Globalization in Turkey

Mahmut Deniz

Definition of Globalization

According to researches, it is observed that, the term “Globalization” was mentioned 400 years ago. The term was first used in 1960s, and it has been widespread since 1980s, and later in 1990s the term “Globalization” has become a key word that has been accepted by all scientific environments. So many definitions have been given to the term “Globalization” by both theoreticians and pragmatists. According to famous sociologist Peter Burger, the globalization is a term that interests many people, from the recession of German Coal industry to the Japanese teenagers’ explanation of their daily life habitations. Famous author Thomas Friedman defines globalization as a system that is really hard to explain and comprehend by general theories. According to him, globalization is a system affecting people with many different aspects gradually. Friedman perceived globalization as widespread capitalism of free market to almost every single country.

 For some people, the globalization means a historical epoch which is a new system of politic and economy that came right after the cold war. According to this definition, the world will change its balance of power in favor of United States of America and it will be under control of it. Apart from these definitions, there are many different approaches to the meaning of globalization, some of which are quite pessimistic, and some of which are optimistic. These definitions change from culture to culture, from country to country and from person to person. However, as a general definition, we can say that the globalization is the comprehensive process of political, technological, economical and intellectual events all over the world. No matter how it is defined, explained, perceived or observed, the truth is that the globalization, inescapably, is in our life and we cannot avoid it .

Globalization is like a wind which blows from old economy to new economy, from old technology to new technology, from old ideas to post-modern ideas, and from old politic governmental approaches to the new one. From education to politics, from production to communication, globalization is on its way to a different social structure with all these elements. For some people’s foresight, the target social structure is aimed to be “information society”. The old industries which were based on physical and mechanical power are being replaced by human brain and creative ideas and this revolution provides new visions to humanity. So, in this case, the globalization process is almost equal to humanistic/social process. Even though it is not the main reason of the development of scientific/technical and economic/social events, it can be said that it is among the most important factor for this process.

Impact of Globalization on Turkey’s Culture

As it is well known that, a country’s most important inheritance is its cultural values. A country can show its dignity with its cultural richness, and protecting these values is the most important duty for it. However, being able to protect these cultural values, in a global world, is not easy, not only for Turkey, but also for all countries. Globalization is all over the world, and it influences every single individual day by day. People try to behave like super stars or rock stars, they dress up what they dress and they behave in the way of a super star or rock star. In this case, Turkey lost so many cultural values, because while people doing this, they forget about their own cultural and traditional clothes, material or behaviors. What is more, their tradition is sometimes laughable for them, as it looks strange when it is seen performed by another person from the same culture. These kinds of processes kill the cultural values, and even assimilate a culture, and no matter how fundamental the culture is, it melts in the impact of global world day by day.

Furthermore, psychological aspect of globalization is also creates bad effects on people. Because of global world distances has become no problem. Whatever happens in America, Iraq or Afghanistan, people can easily watch and follow these events on television easily. This can be a positive aspect of globalization in some aspects, but when everything is so easy to see or reach for every single individual, from eight to eighty, sometimes bad results occurs. For example, many children executed themselves in the way Iraq council executed Saddam Hussein, and so many people’s psychology changed in negative way after seeing death and unrecognizable human bodies on TV.  Another example is the national language. The language that Turkish people speak is completely lost its originality. One cannot differentiate what language Turkish people speak, English or Turkish.

The effect of globalization is so strong that it is even more effective than a mother, father or a teacher’s impact over the individual, but instead of this, TV programs, CDs or different kinds of brands are far more powerful in changing an individual’s characteristic than his or her parents. With the impact of globalization, people started to be unproductive, and, instead, they became a big consumer. So many young people force their parents to buy jeans from Levis, or so many of them spend their time in Mc Donald’s shops. The Nike brand shoes, while worth for nine or ten American Dollar, it is exported to other countries for sixty or seventy Dollars. Wearing Nike in Turkey has been so popular that, many people who cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread to eat pay for an expensive Nike shoe just to seem modern and follow the fashion like others. This is another aspect of globalization, and its effect upon people. People, in this respect, became not only unproductive, but also they became unconscious of what they are doing.

