Do I make you jump?
AKP members’ recent acts and attitudes that are built around the “parallel structure” narrative essentially show that they have long nursed grudges and hatred.
Tayyip Erdoğan has uttered words that confirmed this conclusion when he made scapegoats immediately after the Dec. 17 graft probe:
“In the past, some have called the headscarf non-essential in harder times. We know them from their betrayal during the Feb. 28, 1997 coup. They were involved in this dagger-like betrayal as accomplices of those who sparked the events. Our people haven’t forgotten this collaborationist attitude. Our people won’t forget a headline like ‘You’ve failed, leave now.’ Believe me; they haven’t been very immoral even that Feb. 28.”
These words prove that the aforementioned grudges and hatred date back not a few months but to many long years ago.
Most recently, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç railed against the Kimse Yok Mu charity.
Let’s look at this oddity item by item:
1. Following the Cabinet meeting on Sept. 30, Bülent Arınç was asked if Kimse Yok Mu’s right to collect donations had been canceled, not if the charity had been closed down. Arınç twisted the matter by saying, “It is claimed that though the charity had been closed down, I said “I don’t know about it’.”
2. Arınç tries to make his statement “We have other troubles, don’t we?” pass unnoticed. But it’s he who has prepared against the possibility that “such a question may be asked” and personally expressed it. It’s on the record.
3. It’s he who also said, “I haven’t personally seen any decision about the charity signed by ministers.” That’s what he's really angry at. It emerged a day later that Arınç had signed the Cabinet decree, dated Sept. 22.
4. Another scandal is that the dailies Star and Takvim, which serve as a kind of “Official Gazette,” knew in advance what Arınç didn’t know. It was these dailies that wrote first “the right to collect donations without permit” of Kimse Yok Mu would be canceled. Official notification came after that.
5. Arınç says “We have given the charity whatever it wanted from us” and paves the way for misunderstanding. What has been given are permits that the charity is legally entitled to. The government granted the charity “public interest status” and the “right to collect donations without a permit” in 2006-2007, and the then-President Ahmet Necdet Sezer approved the decision.
6. Arınç says civil inspectors and auditors have discovered transactions that are against the legislation, and claims “there are murky issues.” What are they? He doesn’t reveal them. This perception operation doesn’t become a “jurist” like him.
7. Arınç gets ill-tempered as he is unable to give answers to the six items above and becomes vexed with journalists who report on the issue. He reveals that his grudge and hatred is deep-rooted with the following words: “A newspaper, 90 percent of whose circulation is comprised of the issues handed out and 10 percent of it sold at newsstands.” This newspaper has been sold largely on subscription basis over more than 25 years and Arınç knows that well.
8. The sentence “Do I look like I have time to contemplate for 10 hours before signing the decree?” is a scandal in itself. Mr. Arınç, you are responsible for every signature you put. You don’t manage a grocery store, you manage a country. You cannot consider any signature unimportant.
9. Even Arınç himself doesn’t believe the sentence, “You may be obsessed with the charity, Bank Asya, and prep schools. Don’t we have other things to worry about?” If he doesn’t know that these are the greatest obsessions of the government for which he serves as a spokesperson, he doesn’t have to wait for the elections to retire from politics.
10. The explanation “The charity was not closed down, only its right to collect donations without permit was canceled” is funny. It would be naïve to think that civilian authorities will give positive answers to the charity’s demands from now on.
In the same press briefing, Arınç criticized singer Leman Sam for minutes on end for a tweet she had posted.
And when he started to speak, he made that introduction gleefully: “What I said during the last Ramadan Holiday has made some jump. I should probably repeat it.”
During the Ramadan Holiday, he revealed that he follows magazine stories closely when he said, “There are women who leave on holiday without their husbands and others who can’t stop themselves from climbing up a pole.”
Now he says “Do I look like I have time to think about it” with regard to a charity that is active in 110 countries and thus evades responsibility.
You should think about it as much as you do about pole-dancing wives of footballers.
Otherwise, those orphans would make you jump, by God!
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