A Whole Country Toying with a Little Child’s Dreams!

We all do the most important job in the world. Ours is the most valuable time. We listen to the best songs, watch the best films, buy the most stylish clothes. Our comments on any subject are the most valuable. What others say, listen to, watch or wear is worth nothing next to what you do. Because you do it best. You are at the center of the world!

I want to talk about the story as far as it was reported in the press. A second-grade boy. Apparently his class has an assignment on introducing professions, and everyone will present the profession they want to have when they grow up. D. decides he wants to be a parking attendant, and his family contacts İspark to say they would like some information. İspark welcomes the request, hosts him and, as a small gesture, gives him the uniform the parking attendants wear so he can wear it for his presentation. Up to this point everything is going wonderfully: D. gives his presentation in class, and İspark shares it on its Twitter account.

That is exactly where the lynching begins. The generation raised to believe it deserves the best of everything, which places itself at the center of the world, executes a little child’s innocent wish with its own value judgments, belittles it, mocks it and treats it as a funny incident to laugh at. People who spend their lives going nowhere in a 2 m² space think they have the right to make fun of a little child’s dreams for the future simply because those dreams don’t match their own ideas, perspectives and value judgments.

Right at this point, I want to point to a campaign by the delivery company UPS in America. Carson, a child a little younger than D., is 4 years old and wants to be a delivery driver. Seeing his excitement and wish, UPS makes him part of the team, if only for a day, and in a way Carson could never even have dreamed of.

So how is this received in America? Do people make fun of Carson’s wish to be a delivery driver, do they belittle him? No! They put him on TV shows, send him messages of support on Twitter and back his dreams.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Martin Luther King

Creating a successful society is possible only if everyone does their job as well as they can. I can easily say that very few people in our country do their jobs properly. Nobody works in the job they want, nobody loves the work they do. “In this country, I made the headlines because I didn’t make excuses, didn’t give in to hardship and worked during the holidays,” says teacher Ahmet Naç, because he turned his classroom into a whole different world, because he does his job well. Because he does the job he is supposed to do properly.

Sadly, success doesn’t go unpunished in this country. Sadly, those who do their jobs well aren’t appreciated. We don’t like those who disturb our comfort, those who think differently, those who work hard, those who do their jobs well. Worst of all, we are now bad people. We belittle, mock and make fun of anyone who isn’t one of us. And yet, back when we were children, didn’t we learn from Mahmut Hoca and from Ahmet not to belittle, not to mock, to value every idea and to respect those who aren’t like us? Didn’t we all put ourselves in Güdük Necmi’s and İnek Şaban’s shoes and feel ashamed?

I’m sorry.

Note: Names and images have been removed at the family’s request.

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