The target group in the HDP’s messages

After Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş declared to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 17 that “As long as the HDP exists, you will not be president [in a presidential system],” I have heard a number of different comments.

There are wide segments who never ever want Erdoğan to be the president with superpowers. The HDP will use this enmity as the strongest sentence in its election campaign.

Since the country has to be run like a company, then let’s talk with that terminology: The HDP’s target audience is made up of Kurds and the left-inclined members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), for whom an authoritarian presidential system is their biggest fear.  

There is a lack of trust between the HDP and the urban social democrats it wants to reach. More than the Kurds’ demands - such as mother tongue education or decentralization - perhaps this lack of confidence is related to concerns that the HDP will cooperate with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for the sake of a solution in the peace process. Because the HDP senses this, it will try to eliminate that concern by taking a clear stance against Erdoğan’s presidency.

But Demirtaş’s latest message, the trust issue with the target voters continues. I think that voter’s problem is not with Demirtaş, nor even with the HDP. While the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Abdullah Öcalan continue to have an effect on the party, I’m sure the voter is thinking, like the father of a young girl who has started dating, “We trust you, but we do not trust those around you…”

Fame for the 77 million

Andy Warhol once said, “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Our state has proven what a limited vision he had. Thank God, today, the 77 million people living in Turkey will be famous until eternity!

According to a document dated Dec. 20, 2014, the intelligence section of the National Police Department has collected intelligence on everybody (yes, everybody) in the country, as part of a detailed data analysis program. Personal information about everybody is in this program, which is open for the access of police officers working in intelligence.

An intelligence police officer, for example, can access any private knowledge about you. There are notes in these files saying things like, “He/she does not pay back his/her debts. He/she has had Botox done recently. Somebody says this about them…”

Your diseases, your health situation, the clubs and associations you are a member of, your commercial secrets, your friends and acquaintances, probably recordings of your phone conversations; all are archived by the state!

It was because private information concerning then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his family members was accessed many times, and later included in a legal indictment, that we ordinary mortals learned about it.

I do not see a bad side to fame. There are smiles and nice welcomes in stores and restaurants; on the street people stop and take pictures with you. Well, our statesmen have now made everybody famous. Each one of our 77 million is a celebrity for the police.

Almost everyone who follows me would know, for example where my father and grandfather are from, my political views, my religion and sect, my business friends, whether I exercise or not, etc. I am a talkative writer; I have written about everything; it’s all there in the computer.

Now, we are all the same. All the information about you is only a “click” away to our police. Don’t be shy about gossiping from now on; don’t be shy with your neighbors. Just let go. Everything is being shared anyway; all our lives are now transparent. 

We have a voluntary fame, and there are nice sides to it. But to those who are forcefully made famous, all I can say is, “sit back and enjoy it.”