Farewell to Turkey’s most colorful politician

The Kamerist Youth Movement was first and foremost a movement against itself by its very nature. I know because I started the movement.

I had set up the Kamerist Youth Movement, which was based on “individual opposition for the public good,” as a joke.

These were the days Kamer Genç, an independent deputy, was giving an extraordinary performances without any party support behind him. I turned and looked behind; it was apparently 2007.

If I am not mistaken, it was the time of budget debates. During the debates, which I watched each year as a hobby, Kamer Genç had bewildered everybody with his courage that is typical of people who are right.

That’s when I wrote the article “Long live the Kamerist Youth Movement.”

Was I joking?

The movement endorsed the approach of those who never back down from the road they had faith in, who never back down in what they believe to be right, who rise against injustice, fraud, dishonesty and pit themselves even their closest friends if necessary. 

The starting point and the movement’s namesake was obviously Kamer Genç and his performance in the parliament but I was trying to point out an attitude that was even against myself and even against Kamer Genç.

Instead of being a mere figurant in our country’s mediocre so-called democracy play, one needed to stand against it in all its being, continuing to talk about its wrongs without minding who would be resentful.

After a few articles about the movement, Kamer Genç called me.

He was very polite and to tell you the truth, he was trying to understand my intention. Was I making a fool of him?

I tried to explain the intention of the “movement” the best I could.

 “Actually, I am also against you. And in fact, don’t let me list the reasons why I am against myself; otherwise you will have a huge telephone bill,” I told him while he laughed.

The rest of the conversation continued with him speaking about a corruption issue, which, to be honest, I had no idea what he was talking about.

At the same time, some people had the intention of forming a Facebook group with the name Kamerist Youth Movement.

When they reached out to me, I said the movement would/should be against such activities or at least I was individually against it.

When Kamer Genç moved to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), I said the movement would not transfer to the CHP and as was the case in each pillar of this order, it was against the CHP but that there was no break up with the “natural leader!”

Who is that stupid?

His wife, Sevim Genç, tells an anecdote that perfectly explains the approach of Kamer Gerç and the Kamerist Youth Movement.

 “One day we are going in the car. We are listening to news in the radio. The news said in the vote for the death sentence for Mehmet Ali Ağca [who killed a prominent Turkish journalist and shot the pope in 1981] 149 votes were in favor and one was against. I asked who was the stupid one who had voted against it. My husband said, ‘It was me.’”

If you are against death penalty, you are against it. That was the Kamerist Youth Movement in short...

You can access data about the performance of parliamentarians on the parliament’s website, i.e. how many times they spoke on the assembly floor, how many motions they have tabled, etc.

He had tabled numerous motions. All who had a problem went to him and he heard them and tried to be their voice. He did what the representative of a people should do. Kamer Genç sparkled with his good parts and bad parts in a system that produces uniform pawns without any sort of character.