The anatomy of hitting rock bottom

Institutions around the world that are not blind and deaf like ours have sat down and established a scientific scale on a global level:

“The Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index”

The 2026 report they have placed before us is a true testament to a tragedy.

This massive study, which covers 66 percent of the world's population, has scored pension systems in various countries based on three criteria.

Adequacy of benefits, long-term financial sustainability, and the degree of institutional integrity/reliability.

The results?

Turkey ranks 54th out of the 55 countries on the list.

In other words, we are second from the bottom; only Argentina, which is in the grip of economic bankruptcy, is below us.

What truly breaks our hearts is the European league.

Among the 19 European countries evaluated, we are at the very bottom of the overall ranking.

The Netherlands has the world's best and most flawless system with 85.8 points. It has reached the summit with an "A" grade.

Turkey, on the other hand, has an overall score of 46.6,

placing it in the "D" grade category of "misery."

In other words, at the very bottom!

In the "sustainability" index, which measures the financing capacity for our future, there is practically a crisis; the score we received is only 29.4.

This is a declaration that the current system is completely clogged and that future pension payments will shrink even further.

But do you know what is truly shocking?

That deep, silent social decay that statistics cannot hide, and the mental paralysis at the ballot box!

Last month, in the heart of Ankara, a tragedy occurred in front of the Constitutional Court, the state's gateway to justice.

Ali Şekeroğlu, a retired police officer who had served this state for years, was protesting the government with a sign that read, "Not for money, but for our honor." He said, "I cannot make ends meet, shame on those who brought us to this state," pulled his service pistol, held it to his temple, pulled the trigger, and took his own life.

At the gates of the temple of law of the state to which he had dedicated his life, he bid farewell to this world with honor.

If a retired civil servant in a country commits suicide at the gates of justice, it means that the country has reached a point where words have ended and conscience has darkened.

But what happened?

Not a peep from society.

No mass anger rose, no squares were filled, and the faces of those in power did not turn red. A human life, the shame of a system, was treated like an ordinary "police blotter item" in the evening news, forgotten, and gone.

The people of my country just watched.

This deep silence, no matter what anyone says, is proof of the organized indifference that has descended upon the country.

Here, the second act of this mental paralysis begins.

Let us flesh out the issue.

Today, according to official data, there are approximately 17 million retirees in Turkey. When considered together with their families, this group is the country's largest political and social force.

According to Türk-İş's September research, the hunger threshold in Turkey is 37,801 TL; this is the monthly food expenditure required for a family of four to have only adequate and balanced nutrition.

The poverty threshold is 123,130 TL. This is the money required for a family of four for food, rent, electricity, water, fuel, transportation, clothing, education, health, and other basic needs.

In other words, if we make sense of the issue through these figures, more than 80 percent of retirees in Turkey receive a salary below the hunger threshold, and almost all of them receive a salary below the poverty threshold.

The average pension is stuck between 27,500 TL and 28,000 TL, and people are trying to survive on the lowest pension of 23,552 TL.

While a retiree in Europe goes on world tours and ages in peace with the pension they receive, ours are collecting market scraps, digging through trash, and spending the winter under blankets because they cannot pay their heating bills.

Even more painful and dire is that, despite this system that condemns them to misery, a segment of approximately 28 to 33 percent of retirees in Turkey persistently and stubbornly support the government.

Let us write it clearly: this situation is the bitter result of the policy that the AKP has been weaving stitch by stitch for years, deliberately impoverishing retirees and making them dependent on the government.

By not enacting the adjustment law, by not giving retirees a share of national income growth, and by shrinking the update coefficients, the government has consciously collapsed the pension system.

This mentality, which views retirees as a "social security burden" and labels earned salaries as a "burden on the budget," has created a culture of charity. They first made people needy, and then they turned that neediness into loyalty at the ballot box.

The question that must be asked is clear and simple:

While you provide a lifeline in every election to a system that does not allow you to live humanely and usurps your rights, will the sound of that gunshot that went off in front of the Constitutional Court not echo in your ears from now on?

Will your conscience not ache at all while you ignore the cry of honor of your own peer and cast your vote in the same place at the ballot box?

The slogan "Do not be silent, if you remain silent, your turn will come" may not mean much to the people of my country, but let us underline it with a red pen: a society only kneels on the day it gives up defending its own rights.

Retirees in Turkey have not only become impoverished; with this incomprehensible stubbornness they show at the ballot box, they have condemned both themselves and the youth of this country to hopelessness and a dark future.

Ali Şekeroğlu gave up his life for his honor; millions of retirees, on the other hand, consent to a miserable pittance and continue to pledge allegiance to the architects of that system.

Let us sit straight and speak the truth: this silence and stubbornness is the tragedy itself.

As long as the song of allegiance hummed by a crowd in love with its own executioner while waiting in the execution line does not end, neither justice nor a humane life will come to these lands, and with that, we conclude our article.