Religious is another subject that lost its value in Turkey. As Turkey is governed by a secular system, religion in this country is extremely flexible. Of course Turkey is not a country that is governed by Islamic rules, but it is a country that is almost %95 percent of which are Muslim. However, the religion in Turkey is so flexible that even when an individual comes his or her fifteen, he or she can change the religion freely. People’s ideas, manners and approach against religion have considerably changed. Twenty years ago, while Turkish people were going mosques in their special, clean clothes for the respect to their religion, now they go this holy places in their metallic, punk, rock or rap style clothes and with completely changed image. Sometimes they can enter the mosques without being aware of different symbol of religion they carry on their t-shirt or trousers. When we look back on history, we can see that people’s dressing style and image are completely different from modern era, not only in Turkey, but all over the world. Today differentiating a girl from a man is almost impossible. New ideas or manners are shaped according to global change, and with the result of this, the religions are no more respectable as before and holy places for some people are just a building. And it is obvious that, globalization is, again, has a very big role in effecting religion, as one was not able to talk about religion’s flexibility twenty years ago.

However, some villages around the Turkey, which are far from globalization’s effect, fortunately, are still like a hundred years ago and protect their original identity. Their clothes, songs, foods, behaviors, religion and even language are still unchanged. But, such images are laughable for city people. When they see these strange creatures in villages, who still carry original cultural traces on, they start laughing and making fun of them, because they do not look like American, because they do not know what Mc Donald’s, Coca Cola and Levi’s is. And this example shows how Turkish people from the cities, who are aware of global change and follow globalization, are influenced and assimilated by globalization so deeply, and these differences between city and village people show global effect’s changing power on society.

Another and the most effective way of globalization and its powerful effect is by United States of America. American imperialism has a very big role in globalization, and also, I think, it would be correct to say that the globalization mostly depend on American economy. Global culture means, American culture. America sees the world just like an orange that we took in our hand and look at it. America, from the space, controls everything and sees every movement of all countries. Almost 80% percent of movies belong to America in Europe, and only %1 percent of movies are European production. Every year, almost all Oscar goes to American movies, and it is unfortunately true that, the best movies are also American production. Mc Donald’s and Coca Cola is another global attacker. We know that in ever country Coca Cola and Mc Donald’s product is at their utmost level, and the advertisement is on every television. Almost every individual has met these two products in the world, and people still consume these products in a very high level.  Moreover, to tell the truth, these two products have no any healthy aspect at all. Coca Cola can even be used to clean your dirty sink, remove stain from your metallic tools and even can be used to polish and clean your car’s tires. And, as for the Mc Donald’s, there is no any healthy aspect of it as well. Sometimes even people do not know what they are eating and what is inside a Mc Donald’s product exactly. Of course, they have names, such as; Mc Chicken, but it is still a secret that how they are made and how they are served to people. It is fast food and the only way to eat it is to pay and get it in one minute.

In some Muslim countries, Mc Donald’s was found out that they are using pork product in their product, and pork product is completely forbidden for Islam religion. But it is surprising that people still eat this food, even though they know this. As for the Coca Cola, some Islam theoreticians say that Coca Cola while read inversely, means that “No Islam, No Mohammed”, which is not determined and explained in scientific way, and which is, they say that, a game of Israel on Muslim society. So it is clearly understandable that globalization cannot be prevented from human life, no matter what will be the result, people all over the world will still go on eating Mc Donald’s product and drink Coca Cola which is usually served together with Mc Donald’s. After all these, can we put forward such question as; where is our freedom, cannot we protect our tradition, culture or language, are these not taking part in the term of “Freedom”? The answer is, of course “NO”. As long as the globalization is controlled from one point, there is no any freedom to any country. People should become conscious about all results of globalization and they should think twice if globalization is good or bad, otherwise, the global impact will still go on removing all traces of culture, language, tradition etc. from all countries.     

