A Reality of Provincial Anatolia: Sociological Obesity

His pockets are full of money, yet there is not a single park in his neighbourhood. His car is the latest model, yet his street is covered in mud. What kind of wealth is this?

Today we are considering an issue that challenges familiar assumptions: science, democracy and human rights. These are not decorative words written only in books. They are the foundations that determine whether a society becomes crudely rich or civilised and prosperous. From Anatolia to Germany, we will ask: why do some wealthy people travel the world, while others sit on gold-plated chairs and drown in bad taste?

What happens when a society grows rich without paying a price or making an effort in science, art and human rights? It produces a peculiar conflict: traumatised countries inhabited by people who belong neither here nor there.

Look around. This is precisely what I mean by provincial arrogance. Local communities in Anatolia became wealthier. Money arrived, but vulgarity and poor taste arrived with it. Why? Because they did not climb the steps of civilisation one by one; they took an elevator straight to the top. The result is someone with money but no aesthetic awareness, someone who does not travel because he is not curious, because he paid no price, did not think and did not question.

What does a society gain when it does pay a price? Europe paid one, my friends: religious wars, civil wars, world wars and depressions. Consider the extraordinary famine and hardship Germany endured. Cities were reduced to rubble and people died of hunger. Yet what did Germans gain after that devastation? A civilisational inheritance: discipline and a work ethic. Look at a German city today—orderly, clean and punctual. The price they paid gave them not only money, but a culture of how to live. That is why, when a German becomes wealthy, he may use that wealth to establish a library or build a park.

In our case, cities may have money but no green space, no parks and no sports facilities. Particularly in the east, people can be genuinely wealthy while their daily lives show almost none of it. A man may have millions in his pocket, but there is not one proper park where he can take his child. Why? Because, while becoming wealthy, we skipped the step called human rights. We did not say, ‘Public space belongs to everyone.’ We said, ‘The garden of my villa is enough for me.’

This is the condition of societies that become wealthy without internalising science, art and human rights. When communities skip these steps, they spread a strange contradiction. This is the root of what we call vulgarity, bad taste and provincial arrogance.

This sociological reality also influences politics. A wealthy person who has paid no price and absorbed none of civilisation’s stages expects power from politics rather than public service. He says, ‘Build my road and leave me alone.’ He does not ask whether the city has an opera house or a park. He has no aesthetic concern and has never travelled enough to realise that life can be organised differently. The result is that he votes according to his pocket, and the country is governed accordingly. The cycle feeds itself.

In short, civilisation is a package: science, democracy, human rights and art. None of these is a separate luxury. When one exists without the others, the result is traumatic prosperity. You may hear it described around you as ‘crude, but he has the money’. More broadly, it manifests as social decay—belonging neither here nor there, with a full pocket and an impoverished spirit.

He has no hobby. And do you know what? The inability to develop hobbies is one of the clearest characteristics of people in underdeveloped societies. He may have millions in the bank yet never have visited another country. He has never wondered. Without curiosity, there is no development. He simply stands there like a tree, only less useful than one. Such people are in loss; above all, they waste themselves, their lives and their potential.

Most importantly, provincial Anatolia lacks a sense of concern. Concern for what? For time, for example—the concern to use one’s time as well and productively as possible. There is little concern for principles either. Respect for women, affection for children and human rights are often absent. The greatest indifference is toward aesthetics: little care for the home, the garden or the city streets. Everything is dismissed with ‘What does it matter?’ Without aesthetic concern, many villages, districts and even cities become piles in which their natural beauty goes unnoticed. Even when people earn a great deal, they do not reach for a better life. They buy cars, land and houses; they build, and build again—but rarely say, ‘Let me go and see the world.’

Societies that avoid the costs normally required to reach civilisation yet still become wealthy experience a rootless trauma. This is precisely what Turkish society is facing: provincial arrogance produced by prosperity that arrived without the corresponding cultural development—a symptom of social decay. Countries such as Germany live today on the inheritance of the price they paid: discipline, work ethic and civic culture. In trying to become rich by taking a shortcut, we left our cities without greenery, parks or aesthetic quality.

So what is the solution? It requires a cultural restoration that will take at least twenty years. Yet there is also an advantage in not repeating every historical price. We can read and observe the experiences for which Europe and other civilisations paid dearly, and the lessons they learned. Through a clear educational policy and a national mobilisation, we should embed those lessons in people’s minds. We can learn from the pain Japan endured without having a bomb dropped on us or losing generations.

The issue, therefore, is not wealth itself. It is how money is converted into cultural capital while a society becomes wealthier. Aesthetic concern is closely connected to a person’s awareness of self. It should be cultivated as a compulsory foundation of education from kindergarten onwards.

Municipalities should redesign cities in harmony with their own cultural identity. This should not be the uncontrolled contracting business presented under the label of urban transformation, but a genuine civic mobilisation. Many of our most prominent city squares contain no greenery—only concrete. City centres should include sports facilities, art spaces, meeting points for young people and well-designed cafés.

Aesthetic awareness is, in essence, the art of looking. Children should be raised like artists who practise both the art of living and the art of seeing throughout their lives. When a city is clean, carefully built and governed around human life, you feel it. A sense of openness and freedom dominates that city, and you take extra care not to dirty it. The concern has become such a coherent system that it encourages everyone to follow it.

Hobbies matter enormously. Although provincial culture may dismiss them as activities for ‘spare time’, hobbies are actually ways of filling time meaningfully. Without a hobby, a cigarette may never leave your mouth. How many opportunities do Anatolian cities provide for sport and art? This includes Istanbul. The issue is not merely building children’s playgrounds; it is creating tennis courts, public basketball and football pitches, skate parks and making them easy to access.

The state must also launch a comprehensive reform of municipalities. If you do not provide spaces where children, young people and older adults can develop interests, you will continue to see millions of young people confined to their homes.

The only way to move beyond the attitude that ‘my own garden is enough’ is to make public spaces prestigious, comfortable and welcoming to everyone. Our civilisation will develop when people of different social positions run on the same path in the morning and rest on the same bench. We must not forget this.

Perhaps most importantly, we must replace people who collect concrete blocks with people who collect experiences. We must accept elegance, merit and aesthetic awareness as the norm. Otherwise, provincial arrogance will not disappear in a system that rewards becoming rich through shortcuts, opportunism or connections. It simply will not.

Wishing you health and well-being.