In despair for the youth of today

In line with my job as full-time reporter for this blog I receive all sorts of stuff from research companies, PR outfits and purveyors of junk. Normally most of it gets thrown out quicker than it takes for me to actual sign for whatever it is.

I was having a coffee this morning though and decided to at least skim through the latest document to make it to my office, a survey concerning "How young people see life" by a group called International Politics and Strategy Research Centre, or UPSAM using the Turkish acronym.

I'm not really sure what the "views of the youth" has to do with international politics, but anyway.

The survey is full of all the normal sort of tosh. No real surprise that the majority of Turkish youth have had a cigarette or that chat rooms are their favourite places on the internet. But one question certainly grabbed my attention. "Who do take as an example while you you are growing up?" It was something like that. Perhaps a better translation would be "Who is your role model in life?"

Now these are always interesting questions. Times change and so therefore do people's role models. As a Generation X person I would guess that if this question had been asked when I was a "youth" the biggest answer would most probably be Kurt Kobain, followed by whoever invented ecstasy.

So who is the most popular role model for Turkish youth.

Polat Alemdar.

This bloke plays the part of a tough, no nonsense, Turkish intelligence officer who goes around the place upholding Turkish honour in a TV show that is amazingly boring. 19 percent of Turkish youth have this bloke as a role model. Scary.

The rest of the list is a funny read though. In descending order
Polat Alemdar
Mother
Father
Teacher
Auntie
Uncle
Big Brother (I assume this is not the TV show, cause if it is we are really stuffed)
Ataturk
Hulya Avsar (oh dear)
Prime Minister Erdogan (oh dear)
Al Pacino (what the f...)
The Prophet Muhammed
Cousin
Seray Sever (Mrs. Oz Kanka says she is famous for not wearing much)

And then bottom of the list:

Fenerbahce Chairman Aziz Yildirim (no comment)