Turkey’s new story should be built on ‘common values’: Doğan Holding chair

BURSA

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Turkish society should reevaluate its “common values” if it wants economic progress and higher social welfare, Doğan Holding Chair Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı said on March 24.      

Speaking on the first day of the Uludağ Economy Summit in the northwestern province of Bursa, Faralyalı said Turkey should build its future story on “strong values like trust, justice and morality,” state-run Anadolu Agency reported. 

She pointed to a 2005 survey that found that more than 70 percent of Turkish people polled at the time did not want to do business or be neighbors with someone who voted for a party they did not support.    
 
“That research was really heartbreaking. We tried to understand the reason why and initiated the Shared Values Movement Project in order to tackle that problem,” said the head of Doğan Holding, which owns daily Hürriyet and the Hürriyet Daily News.      

The project was launched last September, and the results were published on Oct. 29, 2016, Republic Day.      
According to the research conducted with approximately 2,000 people across Turkey, the top individual values were justice, morality, family, tolerance and honesty. 

“When we asked them what were the values that they saw in society, their answers were ‘unemployment,’ ‘ignorance,’ ‘violence’ and ‘poverty.’ As for the values they wanted to see in society, the answers came as ‘justice,’ ‘morality,’ ‘trust,’ ‘respect’ and ‘peace,’” Faralyalı said.      

“If we all want to see this kind of society, we should build this new story on these values and the critical point would be security. Everyone wants to feel secure,” she added.    
  
Faralyalı also noted that according to another survey carried out last year, nine out of ten people in Turkey do not trust each other.      

“But in Denmark, only one out of 10 people say they would not trust a stranger. Danish people say ‘goodwill’ and ‘security’ are the building stones of a society,” she said.      

Commenting on Denmark’s success not only in economy but also in terms of social capital and happiness, Faralyalı said the key point was trust, which brought with it economic welfare.      

“Turkish society needs to be rebuilt into one that is based on such values … We can create a strong Turkey story by remembering our shared values, talking to each other and building trust with each other,” she said.