Can Okar

For reference, this was League C this year: Israel Scotland Romania Greece Bulgaria Finland Albania Hungary Estonia Cyprus Slovenia Serbia Norway Montenegro Lithuania A veritable smorgasbord of footballing giants.

Turkey’s been relegated to League C of the UEFA Nations League. The population of the 15 countries in League C this year was 84 million. The population of Turkey is 81 million. Something isn’t right in Turkish football but watch it get blamed on foreign players in the league.

As a belated, post-flight addition to this thread: the point made by the dinosaur academic about emigrants being waiters is also incredibly ignorant. 1) Many aren’t but 2) nothing wrong with being a waiter and 3) many would prefer being a safe, happy waiter to danger at home.

Brain drain will continue and even speed up as long as opportunities to pursue happiness are severely curtailed at home. Turkey is, as always, seeking to put plasters on gaping wounds. In this case, only dramatic root and branch change will work to end the exodus.

If you are able to speak foreign languages (and this is key - you can be academically gifted but language is a sine qua non for success abroad), the world really can be your oyster in ways that are no longer possible in Turkey for those not in the government elites.

By system, I don’t necessarily mean government (although they are likely one and the same thing). If you are talented, you can’t work for someone who is only above you because of who they know. You also can’t just auto-censor forever out of fear of incarceration.

International corporates and academic institutions are full of talented Turks who have left in the last few years for a more meritocratic and secure future. No amount of money would bring those people back if the entire system doesn’t also change.

So when you see dinosaurs from the 70s and 80s saying that talented Turks who leave end up as waiters, they are being "cahil" and missing out on the last 20 years of Turkish diaspora development. Yes, sometimes it doesn’t go well but often, we do just fine.

Most modern economies realised a long time ago that human capital is the key differentiator in international economic competitiveness. Turkey has really talented people, many of whom want to leave, and foreign countries/companies aren’t stupid.

If you’re talented, whether in academia, entrepreneurship or in corporate life, you seek security first, meritocracy second, money some distance behind the other two. If you are not a party member or somehow allied to the government, the first two are always in doubt.

The starting point for the brain drain debate was the offer of money for return of academics (undone within 48 hours by the arrest of academics who had made the mistake of staying). I’ve argued before that money isn’t even a factor for most that leave.

Brain drain has been on the Turkish political agenda for a few days now, with various politicians and personalities jumping into the debate. Given that nothing happens in Turkish politics by accident, my guess is the government is getting shocking data about how many are leaving.

Living in 2018 is made particularly weird in that psy-ops used to be what your enemy did to you in war. Now there is always a chance and a fear that your own country is doing it to you in peacetime.

So whilst the narrative should be about how the new airport is a farcical mega-project that is over budget and not even partially finished, the chat is about how the opposition try to bring down the virtuous AKP with lies and fake news.

I am willing to bet that the release of the second video, clearly at the old airport (TAV logos everywhere, clearly in summer) but gone viral as supposedly the new airport, was no accident. Now the truth is jumbled up and the actual flooding at the new airport is debatable.

A quick lesson in how fake news can destroy truth. This morning this genuine video of flooding at Istanbul’s new airport surfaced. Shortly after, a video from 2017 at the old airport also went viral. The anger at the fake second one undermined the first https://twitter.com/zadalet_com/status/1063457617153064960/video/1 …

Brexiters are like the kid playing hide and seek who thinks just because he can't see you, you can't see him. A No Deal still creates a flurry of deal-like consequences which are cataclysmic. To make it sound like anything else is either mendacious or incredibly stupid.

I know it's complicated but someone has to tell Brexiters that "No Deal" is in itself a "Very Bad Deal" and possibly even the "Worst Deal". It is therefore almost certainly worse than a "Bad Deal".