The calendars are showing Eid again.
The screens are as flawless as ever: messages of “unity and solidarity” from politicians, smiling families in commercials, elaborately set tables... Everything is as it should be. Everything is as it is meant to be.
But this image is not reality itself; it is a simulation that has replaced reality.
Because in this country, Eid is no longer experienced on the street, but on the screen.
In real life, the morning of Eid starts with a single reflex:
“Is he in bed?”
This question is not simple. This question is the purest expression of the economic and political order that Turkey has entered into in recent years.
Holidays are rare moments when a society equalizes itself. Normally the distance between classes is blurred, the inequalities of everyday life are suspended for a short time. One feels like a human being, at least for a day.
But in Turkey today, the feast works in reverse.
It does not equalize.
Revealing.
Eid is no longer a ritual of solidarity;
a scene of class cleavage.
Who's on vacation?
Who is paying off debt?
Who gives pocket money to their children?
Who is looking at the ATM screen?
The answers to these questions are the true picture of a country.
Today, the “retirement bonus” is still under discussion.
How much will it be? Will it increase? Is there a source?
This debate is a shadow play around the truth.
Because the issue is not that:
How much is the jackpot?
The point is this:
Why is it that millions of people can't even perform the most basic cultural ritual dependent on a small payment from the state in which case?
This is not a social welfare issue.
This is a direct regime design.
The holiday bonus of 1000 TL given in 2018 really meant something. Because that money could connect with life. A sacrifice could be bought. A feast could be established.
Today, the numbers have grown.
But life has shrunk.
This is the stark reality of the Turkish economy.
Nominal increases have turned into numerical illusions that hide the real impoverishment. Wages seem to be rising but purchasing power is eroding. People feel like they earn more but live less.
This is not a contradiction.
This is a system.
There is no longer classic poverty in Turkey.
There is something more sophisticated, something deeper:
Managed poverty.
The logic of this order is simple:
You don't starve people completely.
But you'll never comfort me.
Neither too poor to rebel,
Nor strong enough to be independent.
You always keep it on a threshold.
This is not a crisis.
This one, a stable architecture of poverty.
The main function of the economic order today is not production but behavior management.
- Ever-increasing but insufficient salaries
- The endless cycle of debt
- Periodic small payments (bonuses, support, amnesty)
This structure keeps people constantly connected to the system.
You can't break away.
You cannot make plans.
You cannot be liberated.
You just wait.
And the person who waits is the safest person.
“There are no resources,” they say.
This is no longer an economic sentence; it is an ideological choice.
Because the question of resources is never really a question of “lack”.
Source, always to whom it is reserved is relevant.
In a country:
- If money is available for big projects
- Capital is protected
- Tenders are growing
But when it comes to pensioners, the problem is not the economy, is a priority.
Let's say it more clearly:
Poverty is not a malfunction in this country.
One form of governance.
Because poverty:
- Produces dependency
- Destroys the capacity to take risks
- Erases the idea of the future
And most importantly:
It traps you in the present.
A person who cannot build a future is ideal for the system.
Today, the middle class in Turkey has virtually dissolved.
It used to be middle class:
- Savings could have been made
- Could plan a vacation
- He could build a future
Today:
- Rolling debt
- Trying to get by
- Constantly falling back
This is not just an economic downturn.
This is a society's is the breaking of the spine.
Eid is the moment when this rupture is most visible.
Because Eid is normally a time for “sharing the surplus”.
But there aren't many anymore.
It's just missing.
On one side:
- Full hotels in holiday resorts
- Lives on display on social media
- Identities constructed through consumption
On the other side:
- Those who cannot make ends meet with their pension
- Those who cannot give pocket money to their children
- Those who see the holiday as an “expense”
These two groups no longer live in the same country.
It does not share the same reality.
The most dangerous point is this:
The normalization of this situation.
People no longer say:
“This is unacceptable.”
Instead he says this:
“There's nothing to do.”
This is exactly the moment when a society breaks down.
“The phrase ”I don't care about Eid" is not a reproach.
This is a diagnosis.
This sentence says:
“I can't build a life that can be a feast in this system.”
Today, the wrong questions are still being asked:
Will the bonus increase?
Will the salary go up?
No, no, no.
The right question is this:
Why have people in this country become unable to build a dignified and stable life through their own labor?
Because it is not about the economy.
The point is this:
Not producers,
the construction of a model of a dependent society.
There was a time when a bonus could buy a sacrifice.
Today the same money is worth a few bags.
But this is not the real loss.
The real loss is this:
People no longer ask why this difference.
And the day a society loses the question “why”,
not only impoverished.
It becomes manageable.
That's why it's not about the holiday.
The point is this:
Why is Eid in a country no longer a joy?,
one economic stress test?
And maybe the real question is:
Growing numbers,
Why does one's life shrink?
Because it is not the economy that is growing here.
It is poverty itself.