Bilal Erdoğan: If it is hard to make a living in Istanbul, it is also hard in New York and London

Speaking at the opening of a training program organized by the Turkey Youth NGOs Platform (TGSP), Bilal Erdoğan said that one of the biggest problems in today's world is income inequality. Stating that urbanization brings with it a heavy burden of living costs, Erdoğan expressed that the perception of "high salaries" that young people are exposed to, especially on social media, does not reflect reality.

"HARD IN ISTANBUL, HARD IN NEW YORK"

Erdoğan, who said that people who migrated to cities with the idea of escaping village life are also struggling economically in city life, emphasized that this is not a situation unique to Turkey. Expressing that the cost of living in big cities suppresses labor, Erdoğan used the following expressions:

"People came to cities to supposedly escape village life, but they are still struggling to make a living in the cities. This situation is not unique to us; if it is hard to make a living in Istanbul, it is also hard in New York and London. The cost of city life practically swallows people's labor."

"TOUCH ONE AND HEAR A THOUSAND SIGHS"

Erdoğan stated that young people encounter examples of high income through social media and digital platforms, but that these figures can be misleading when living conditions are taken into account, and continued his remarks as follows:

"People came to cities, they escaped village life, supposedly. But they are still struggling to make a living in the cities. I mean, if it is hard to make a living in Istanbul, it is hard in New York, and it is hard in London. I mean, they put something in front of young people on YouTube, the guy earns 5 thousand dollars a month. You say, 'What kind of life does he live on 5 thousand dollars?' Then, if you go and put a microphone to the guy, touch one and hear a thousand sighs. Therefore, the pain of these inequalities is actually growing secretly. And we look, are wars decreasing? Wars continue. Right now, the war in Ukraine has taken its place in history as the war that has cost the most lives since World War II. It has even surpassed the genocide in Rwanda.

Turkey used to be a country that would come when America pulled from one side and go when Europe pushed from the other. It was not an independent country that could make its own decisions, and its opportunities were limited. Take the last 100 years of Turkey in terms of its economic situation, I mean, examine it in comparison to the entire world economy, you will see, the growth in these last 23 years is truly not present in the history of the Republic, let alone the Ottoman history. The Ottoman economy was also very stable, I mean, after the industrial revolution, we unfortunately could not catch the economic growth that was achieved, we missed them. We have caught all those accumulated trains that we practically missed in these last 23 years. We caught them in such a way that the economic size of the country grew 8 times in these 23 years. The national income per capita grew 6 times."

News Source: 12punto