I was told to get to it with wish­es for the bad year, so here I am.

For starters, I extend my best wish­es of bad health to our loath­some Reis. I’ve noticed that he’s been drag­ging his slip­pers recent­ly, just as I do. May he get lock­jaw of the knees soon.  I would hate to die before wit­ness­ing his decline at least…

You see to what lev­els of pol­i­tics we have descend­ed… to one where we hope a roof tile will fall off the roof.

When I hear the sat­is­fied stom­ach rum­blings of our nation­al Ottoman con­cern­ing his meet­ings with the great and the small of this world, or the sur­re­al­is­tic exchanges about armed mil­i­tary or police repres­sion, be they aimed at Pales­tine or the yel­low-vest­ed French, I sit in front of my TV set pray­ing that a pigeon will relieve him­self on him, or even worse that I don’t intend to reveal to you.

In part­ner­ship with the old lead­ers of our nation­al­is­tic par­ties here, he’s decid­ed once again to go and strong arm his way in Syr­ia, now that Trump has hand­ed over his title of Paci­fi­er in Chief.

I don’t for­get it is for­bid­den to remem­ber that  a lot of exiles from the ancient Ottoman Empire set­tled in Ana­to­lia after the First Repub­li­can Father of Turkey caused the dis­ap­pear­ance of the Arme­ni­ans. Erdo­gan is promis­ing the same thing to Syr­i­ans in exile, once the Kurds are “buried” (a pop­u­lar word, these days.) That should  please Bachar no end.

bonne année à venirHe promis­es Lit­tle Mehmet that he won’t die there, or only as a nation­al mar­tyr. Appar­ent­ly, there are lots of beard­ed ones ready to die in his place, same as in Afrin. A good war, just in time for the munic­i­pal elec­tions, now there is some­thing that should renew the ties between nation­al­ist, as usu­al… Turkey’s his­to­ry can be read in its ceme­ter­ies. In this bad year of 2019, I wish them all to rot in hell.

How do you expect me to express good wish­es in all this dark­ness, and with every­thing that lurks in the future?

All right, I will express the wish any­way that those who are in jail may be released soon and that some  among you, across the world, may help them to do so, or at least write to them

And a spe­cial wish for one Kurd who knows a thing or two about snub­bing his nose at his jailers.

And for you, read­ers of this mag­a­zine that allows my ill humor to run free, I wish, on behalf of our small team, that the cen­trigual forces wav­ing flags, 5 stars, vests and trun­cheons in Europe, are not prepar­ing for you tomor­rows a la turca.


 Illus­tra­tion: A cat in Istan­bul by Chris T.

Les vœux pour la mau­vaise année qui se pré­pare Cliquez pour lire

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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