyone who wants them. Just subscribe to my channel. (I heard that new-generation academics are resorting to these methods due to poverty. They call this a “New Business Model.” (These academics also have OnlyFans-style channels. If it brings in good money, they should tell us so we can get rid of this poverty too.) 

Let me explain the meaning of “logarithmic” contribution for our readers who use their verbal intelligence more; you don’t need to register for my channel for this. This place is free. It’s the “Come-Come” economy, so to speak.

The contribution of projects undertaken abroad to the national economy is not just the one-way “profit transfer” obtained from that project. It is something multifunctional. In other words, it has many functions. (I’m waiting for you on my channel, as you can see, I have a command of the jargon.) 

So, what is it?

• The earnings of the engineers and workers who go to the project in the foreign country, 
• The earnings from materials produced in Turkey and sent abroad
• The logistical infrastructure for material transfers
• The experience gained (let's also write 'Know-How' to increase interest in our channel)
• Its contribution to other industrial sectors

By creating a construction sector that provides sustainable growth through all of these, Turkish contractors, engineers, and workers who increase Turkey's prosperity deserve to be valued more than enough.

Prof. Dr. Gökhan Arslan