Oktay Eksi: Billboards, swimsuits, and the AKP
Güncelleme Tarihi:
If you order billboard advertisements showing photos of young women in swimming suits cleared from the terminal of the Ataturk Airport because they disturb people on their way to making the hajj, you can't just put on the brakes there.....this business will continue. It will be reflected in questions like "Why don't people have the right to sit separately?" as you hold party congresses and anniversary ceremonies in which the "haremlik" and "selamlik" order is followed. ('Haremlik' and 'selamlik' refer to public events at which men and women are separated from eachother, sitting or standing in different sections.)
And while this is happening, primary school children are called on to join the "jihad." And when reactions to this start emerging, you revert to the most base level of demagoguery, asking "What? Shoudl we have bypassed teaching our children values, and taught them prostitution instead?"
First of all, by making this country into a geography where these voices can be heard loud and clear, you are creating the infrastructure for the permanent settling in of groups like the Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and even Al Queda.
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Anyway, now as you know, there are debates swirling about whether or not the Istanbul Municipality in fact put a ban on billboards showing women in bathing suits in official places. The owner of one swimming suit company has already announced his intentions to "dress cucumbers and eggplants in swim suits and place their photos on the billboards" if in fact there is such a ban.
And that would be a wise move.
Of course, I can just imagine how the Prime Minister might see these swimsuited eggplants and cucumbers and ask members of the International Press Institute (IPI) as he did last wekk "I can't understand why people are yelling about steps we've taken away from a secular regime."
Since coming to power, the Justice and Development Party has exploited peoples' religious feelings, and we have seen countless incidents of how they have tried to carve away at the foundation of the secular regime.Â
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If we were only to publish the list of events which involve the schools and institutions tied to the National Education Ministry, you could see clearly how systematic the attempts have been to slide Turkey from its foundations.
But no one is focusing on these things. No one is asking about what steps Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken to warn the government about "reactionary" or "backward" activities. And since no one asks, the Prime Minister thinks no one is aware of these things, and feels no hesitation about asking, in surprise, "Hey, what has happened all of a sudden?"