How Happy Is the One Who Says 'I am a Turk'?
Turks seem to be content, but perhaps not all that happy.
For those of you who might not be familiar with the phrasing of this article's title, it originates from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's famous motto "How happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk.'" This formula, as Wikipedia puts it, has been "the guiding principle of the Kemalist education system of the Republic of Turkey." As a metaphor, it has served as a powerful nationalist tool for decades, but this article refers to the plain speech meaning of the phrase. How happy or unhappy are Turks? Most importantly, what consequences does such information have for a society's well-being?
A recent Al-Monitor article titled "Why Are Israelis so Happy?" caught my attention and provided me with interesting food for thought on the subject. The author cites that Israel was ranked 11th in the 2013 World Happiness Report, which has been prepared by the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York since 2012 and is sponsored by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. She notes the contradiction of rising happiness scores alongside lousy economic policies and a collapsing middle class. Moreover, she claims that happiness in Israel is not only a kind of paradox, but that it reveals Israel turning into an escapist nation.
