The freedom to sin
Metin Külünk, Justice and Development Party (AKP) member of Parliament, made a philosophical comment on TV.
He said:
- People have the freedom to sin.
- The Dec. 17 operation is a blow to this freedom.
- The freedom to sin was obstructed by tapping telephones.
- This cannot be so.
- God will not accept this.
When there is a camera on, the former leader of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deniz Baykal and MPs from the National Movement Party (MHP) you would say:
-That’s not right.
-This is not private, but general.
-You have to watch your belly.
-There cannot be such freedom.
-We will not let immorality prevail.
When the issue is about “watching one’s belly,” you’ll roar like a lion.
But when the issue is “watching your hand...”
You’ll start crying:
-They prevented our freedom of plundering millions of dollars.
-They prevented our freedom of wrong doing on state biddings.
-They did not even want our freedom to hide money in shoe boxes.
- They tried to prevent our freedom to go to Mecca for the holy pilgrimage with a private plane
-We are the victim… victim…
When the issue is about…
The belly, something with girls and boys together, something about alcohol...
There is absolutely no freedom discussed.
When the issue is about…
Accumulating money, filling shoe boxes with money, millions of dollars that need to be hidden…
Keep mourning, saying “Let us have our freedom to sin.”
What you want is this:
-Zero tolerance to individual sins.
-Infinite tolerance for societal crimes.
This is your conservatism. Keep this reckless conservatism until infinity... you have no sense of shame in you.
Ask them when they knock on your door
What was the government doing while the (Gülen) cemaat was penetrating the state?
You accept some of the voice recordings, yet say some others are montage. What are the criteria to separate the two?
Why aren’t you doing anything to prove that the “Tayyip Erdoğan/Bilal Erdoğan” phone conversation is a montage?
Why hasn’t Prime Minister Erdoğan made his assets public?
Where is the list of assets from the son of a minister who called trillions “a few bucks?” Where did he get all of this money?
If a member of the AKP was caught in the act of stealing, can any prosecutor or police officer take action on that person? Are there any judiciary or security departments left?
He interferes with the justice system; he interferes with state biddings, he interferes with Fenerbahçe, and then he says, “What’s more normal than that?”
What is more normal is not to interfere with justice, not to play with the outcome of state biddings, not to interfere with Fenerbahçe.
The year is 2011, the AKP’s campaign song:
“We passed the same road / we drank the same water / our winter is common, our summer is common / we are the same wind from the mountain / Songs are all one / We sang all together / Our dances are one / we dance together, we sing together
Aynı yoldan geçmişiz biz / Aynı sudan içmişiz biz / Yazımız bir kışımız bir / Aynı dağın yeliyiz biz / Şarkılar bir türküler bir / Hep beraber söyleriz biz / Halaylar bir horonlar bir / Hep beraber söyleriz biz...”
This song can no longer be sung, because…
They are not walking the same roads with drunkards,
They are not drinking from the same water with marauders.
Their winter and summer are different than the cemaat.
No dancing together with atheists.
The new campaign song is like the “anthem of a national chief”
“He is the grand voice of the muted world / he is as you see him / He takes his strength from the nation / Recep Tayyip Erdoğan / The man of the nation, the hope of millions.
Ahmet Hakan is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on March 7. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.