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If Mark Zuckerberg had not been born in New York but in Istanbul, he would now probably be brooding over when and how to fulfill his mandatory military service. In a previous commentary [1], I tried to portray how the Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem is far from offering young people opportunities similar to those that Zuckerberg enjoyed in the US. I see now that I missed one important element: mandatory military service.
Having brought the idea of Facebook to maturity, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of university and started his business. That is very uncommon among students in Turkey. Here you try to stay in university as long as you can in order to avoid the mandatory military service. After graduation, many potential entrepreneurs enroll in graduate programs to defer serving in the army. Potential entrepreneurs either become academics or seek out opportunities abroad.
So it is evident that Turkey’s military does not make life easier for entrepreneurs. You might ask about the correlation between military service and entrepreneurship, or creativity. I have no answer to that. How about this one though: If the Zuckerbergs of the world [2] lived in Turkey, how would they choose to fulfill their national service?
Experts on the issue will probably think this is nonsense, but my purpose is to share my ideas about possible improvements for the current system in Turkey.
Here is my recommendation for a six-step mandatory military service reform:
I know, these ideas will sound utopian for some and nonsense to others. Many who read this will come up with a series of reasons why these are not feasible. But I think the way to make sure that Turkey’s Mark Zuckerbergs can succeed is to reform the military service system (or to remove the barriers beyond reform), among others. Turkey introduces a paid military service law once for every generation just because it could not solve the rooted problems of the mandatory military service system. Just as it introduces successive tax amnesties as it hasn’t been able to launch a tax reform, right?
I think it is time to consider comprehensive reforms rather than temporary solutions to save the day.
[1] “Why the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world don’t live in Turkey” http://www.tepav.org.tr/en/kose-yazisi-tepav/s/3055
[2] Zuckerberg is a Jewish American, but he is not an Israeli citizen. So, he has not done mandatory military service in that country. If you are curious how the mandatory military service in Israel contributes to entrepreneurship in the country, please read The Start-Up Nation by a US-based think-tank Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.cfr.org/israel/start-up-nation/p20356)
*Esen Çağlar, TEPAV Economic Policy Analyst, http://www.tepav.org.tr/en/ekibimiz/s/1025/Esen+Caglar
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