Globalization and exploitation is connected to each other. Although globalization has a good meaning and exploitation bad, Americans’ impact and pressure on the world, including Turkey, creates a new and modern name for globalization as global-exploitation. If we take consideration American’s impact with its cloth, music, food, language, religion and many different cultural effects on the world, we can see that other countries which are trying to imitate America is in the vicinity of being dominated by American imperialism and global-exploitation. In Turkey, people are on the way of Americanization and this movement is still continues with its high popularity, and this factor makes all individual to stay away from even the emotions they have against their parents or friends, and they give more importance to materialistic life, that’s to say, money.

American strategy of connecting world with globalization is, indeed, a perfect example of assimilating all nations’ values and replacing them with its culture, and taking all rights of freedom from every single individual by its hidden power. In this respect, American global-exploitation with its mask, smiling at all people and taking whatever it needs, and giving whatever it wants.    

Globalization, of course, is not only a negative movement in human life. But, it has so many positive aspects for human being too. For example, via globalization, people, in Turkey, have met many opportunity and variety of working possibilities. People, who were paid little and made them work fifteen hours per day, under extremely hot temperature in villages, now working in offices, in front of their computers. Technology which made people life quite easy and comfortable was brought to people. People now can watch world over the Google Earth, they can meet new people from all over the world easily with chat programs, get all information quite easily from Wikipedia, watch every kind of movies on YouTube, people can also do shopping on internet via e-bank system, and finally they have e-government on internet. All these possibilities were given to human being in order to make their life easier. But the problem is that, when people’s lives become easier, their productivity become lesser and lesser in this respect.   

Turkey’s Position in the World

What determines Turkey’s position in the world is; its geographical location, geopolitical and geo-strategic functions, gradually increasing amount of young generations and dynamic population, subterranean and above-ground sources, its historical and cultural inheritance, governmental experiences and its sense of being nationally together in case of any threat or danger, and of course consciousness. Turkey has to share its rare wealth and values by the ability and possibility (such as; knowledge, technology) of other countries, that’s to say, Turkey cannot find enough power to function its own sources, so it needs to share them with others. This situation is similar to when one has raw meat or potato, for instance, and these kinds of foods need to be cooked, but in order to cook, one needs a stove or oven, so that they will be eatable, Turkey must cook them for its people, but it has not got any oven or stove to cook, so the only solution is to consent other developed countries. Only thanks to this, Turkey can have its righteous position on new world. In what degree Turkey, which is quite a new republic, has preserved and developed its sources? What are the values it protected? What values did it leave weak, and which values could not it protect? These are the main problems which should be current issues in the media of Turkey. Because, Turkey can only determine its position in the new world in the future in the aspect of what values it protected and developed so far.

The Values That Turkey Preserved

Turkey, for 70 years, even though it came across with so many in-out threats and political instability, has been able to protect its some values, and developed them in some aspects.

I)                   Turkey protected its territorial integrity, and it performed the regime of Bosporus in favor of itself with “Montro Pact”.

II)                It protected its existence and independency, and its young generations are still maintaining modernization with determination.

III)             It preserved its increasing population and has so many young generations.

IV)             It protected its determination of development.

V)                It managed to make its changing dynamism continual

VI)             In spite of all negative and inappropriate applications, Turkey tried to protect “Family” structure.

VII)          Its respect forTBMM ( Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) Turkey’s big council, and its mentality of democratic system.

The Values that Turkey Could Not Preserved

I)                   The selfishness and opportunism are replaced with individuals’ or group’s self-sacrifice and personality.

II)                 The mentality of gaining money without working, especially in young generation, learning without studying.

III)             Instead of originality, imitating or copying has taken place in all over the country.

IV)             Turkey’s original language were lost and people, especially young generations, have begun to speak English almost as main language, and Turkish language remained in second plan.

These main and most important changes have turned Turkish people into completely another individual in a quite short period of time. Turkish people have lost their determination, productivity and the will of working. And if it continues like this, there will not be any Turkey soon, because losing all values means that losing a whole country.

       

Turkey’s Economy

Globalization for some people is a need for our era, and for some, it is the reason of collapse of nations, such as Turkey. For me, the globalization is a movement that started from geographic expedition, speeded-up in the period of industrial revolution, and became completely clear with American imperialism, and it is a new name for exploitation. In this sense, globalization is not a chain of common culture but it is wealth and money that imposed to world. So, from now on, capitalists will be able to control any nation economically, and give a new shape to that nation and will be able to apply their plans on the nation.

