Last week, a 16-year-old high school student was arrested in Adana for stabbing his 84-year-old grandmother to steal YTL 850 with the help of school friends. What was particularly chilling was the explanation the young boy gave for his actions. In the neighborhood where he lived, he explained, it “was compulsory to wear brand-name clothes and live expensively.” Until recently, his grandma had willingly given him money, but after he stole a gold chain and a sum of money from her she had grown more reticent.In another incident in Balıkesir in recent days, a 17-year-old boy was killed by a schoolmate in a fight over a cell phone the attacker had allegedly purchased with a credit card stolen from a teacher.
These events drew my attention because, having brought up two teenage daughters in this country, I had always argued that young people here were less subjected to consumer pressures than their counterparts in Western Europe. I was able to compare with relatives and friends living in European countries, whose children would insist on spending large sums of money on simple items of clothing like sweatshirts which, to me, looked like any old sweater, but displayed the crucial brand name that made them attractive. I felt fortunate that I had never had to fight with my own children over these issues.
There has, of course, always been an elite of super-rich kids spending freely on designer clothes in this country, but until fairly recently their excesses did not have much impact on the rest of society.
But much to the delight of retailers and of credit companies, consumerism is now as well entrenched in Turkey as it is in the older economies of Western Europe. A trip to the shopping mall on the weekend is now a normal family outing for many urban Turks. I hear of parents who earn the minimum wage complain that their children, barely of school age, are already asking for electronic gadgets and specific items of clothing from fashionable brands. To satisfy their children’s demands, they juggle with credit cards on limited budgets. In a society that has traditionally put family values above the needs of the individual, the growth of a “me, me, me” culture based on material possessions marks a striking change.
Growing unhappiness among teenagers, accompanied by rising delinquency, is the flip side of economic development. It is not only the divide between the rich and poor that is growing, but also the gap between the aspirations of the working, or often unemployed, class and the reality of their daily lives. Inequality breeds growing frustration. The phenomenon is well documented in Europe, as I mentioned in an earlier column on unhappy British teenagers.
Mourning the passing of a golden age that may never have existed would serve no purpose. Societies are a work in progress; they evolve. But while we can welcome the recent IMF forecast suggesting per capita income could reach $10,000 next year in Turkey, we must also recognize that wealth is not equally distributed. Bombarded by advertisements celebrating the status gained through materialism, many confused young people, under pressure, struggle to find adequate outlets for their frustration.
