Phone ringing woke me up today. It showed 7:35 am. When I hung up the phone I checked the time on my Mac. It was 8:40 am. What we should have done on March 27th that we didn't? Were we supposed to put the time one hour ahead? Were we supposed to put it one hour back? For some time my watch awaits me in another city, so I don't have a wrist watch, and no other mechanical clocks at home. I totally lost track of time in that half-asleep state of mind.
It took me some time to realize the time was supposed to be moved forward for one hour, but it wasn't due to an executive order in Turkey, but my Mac ignoring all-powerful executive orders put its time one hour ahead while my iPhone listened to the signal from my cellular provider and kept the "correct" time for the country.
Some of the people I talked on the phone, who were to attend university quialification exams in Turkey today woke up at a time not supposed to be but is, and some others woke up at a time which is but not supposed to be. There were traffic jams on the roads when they were not supposed to be crowded, and when the clocks show the time that was not supposed to be but officially correct, thousands of university candidates found themselves in front of exam centers one hour early, having to spend another hour on the street adding to their inevitable stress.
Shortly before the university exam, the authority we call government here suddenly realized that daylight savings time will be implemented early in the same day as the exam. Not realizing at first that system works because it's done globally at the same date (with a very few exceptions due to important reasons) implemented it anyway to give the children another hour's sleep.
Decision first hit multinational corporations with interconnected computer systems and International airlines. But an order's an order, isn't it? These companies spent millions of dollars to adapt, airlines to notify their customers of schedule changes.
What the administration missed was the fact that technology manages our time in the 21st Century. While some people were able to wake up at the "right" time with manual adjustments, most woke up, as a result of an intervention by their cellular phones, at a globbaly right but locally wrong hour. For the latter group, which seems to be the majority of kids, all efforts and money spent to have a different time zone for 24 hours are wasted.
Last week is full of examples that shows the time's lost for Turkey. Journalists are put in jail for unpublished works, rapists let go during trials, everyday women and children murdered for blood feuds and moral issues. What we called the "oriental wisdom" in this neck of the woods is increasingly becoming an everyday fact, even the mode of administration. Like the government applying International agreements if it deems useful for its own ideology, otherwise who cares, the price is paid by the people anyway. Administration shows the same attitude towards day-to-day matters as well. If they do it, it must be right.
These events also show that specialization and counselling are losing ground in practice in Turkey. In a country where companies earn millions from Enterprise Resource Planning, basiz budgeting or planning software are unexistent. People manage Turkey the way they manage their political parties, which they manage the way they manage their corporations, which they manage the way they manage their grocery stores. It really does not look like the consequences are evaluated before making a decision to me. What I see is that the results of most decisions show that they are made with the motto; "if I did it, it must be right". Decisions are not taken by asking to people who know, people who know cease to know because knowledge has no longer any value. People who cannot live without knowledge no longer live in Turkey. They simply can't.
Turkey's time's totally lost. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, the World lives in integration. A state not realizing the fact that local decisions are tested in global environment is bound to repeat the mistakes made in the beginning of the 18th Century in the same geography. Earth's resources are very limited for its population. Unfortunately short-term political decisions waste most of these resources and this happens mostly in developing nations where resources are even more scarce.
When we consider distribution of wealth and inequalities on this earth we have to bear that fact in mind. Otherwise we will continue to live in a country where unpublished books are confiscated, in a country where thought is a crime, and in a country where a totally different notion of time exist.
It took me some time to realize the time was supposed to be moved forward for one hour, but it wasn't due to an executive order in Turkey, but my Mac ignoring all-powerful executive orders put its time one hour ahead while my iPhone listened to the signal from my cellular provider and kept the "correct" time for the country.
Some of the people I talked on the phone, who were to attend university quialification exams in Turkey today woke up at a time not supposed to be but is, and some others woke up at a time which is but not supposed to be. There were traffic jams on the roads when they were not supposed to be crowded, and when the clocks show the time that was not supposed to be but officially correct, thousands of university candidates found themselves in front of exam centers one hour early, having to spend another hour on the street adding to their inevitable stress.
Shortly before the university exam, the authority we call government here suddenly realized that daylight savings time will be implemented early in the same day as the exam. Not realizing at first that system works because it's done globally at the same date (with a very few exceptions due to important reasons) implemented it anyway to give the children another hour's sleep.
Decision first hit multinational corporations with interconnected computer systems and International airlines. But an order's an order, isn't it? These companies spent millions of dollars to adapt, airlines to notify their customers of schedule changes.
What the administration missed was the fact that technology manages our time in the 21st Century. While some people were able to wake up at the "right" time with manual adjustments, most woke up, as a result of an intervention by their cellular phones, at a globbaly right but locally wrong hour. For the latter group, which seems to be the majority of kids, all efforts and money spent to have a different time zone for 24 hours are wasted.
Last week is full of examples that shows the time's lost for Turkey. Journalists are put in jail for unpublished works, rapists let go during trials, everyday women and children murdered for blood feuds and moral issues. What we called the "oriental wisdom" in this neck of the woods is increasingly becoming an everyday fact, even the mode of administration. Like the government applying International agreements if it deems useful for its own ideology, otherwise who cares, the price is paid by the people anyway. Administration shows the same attitude towards day-to-day matters as well. If they do it, it must be right.
These events also show that specialization and counselling are losing ground in practice in Turkey. In a country where companies earn millions from Enterprise Resource Planning, basiz budgeting or planning software are unexistent. People manage Turkey the way they manage their political parties, which they manage the way they manage their corporations, which they manage the way they manage their grocery stores. It really does not look like the consequences are evaluated before making a decision to me. What I see is that the results of most decisions show that they are made with the motto; "if I did it, it must be right". Decisions are not taken by asking to people who know, people who know cease to know because knowledge has no longer any value. People who cannot live without knowledge no longer live in Turkey. They simply can't.
Turkey's time's totally lost. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, the World lives in integration. A state not realizing the fact that local decisions are tested in global environment is bound to repeat the mistakes made in the beginning of the 18th Century in the same geography. Earth's resources are very limited for its population. Unfortunately short-term political decisions waste most of these resources and this happens mostly in developing nations where resources are even more scarce.
When we consider distribution of wealth and inequalities on this earth we have to bear that fact in mind. Otherwise we will continue to live in a country where unpublished books are confiscated, in a country where thought is a crime, and in a country where a totally different notion of time exist.
No comments:
Post a Comment