In Turkey, so many banks’ allotments hunted down by foreign funds. Nowadays this rate is 45% and expected to be %50. With this process, Turkey is not banks owner anymore, but instead it is an economical base that will create source for banks with its people, as a large mass. And moreover, the globalization will not only affect a country in this way, but also will change the concept of nation and will replace it with some other concepts. Not only Turkey, but also all other countries in the world will sell their manual labor, but not their sources and products. And they will pay for their products more which they made in a cheap way. The multicultural world will turn into monoculture world.  Turkey has been through a big economical crisis and still cannot get over it. The trace of economic crisis is in every field of Turkey, and getting rid of this crisis, in this global world, is very hard for Turkey.

Some economical changes created false images on Turkish people’s mind, while especially civil finance still keeps its critical balance. Turkey’s quick increase in import and export is still going on. In the first month of 2004, export %24 and import %40 increased. Quick increasing in import made foreign trade deficit grow up so quickly. And foreign trade deficit increased to the percent of %90.

Turkey’s Foreign Trade Chart

	FEBRUARY			JANUARY – FEBRUARY
	2003	2004	Change Rate %	2003	2004	Change Rate %
Export (000$)	2.918.726	3.552.219	21,7	6.447.218	7.966.273	23,6
Import (000$)	4.100.991	5.915.832	44,3	8.484.161	11.843.452	39,6
Foreign Trade (000$)	-1.182.265	-2.363.614	99,9	-2.036.943	-3.877.179	90,3
Supply Rate %	71,2	60,0			76,0	67,3

	January 2003	January 2004	% Change
Export FOB (000.000 $)	3.528	4.414	25,1
Suitcase Trade  (000.000 $)	163	256	57,1
Import CIF (000.000 $)	-4.383	-5.928	35,2
(Gold Import) (000.000 $)	-110	-208	89,1
Foreign Trade Balance (000.000 $)	-434	-906	108,8

Consolidated Budget Incomes

	January– March (Trillion )			Reel Increase (Inflation)	2004 Budget Target
	2003	2004	Plus (%)
Incomes	20.364	23.854	14,6	2,50	104,109
General Budget Incomes	19.585	23.204	15.5	3.30	103,309
Tax Incomes	16.711	18.748	10.8	-0.89	88,893
Taxes Taken From Incomes	4.579	5.351	14.4	2.32	25,210
Income Tax	3.240	3.336	2.8	-8.05	16,679
Temporal Taxes V.	117	185	36.7	22.2
Corporation Tax	1.338	2.015	33.5	19.4	8,531
KVK Temporal Taxes V.	1.283	1.869	31.3	17.4
Asset Taxes	511	342	-49.4	-54.7	1,376
Motor Vehicle Taxes	504	447	-16.6	-25.4	935
Property and Service Taxes	8.887	8.995	1.2	-9.48	43,439
Included Taxes	3.245	2.900	-10.6	-20.0	13,320
Personal Consuming Taxes	4.288	5.194	17.4	5.0	26,878
Bank and Insurance Taxes	307	336	8.6	-2.86	1,276
Personal Communication Taxes	204	127	-60.6	-64.7
Personal Procedure Taxes	122	93	-31.1	-38.3
Foreign Trade Taxes V.	2.734	3.341	18.1	5.63	15,382
Import Taxes	2.547	3.103	17.9	5.45	14,346
Normal Taxes	1.568	4.185	62.5	45.3	13,913
Additional Budget Taxes	779	650	-19.8	-28.2	800
Expenses	31.253	30.840	-1.3	-11.7	149,945

(*) Source: TURMOB (Turkey Accountants Head Department) Monthly Balance Bulletin-May 2004

    This foreign trade chart was the most moderate results in Turkey’s economy, as in that period Turkey made a big changes and development in its economy, such as; decreasing the amount of zeros from its monetary system, which was normally quite long and paralyzed the economy. However, it is quite obvious that from the chart above civil finance has still big deficit, and it continues like this. In developing countries, despite all precautions, civil expenses cannot be limited so easily. On the other hand, current deficit’s increase creates a big danger. Moreover, when we add exchange rate’s sudden changes to all these problems, the situation will be worse, and local and foreign depth will increases as fast as possible. As a result of this, Turkey’s re-payment will be impossible.

