Banu İBİŞ, NEW JERSEY (TURKISH JOURNAL)
I was surprised by reaction of the Turkish-American community for protesting the Turkish government in the U.S. by a newspaper ad.
Many Turkish-Americans did not mind the drive several hours from many nearby states to NYC to take role in this political process. That is fine. I like their enthusiasm and wish to see the same level enthusiasm in local political arena as well. We all know, Turkish-Americans are one of the faintest communities politically within the US. Many Turkish-Americans don’t involve themselves with local politics, vote, contribute or try to voice their opinion. Many Turkish-Americans do not know their local representatives. Because of Turkish-Americans political unassertiveness they do not know where to go or who to contact for help when the situations like this occur. If you are apathetic to your local politics, your local representatives, you will get similar response in return. What goes around comes around.
These type situations cannot be solved by placing a paid ad in newspaper. We can call local representatives, write them and visit them. But how many of us already developed local ties? The paid advertising is wrong! Paid advertising’s audience is general public, the average Joe. First at all, general public does not care; even though they did care they would not know what to do, how to respond to the ad. Also, anyone, any group who has the money can orchestrate a campaign, for good or bad. A can of worms opened by Turkish-Americans which will set an example for anti-Turkish lobbyists opening the way for more paid ads to follow.
While those people are united under the freedom of speech and democracy, the very same people are not tolerating difference in opinions, even on social media, this is odd. The conservatives are saying, I will not listen those looters, chapulcus, and terrorists. The people who are labeled as chapulcus today, have labeled conservatives as bigot (yobaz), seriatci. And closed their ears to their rights such as headcover. The same groups labeled Kurds as terrorist, treated as second class citizens, not allowing them speak their own language even in their homes. I have not seen paid advertising from any of these labeled groups in past. The people stand behind the ad stating that, “In Turkey, rights and freedoms are eroding, the government is not taking democracy seriously”. Yet, “These issues are just like issues in matured democracies. The protests are not about unsolved mysteries, crimes or extraordinary government controls. We should appreciate the milestones we reached as the country” says Abdullah Gul. Yes, Turkey has reached several mile stones in the past, one is accomplishing peace with PKK. Economic developments and growth is the focus now. Turkey has being growing rapidly in the past 10 years. Erdogan is running the country more like a CEO of a company and losing his temper once in a while. He has no problem making people angry, yet his vision and shear focus to achieve greater things; because of this he has many followers who sharing his vision. The people behind the ad are saying that; we want the world to hear from us, the Turks; what is going on in Turkey and also hoping that Erdogan will change his attitude. This is angering people who are glued to Erdogan’s vision to achieve great things. While there are many people who don’t agree with Erdogan’s attitude, there are just as many, if not more people who don’t agree with this paid ad from “all the Turks”.
