For those of you who might not be familiar with the phrasing of this article's title, it originates from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's famous motto "How happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk.'" This formula, as Wikipedia puts it, has been "the guiding principle of the Kemalist education system of the Republic of Turkey." As a metaphor, it has served as a powerful nationalist tool for decades, but this article refers to the plain speech meaning of the phrase. How happy or unhappy are Turks? Most importantly, what consequences does such information have for a society's well-being?

A recent Al-Monitor article titled "Why Are Israelis so Happy?" caught my attention and provided me with interesting food for thought on the subject. The author cites that Israel was ranked 11th in the 2013 World Happiness Report, which has been prepared by the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York since 2012 and is sponsored by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. She notes the contradiction of rising happiness scores alongside lousy economic policies and a collapsing middle class. Moreover, she claims that happiness in Israel is not only a kind of paradox, but that it reveals Israel turning into an escapist nation.

While Israelis might be in denial of a much grimmer reality, related findings about their Turkish neighbors might seem equally paradoxical, just for opposite reasons. Considering Turkey's high economic performance, strength as an important regional factor and global soft power, the initial guess — without taking into account Turkey's eventual overstretch — would probably suggest Turkey's ranking in the World Happiness Report to be relatively high. Yet, Turkey is ranked only 77th among 156 countries for the same period of 2010-2012. It appears below Algeria and Jordan and above Libya and Bahrain. The findings confirm inaccurate expectations and reassert the general claim that economic success and wealth — though very important determinants of well-being — do not suffice to keep people happy.

The debate on government's responsibility and importance in making its population happy has been global in scope, and so far local in action, according to specific governments' own choices. International organizations also strongly promote importance of happiness and subjective well-being for developing better policies, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) even developed clear standards for cross-country comparisons.