Tue, 24 Apr 2007
Mother and Son; Stirring the Waters, Testing the Patience
Mother and son... It is not too hard to guess who they are represent since the author is a obsessed with Cyprus. Or should it be mother and daughter? Let's assume a gender neutral role for the term "son" for now. Just look at a random newspaper from son's media. You can see what I mean by "stirring the waters, testing the patience". They want to create a storm in cup — say a cup of zivania for son and a cup raki for mother.
Remember, son is immature yet. May be an infant.
Mother
In the house of mother, the patience is running out. AKP's turn has not passed yet. EU membership did not come. Erdogan is testing waters; should he be the next Demirel/Ozal? , i.e. should he be elected president because the parliament elects the president and his party has enough of a majority to elect anyone they want after few rounds of bickering at the parliament? Perfect excuse. The national socialists, oops, sorry, I meant the (pseudo-)social democrats who hang out with the infamous "red apple", a.k.a. the ultra-nationalist, group are still bitter about their election defeat and how irrelevant they became. It is not easy to swallow losing the role as being the poster child of modernization to ex-Islamists-now-turned-hidden-Islamists, a.k.a. AKP. For decades, their rhetoric revolved around a self-proclaimed fight for civil and economic liberties, for modernization, for being the anti-thesis of Islamo-Turkish nationalism and religious fundamentalism. But when they had the power — as little of it as a government in Turkey is "allowed" to have — they messed up. They messed up so badly that they were booted out with the conservatives. One of them had a minor comeback because it was already booted out (CHP). Now, they have nothing to provide the Turkish public. So they allied with the ultra-nationalist, conservative, pseudo-secularist crowd. In the bizarre world of Turkish politics, secularism means attacking all outward displays of Islamism while at the same time alienating, destroying the multi-cultural, multi-religious heritage of Turkey. After all, we are all born Muslims as defined by the Turkish government and not by our heritage, culture or parents.
Ohh, before I drag on too long — and also because my train ride is about to end — stirring waters --- yes, stirring waters. Small but high profile murders to create tension, to bring attention to issues like the Armenian genocide, anti-semitism, anti-Christian feelings. To fire up the nationalist press. To slowly increase the tension to start calling for martial law etc etc. Then the demonstrations. The recipe is ready. The latest fashion all around the world is to gather uni-colored crowds — e.g. orange , on in the case of Turkey the red Turkish flag. Do all this in a way that no-one can really say anything, for example, do the rally around Ataturk's tomb. How can one criticize an event that took place in front of the ultimate idol.
Then the real bosses speak — obviously, the army. They talk about principles of the Republic, Ataturk, secularism, etc etc. They issue threats. The storm starts. The big prize is the seven year seat at the presidential palace.
Anyway, I get carried along again. I do not have anything important or unknown to say about the pathetic situation in Turkey. Sad but true on both accounts.
Son
North Cyprus provides a off-shelf, microwavable bite for the holders of the spoon in Turkey. The "general's diaries" (I wonder if it has any juicy Bridget Jones' diaries like entries too) that surfaced few weeks ago revealed a fairly developed plan for a military coup which was conveniently timed prior to the Annan Plan referendum in 2004. Cyprus and its presumed lose of — if Turkey is not occupying north Cyprus, how they are afraid of losing is beyond standard logic — was the stated excuse for their actions.In 1955, that was the excuse for the pogroms in Istanbul. After all, it is nice to have a sweet, syrupy (is there such a word?) bite with all that water they are stirring.
Puppeteer and the puppet; If the puppeteer is so active, the puppet can not stand still either. The man-power needed to stage their scare tactics, mini-demonstrations, flood of columns is happily imported from the mother — like a good mother, she does not spare anything from her offspring (or does she?. Let it be an antique documentary ("Our Wall") on government TV station or a comical football game of politicians or the party congress of CTP, or the murders at Kumsal in 1963 ("the bathtub masacre"). They are all wonderful excuses.
CTP party congress. They put up a good show as usual. Made big deal of silly little things like that they provided wireless Internet in the venue instead of providing important political plans (hey, they are supposed to be the governing party, a.k.a. the head-puppet). The little debate that happened during the congress was portrayed as unacceptable dissent and it was silenced. They did the usual display of national symbols, paying homage to this martyr or that etc etc. But it was not as prominent as those done by the nationalist (UBP, DP etc) gang. So it provided the right excuse for an all out attack. It was a totally meaningless attack that could have easily been marginalized had it not been for the fear of the mother. Instead of counter-attacking and proclaiming that having a memorial for the martyrs (what is a martyr anyway?) , reading the national anthem (mind you, we are talking about the national anthem of Turkey!) aloud, having hundreds of Turkish and TRNC flags are irrelevant, unnecessary and wasteful, one after another, so called president, prime-minister and other puppets got up and tried hard to prove that they have actually done all that. They proclaimed that nothing (including a black cat — I suppose the use of the term does not imply any superstition on our super-star communist Ferdi Soyer) can get in between them (the puppet) and Turkey (the puppeteer). Well, it is nice to have good mother-son relationship eh? You know family values and all that.
I see indicators of these exercises pretty much everyday in newspapers. As time passes, they appear more and more coherent.
Then came the children's day celebrations — the 23rd of April is a gift of Go^H^H (x) Ataturk to the children of world. The civilians, i.e. the willing puppets of the military showed a tiny bit of dignity and accepted to sit separately from the military in the militaristic, nationalist, backwards celebrations that take place annually. This gesture is common place. Every few years military in Turkey says "to hell with you, I am the real boss, and I will do my own functions". Well, there is not much of a difference between the two after all!
Unfortunately, they have also mostly pacified the "opposition" over these years. The period surrounding the Annan plan referendum ate up a lot of its energy. The period immediately after where newer puppets were designed and built saw a lot of them become the part of the machinery — nothing unexpected! — . Recently, various teacher's unions that CTP used to consider its golden asset rose up against the government. CTP did what it learnt from the previous gang, tried to split the movement, tried to take over the union to replace the leadership with its own people. The attempt is obvious, to turn yet another Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) into a Not-so-different-from-the Government Organization. We have hundreds of them, few more is not a bother at all!
Final Cliche
Aha, now for a final cliche. We need to do all we can to resist this for the sake of the family (mother-son)'s real members (people). If the army, its puppets, its collaborators keeps showing off its power, we need to learn to show off our power as the people and achieve the critical mass to impose our will. Get out and protest. Start with the simplest, raise your voice, sign a few petitions, pick up plastic buckets and make noise. If nothing else, next display of nationalist, militarist power, i.e. next "holiday", can be turned into a chaotic, diverse, colorful display of our own music, music from banging pots and pans.
I did warn you that it was a cliche!
(x) For those unfamiliar with the old skool Internet jargon, "^H" is what appears on the screen when backspace is pressed in a terminal that is poorly configured. It is commonplace amongst geek^H^H^H^H old skool Internet users to use it to keep the deleted word intact. Nowadays, bloggers strike-through a word instead.
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