Globalization and Nationalism

Globalization and nationalism are completely contrast terms to each other. While globalization grows up, nationalism loses its popularity, because, globalization eliminates the nationalist ideas and its basic values such as, homeland, national sovereignty, national culture and national identity. In last 20 years, in Turkey, nationalist people have begun to decrease and forget about their nationalistic ideas with the impact of globalization. And so many people, who have been born in last 20 years, do not know exactly what the values of their nation and culture are. The biggest and the most important effect of globalization is language. The English language is now a global language and all over the world is used in every kind of communication field. People use English in school, abroad, in their letters, in computers and in business. Without learning English, in Turkey, it is really difficult to find a job. No matter how talented you are and no matter how many other languages you know, if you do not know English, there is no job for you.

American strategy of dominating world with the help of globalization is a truth and this domination system will still impact people in negative way. Nations and America are small fishes and big fish. When you put a big fish inside a cage with small fishes, the result will be clear. Global effect is so strong that, even Turkey’s thousands of years of past and experience cannot stand against this effect. American flags were hung almost in every parts and region of Turkey and this is uncontrollable. Globalization, with its huge and powerful supporter America, will invade the world soon and clear all identities that were human being carried once upon a time.    

Globalization and Religion

The strongest and the most negative reaction to globalization comes from the religion. Religion has dogmatic rules, and these rules cannot be changed. Globalization has no limit and breaks the chain of dogmatism in religion. When we look for the books about globalization and religion, we generally realize that the writers of those books are deep religious people who support and defend his or her religion from all other factors. As I mentioned before, one of the reason that religious people oppose globalization is people’s quick and unconscious changing style, such as clothes, image and even ideas. These kinds of things may be seen as unimportant issues, but the main idea inside this is that people are affected by globalization and changed their style of life according to global world, not by their own religion. This kind of approach by religious people is almost the same in any other religions. Not only for Muslims but also for Christianity, being against globalization has become like a rule. Because, global effect brings all kind of people together in one point, and removes the idea of dogmatism or nationalism. People can surf in internet, meet new people on chat programs, Muslim people read the idea of Darwinism or Christian writers freely and Christian reads texts about Islam religion by Islam authors, and via this act they become more and more conscious. In this respect, supporters of religion do not accept these acts of people, or cannot accept. If they accept and welcome globalization, they should be much more away from the religion they are supporting and lost their popularity among humanity.

Deeply religious people’s another mission is that they do not want people to be more conscious about the facts. The more people learn, the further they stay from religion. For example, fifty or sixty years ago, in Turkey so many people were not aware of science and they believed what their grandparents or elders said, and it was very easy to shape people’s mind according to religious issues. The religion is also another dominator in a country and losing this power means their ending. Before five hundred years, no one would believe an airplane flying, the world is round or people have the power of going Mars. However, thanks to modern technology, people now know that everything is possible in the world, and they change their perspective to science instead of religion, just like in the Enlightenment Era.

In conclusion, globalization, as a big danger, still exploits the world and all nations one by one. Even though it has a positive meaning, globalization carries a very hazardous identity inside for some countries. Turkey’s nationalistic ideas, cultures and economy, have a new shape now and this shape is given by globalization, that’s to say, by America. Losing the most important values, such as cultural, Turkey’s identity melts and fades out from the history, and it is being assimilated slowly and strategically by U.S.A. The solution for these problems is also almost impossible. The solution can be consciousness, but when this happens, religion will try to stop. And alternatively, another solution can be disconnecting all relations from the world and try to make its own way, which means to start over, and in this respect, economy will fall and people will starve, rebel etc. So the only solution remaining is to follow the path that was determined by globalization, namely, America, not for the sake of America itself but in a strategic and logical way, and in an, unfortunately, pragmatic and selfish way. Only after this, Turkey will be able to draw its destiny and find a way for itself in this complicated world.