Few Lessons Learnt from Gaziantep

 Taking the inter city bus from Konya around mid night I was traveling towards the city of Gaziantep. This city is located near Syrian border with many camps for displaced people located around it. The city is so well known in the surrounding region that people are asking for ‘Made in Gaziantep’ materials instead of naming the country, Turkey.  The bus was as usual comfortable with all in seat entertainment and refreshments. However being night most people preferred to sleep and so did I.

I arrived in Gaziantep early on the morning around 06:30 am. Decided to take tea and something to eat. This time I had to make it to hotel myself so there were two options, I take the taxi or use the local transport system. Local transport system in most of the cities in the country is comparable to any European standard but knowing which route to take and which stop to use was a problem. Therefore I decided to ask the young guy serving tea. When I asked him he explained to me the public transport system. I then asked if I use taxi, his reply was ‘brother isn’t it pity that you pay 15 dollars to taxi when you can go by bus in just 1 dollar’. This was the first lesson I learnt in Gaziantep. However this guy in his good intention forgot that I don’t know the city well and there is a worth of time (some times) exceeding the costs.

I was not convinced so simply left for the doors on opposite side of his café so that he doesn’t see me taking the taxi all against his advice. From the other side I took the taxi for the hotel. The taxi driver after formal introduction started telling me about economy. His deep analysis was really astonishing like…’yes we are exporting a lot but most of raw material we import’. He also talked about political situation. The lesson I learnt was, it did not matter if you are taxi driver or a professor, it is all about personal development based upon your very own preferences.

On second day of my visit to city I met Mr. Ozhan, an old friend of mine. He is a regional business man but knowing the world better than many analysts. We talked about the huge amounts of credit loans the city’s municipality was planning to take or already taken. His reply was, this is a good indicator for economy. I was surprised a lot so asked him for clarification. He said, ‘look 10 years ago leave the municipality even the central government was afraid of taking any internal or external loan. Now they are taking bold steps and taking loans for heavy investments’. The reason he put forward was the right type of management and leadership country or local governments have got which made people confident to take risks and see an ability in them to pay back. Then when I asked why some of the European countries are in trouble, his straight answer was, ‘the people over there do not work, I work from 6:00 am till 20:00. I said but this much work is also not good. His reply was another lesson never to forget. He said, ‘it is the system, not the people who work. System makes people work. Why the USA is so strong? Because the system over there makes every one work!’.