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Erdoğanistan
Travel Tips
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Originally published under the title "Wir lieben die
Türkei! Erdoğan ist der beste!"
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has set a marvelous
precedent in showing the entire world how a country should best care about
the safety of its citizens traveling to, well, "different"
foreign lands. In a very smart move, the German Foreign Ministry added a
new piece of travel advice to the "tips page" on how German
tourists should behave while on a visit to Turkey: "It is strongly
advised not to make public political statements against the Turkish state
and not to express sympathy for terrorist organizations."
Ironically, the advice came more or less on the same day a German
reporter was deported from Turkey on the grounds that he was previously
banned from entering the country. The German government should perhaps
upgrade its travel tips on Turkey: "Do not make public political
statements against the Turkish state. If you are a journalist, do not go to
Turkey."
Although the German Foreign Ministry's new advice was a smart move, it
may fall short of preventing future diplomatic crises between Ankara and
Berlin. It would do no harm if further pieces of advice were added to the
tips page: "Do not drink alcohol like infidels while on a visit to
Muslim Turkey. It would be better for your own security if you fasted or at
least pretend to fast during Ramadan. You will have more fun and a better
time while sunbathing on the Turkish Mediterranean coast if your wives wear
the Islamic headscarf, remain in their hotel rooms and avoid swimming in
public. T-shirts with script in praise of Hitler will further safeguard
your well-being and may even build memorable friendships between yourself
and the locals."
The German government should upgrade
its travel tips on Turkey.
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There is another problematic point about the German advice that "It
is strongly advised... not to express sympathy for terrorist
organizations." The average German sunbather logically is not expected
to publicly express sympathy for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) – although many Turks do so and are not prosecuted.
Berlin should have been more specific about this caution. A vague
expression of empathy, even if not total sympathy, for ISIL will not
necessarily put anyone in danger. If prosecuted for ISIL sympathies, the
smart German tourist should remember to tell his lawyer to cite Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's notorious lines about ISIL jihadists: "Past
anger, alienations and insults [against Sunnis] have caused a reaction [the
emergence of ISIL]. Such an accumulation of anger [which resulted in ISIL]
would not have existed if Sunni Arabs in Iraq were not alienated."
All the same, dear German tourist, you may not be equally lucky if you
expressed sympathy for the journalists who face life sentences for running
stories on the front page of their newspapers. They are the terrorists, not
ISIL, whom you should not sympathize with. The same for the elected Kurdish
members of the Turkish parliament, or the millions of protesters who took
to the streets in 2013, including 15-year-old Berkin Elvan, who was killed
by a gas canister fired by the police, the same boy whom the ruling
Islamist elite quickly labelled as a "terrorist." So, no
sympathies for Berkin either...
Then there are the tens of millions of other Turks whom the Turkish
government views either as terrorists or potential terrorists merely for
not sufficiently admiring the government. The list is long and you may have
a hard time weighing your words of sympathy for any terrorist or potential
terrorist.
Just stay on the safe side and keep repeating the lines "Wir lieben
die Türkei! Erdoğan ist der beste!" [We love Turkey! Erdoğan is the
best!] wherever you may be going in Turkey. You will see smiling faces and
guarantee a prosecution- or deportation-free holiday in the European
Union-candidate Turkey, and enjoy your doner or shish kebab in a relaxed
atmosphere – with ayran, of course, forget beer. You may win even more hearts
and minds if you can recite a couple of Turkish lines like "Biz
Erdoğan çok sevmek" [We love Erdogan so much] or "Biz Türkiye çok
aşik olmak" [We are in love with Turkey].
You need not thank this columnist for the advice but, back home,
remember to thank Merkel for her useful travel tips.
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the Middle
East Forum.
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