Ageism

Almost every morning in this country we wake up to news of discrimination.
Sometimes people are targeted for their language, sometimes for their identity, sometimes for their faith, sometimes for their poverty.
Sometimes by gender.
Sometimes just because it exists.
But there is a discrimination that often goes unnoticed.
Quiet.
Invisible.
That's why it's more dangerous.
Age discrimination.
Age discrimination is discrimination against any individual or group because of their age.
That is, the devaluation of a person solely because of their age.
Interruption.
Being pushed out of decisions.
It is a gradual erasure from public life.
Ageism is mostly used to describe prejudices and discriminatory practices against older people. However, it also applies to discriminatory practices against young people and children.
When it is directed at children and young people, it comes across as contempt:
“He won't understand.”
“Inexperienced.”
“There's time.”
When it's directed at the elderly, it's called a job:
Ignoring
Age discrimination;
Racism is what it is.
Sexism is one thing.
Discrimination on religious or sectarian grounds is what it is.
So it feeds from the same place:
Prejudice.
Stereotype.
Structural exclusion.
Cultural codes.
“It's one of those ”after this age" places.
Acceptances passed down as tradition, as habit.
And of course power relations.
From the spheres of power that decide who will speak and who will remain silent.
The only difference is this:
Age discrimination is often not even seen as discrimination.
It is considered normal.
It is often even presented as well-intentioned.
It appears everywhere in everyday life.
In its crudest form, there is direct age discrimination.
It is said openly:
“You're too old for this.”
“You're too young for this.”
“It's still early.”
“It's too late.”
Age is put before us as a criterion of qualification.
A door never opens for some,
for some, it's already closed.
The second form is indirect age discrimination.
It is more insidious.
There seems to be a rule, but the rule automatically excludes certain age groups, especially the elderly.
Time limitations.
Designing services only for certain ages.
Digital application requirements.
Nobody says “you can't come in”.
But the system won't let them in anyway.
The third is institutional age discrimination.
This is the work of systems, not individuals.
Transportation policies.
Social services.
Employment arrangements.
And so the elderly are gradually erased from public life.
“Don't take the bus at this hour.”
“This area is not for you.”
“Don't get tired.”
“Don't bother.”
It is presented as good intentions.
However, good intentions do not eliminate discrimination.
It just makes it invisible.
It is precisely at this point that we need to see this:
The elderly already live in difficult conditions in this country.
They live on low pensions.
For most, social security is extremely limited.
Poverty deepens with old age.
And this poverty is not only material.
It disrupts nutrition.
It makes access to treatment difficult.
It interferes with medication use.
It aggravates many health problems.
So aging is not just a biological process;
it is also a multi-layered vulnerability related to economic, social and health.
Age discrimination overlays this very vulnerability.
Discrimination against the elderly has recently become more visible, especially in discussions on transportation.
Free or discounted transportation is no longer a right.
It was presented as a blessing.
Then he was targeted.
Suddenly the elderly became a “burden”.
Responsible for the crowd.
The cause of traffic.
The scapegoat of the crisis.
Let's ask the question openly:
Is transportation really the problem?
Or is it a question of who has the right to occupy how much space on the street, in the city, in public space?
This is where ageism meets the capitalist order.
Because the capitalist order sees the human being not as a subject but as an object of performance.
If dynamic.
Productive.
Competitive.
If he/she does not object.
Maintenance free.
If it is fast.
What slows down becomes redundancy.
It is considered a stationary load.
The listener is pushed out of the system.
“Even ”active ageing" is often imposed as an obligation, not a right.
You can get old.
But you can't be old.
But aging is not a defect.
It is not a failure at all.
It is the common destiny of all of us.
What is young today will be old tomorrow.
Age discrimination therefore does not only concern today's elderly.
It also targets our future selves.
This is how the justice of a society is measured.
Not by the opportunities it offers to the powerful.
How he treats the one who slows down.
By what it does to the fragile.
The elderly are not the burden of this society.
It is the memory of this country.
They are the witnesses of these cities.
They are the ones who have paid the price for this order.
But what do we do?
We don't want crowds.
We don't want their voices.
We don't want them to be slow.
We don't even want them to exist.
But a society is measured by how it treats its people.
How much it makes invisible.
By how much it silences.
How soon he kicked her out of his life.
Because discrimination knows no borders.
What is done to the elderly today is done to someone else tomorrow.
So this is not an “old people's issue”.
It is a matter for all of us.
The question is this:
Is coming of age still a right in this country,
or is it a crime punished in silence?