You would need 7 cat lives to make up for the one being burned right now in fear and abjec­tion in Turkey. As if pow­er weren’t enough for him, here’s the Sul­tan now want­i­ng to turn our chil­dren in mar­tyrs for the fatherland.

I noticed I was­n’t the only one who want­ed to talk about it, but best to do so while there’s still time.

Parad­ing chil­dren in uni­form on stage by his side brings back all those pro­pa­gan­da images, from the world wars at the begin­ning of the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry where through fas­cism, nazism, stal­in­ism pur­sued   all the tyrants on earth were at the ori­gin of so many mas­sacres and vic­tims through­out all of humanity.

When you start think­ing that a new birth is des­tined to die for a Nation,  and when all of this is wrapped in an islamist beard, you are log­i­cal­ly pick­ing up the relay from ISIS and its caliphate in the region.

This is the image dis­played in the coun­try these days, from one of the Reis’ speech­es to the oth­er, with crowds of ecsta­t­ic sym­pa­thiz­ers ready to cut the throat on the ene­my with­in and to die against the out­side agres­sor.

Pro­pa­gan­da points to the Unit­ed-States as the hand flaunt­ing the Kur­dish pup­pet. And it works. Espe­cial­ly since they have a Pres­i­dent you would­n’t invite into your home. Ideas wind their way to each oth­er under the nation­al flag and Erdoğan becomes the suc­ces­sor to the Father of the Nation, pro­long­ing the 1920 nation­al rev­o­lu­tion. Great Turkey will know no lim­its, it will have no ene­mies, just as in the begin­ning of the last cen­tu­ry and it cement will be islam and jihad against the hate­ful pre­sumed invader.

The lit­tle peo­ple, drink­ing these words in the shad­ow of the flag and of the stat­ues, dumb­found­ed by all the cement push­ing up every­where, charged up against “sep­a­ratism and ter­ror­ism”, are ready for the supreme sac­ri­fice. Between lit­tle jobs, big­ot­ed moral­i­ty and schemes, they adu­late the chief and denounce the neigh­bor.

And when, turn­ing on your TV, you hear « Why would the Turk­ish army go over there to kill civil­ians? If we had civil­ians to kill, we would start with Cihangir, Nişan­taşı, Etil­er, would­n’t we? They are full of trai­tors. We even have some in the Nation­al Assem­bly » spo­ken by pre­sen­ter Ahmet Keser, on Akit TV, you won­der how far the calls to mur­der and war will go in the com­ing weeks.

Who is there left to kill in the east­ern towns? All the ter­ror­ized pop­u­la­tions plunged into mis­ery and pre­car­i­ous­ness? Those who are in pris­ons? Their polit­i­cal lead­ers? And in Istan­bul neigh­bor­hoods? Those who vot­ed HDP in 2015 ?

You will say I’m paint­ing every­thing in black and that, accord­ing to the TV, con­sump­tion isn’t doing bad­ly and that Turk­ish brands are export­ing. Turkey is mod­ern­iz­ing and I would be aller­gic to change and progress?

Two uni­forms are meld­ing in the folds of the flag, or even three with that of cor­rupt busi­ness men and politi­cians. One sells as an islam­ic iden­ti­ty, the oth­er aimed at chil­dren martyrs.

And the State frees Euro­pean jour­nal­ists in exchange for weapons. The oth­ers, it con­demns to life imprisonment.

But don’t wor­ry, you won’t see any of this while sun­bathing on the beach­es of the tourist hotels, or while walk­ing around with your nose in the air in places designed for sight­see­ing. Jails are closed to vis­i­tors, so are zones of mas­sacres, but the stores are open and the “typ­i­cal” bou­tiques also. Occa­sion­al­ly, you will always find a dri­ver in a yel­low cab who speaks your tongue and he will dri­ve you some­where, just for you, so you will have a peace­ful sou­venir to relate when you go home.

And if you have a bit of ethics left after all, you can prac­tice con­de­scen­sion… Yes, yes, that’s allowed. Your Pres­i­dents call on restraint dont’ they, on respect­ing human rights and free­dom of expres­sion. You are there­fore enti­tled to com­pas­sion, for the sal­va­tion of your con­science. But watch it, no politics!

Vipers’ tongues like mine see evil every­where, as for Afrin and its olive branch… 

And I see this at your hairdresser’s:

In a uni­tar­i­an sys­tem (like Turkey’s) a pres­i­den­tial sys­tem can exist per­fect­ly well. There are exam­ples of this in the world and also exam­ples in his­to­ry. You see an exam­ple of it in Hitler’s Ger­many” (speech pro­nounced in 2016)


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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