You’re so sweet when you’re angry
They always win. But they are always tense. Often, they look pensive and unhappy. They are angry, always ready to pick a fight. And they do fight.
They want to make a fake country; sin-free and dry. For that, they want everyone’s admiration and gratitude. Not everyone agrees. They won’t find peace until they make the other half of Turkey precisely as the half they command: ostensibly sin-free, so dry and privately full of sin.
Full command over nearly one half of Turkey does not satisfy them. Poor chaps; they are always angry.
They want to win the other half, the half they privately envy, the same half that smartly teases them and laughs at their childish “cause.” The half that enjoys life, and in a not-so-dry way. The half that defends the right to sin. The human half. The half that idealizes not in making a fake country, ostensibly dry and sin-free; but in a half-wet and sinful land.
The prime minister and his men are angry. They secretly know that theirs is a losing war, despite impressive victories at every battle fought. And they are angry. They know they look funny when they fight political battles, no matter how successfully. No, they don’t look funny to their half, which they don’t care much about: it’s theirs. That’s given. But they know they look funny to the other half, which they privately care to impress, win over and swallow into their half.
No victory satisfies their thirst for admiration from the half they take more seriously, the half they hate and envy. Sadly, what they see is a crowd they think are traitors but that teases them, laughs at their ridiculous words and polity: naturally, jokes galore. And they get angrier.
They feel like an authoritarian father who cannot teach manners to a vagabond son who refuses to be like his obedient brother. They feel like a father who knows the vagabond son feels contempt for both the father and brother. Who mocks them, torments them with maverick jokes. Whom the father cannot disown or kick out of the house. Who will always remain a devoted member of the household, but refuses to obey silly orders.
They are angry, but amusing, too. When I read Taner Yıldız, the energy minister, blaming a cat for the suspicious power cuts during Sunday’s vote-counting in several cities, towns and districts, I happily noticed that time had proven me right. According to Mr. Yıldız, a cat that entered a power unit was the cause of controversial blackouts.
More than five years ago, I wrote in this column:
“I should have suspected that something fishy was cooking. My cat, Compay, spent the whole Tuesday night in unusual comfort and peace, not even scratching anyone around, or challenging the law of gravity by trying to walk on the ceiling. On Wednesday morning I learned from the radio what had turned him into another cat the day before: He knew he would escape the latest wave of detentions as part of the Ergenekon (terror-coup-and-every-other-evil-emporium) investigation whereas others were arrested.
“Compay is a senior leader of the Ergenekon gang, responsible for mobilizing the cats in our neighborhood when the moment for a coup d’etat would come. His team, about 150 indoor and stray cats, would raid the Parliament building and mercilessly scratch the AKP deputies, their task under the complex Ergenekon plot.
“Now that many of Compay’s comrades are behind bars and he still enjoys his comfortable life, I have decided to become an informer: [The] prosecutor should immediately issue an arrest warrant for this super-puma-size cat who has become the nightmare of people who make the mistake of visiting me at home. (“Why I have decided to become an informer,” Hürriyet Daily News, Jan. 9, 2009”).
Unfortunately, Compay died four years ago. But apparently his comrades are still conspiring against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.
It must be a bad feeling: to be the eternal winner, and the joke of the century at the same time. Never mind, gentlemen; we always drink to your health for the amusement you generously endow us.
