Cafer Tar
“Seeing how he speaks, you would think that he and his circles are such working class heroes, and that all their wealth comes from long years of labour. However, in the history of the Republic of Turkey, President Erdoğan, a lover for capital, has been the president who has born greatest enmity against labour,” Cafer Tar writes for Yeni Özgür Politika.
“What do some people say? ‘There are no jobs’. These are ungrateful, ungrateful. There is bread for those who look for bread, there are jobs for those who look for a job. However, if you want to sit back, and huh, ask for money; no offence, but none for you!”
These are the words of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the chair of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey.
Seeing how he speaks, you would think that he and his circles are such working class heroes, and that all their wealth comes from long years of labour.
However, in the history of the Republic of Turkey, President Erdoğan, a lover for capital, has been the president who has born greatest enmity against labour. He constantly opens the doors of his plane and palace to the rich of Turkey as he has not even one care for the poor of the country.
Erdoğan, who has a personal relationship with almost all business people, has no direct relationship with any labour organisation; he even tries to humiliate workers’ organisations and unions all the time.
For this reason, more than half of society refuses to respect Erdoğan as president, let alone love him. He himself, too, just wants to be the president of those who love him.
The poor of Turkish society have been deceived by an operation organised by someone within this government. This government has set a trap for its people.
The process of lowering interest rates, which began on 23 September, continued until the last moment, and at some point people panicked and exchanged their Turkish currency for foreign currency. (…)
According to a rumour, a sum of nearly $40 billion dollars was converted into Turkish Lira one day before the indexation of TL deposits in US dollars.
Let’s say this number is a bit exaggerated, but there is no doubt that at least half of this sum was converted into TL the night before.
A country of 80 million people witnessed such a robbery. Millions of lira that the peoples of Turkey had earned through hard work and labour have been given to someone during a late night operation.
Now the person who led this operation comes and tells us that we cannot ask for money “by sitting back”. Moreover, the same man who is not satisfied with this, accuses these people of laziness.
Now I ask all our readers: Who in this country has made billions of dollars overnight by sitting on their backside?
The only problem in this country is not the AKP or Erdoğan.
In this country, whilst all this is happening before their very eyes, there is a society that keeps watching all; there is the the problem of a Turkish society that almost rejoices over what has been happening and plays drums and horns.
“I can hardly bring myself to say it, but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.”*
*Verses of Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet Ran’s poem titled “The Strangest Creature on Earth“.