Poking fun

"Yes, yes," he said. "Pick one."

I reflected: "Potency?"

"Good one," he conceded. "What I had in mind was a sense of humor."

Ah, but it is the rarest gift of all. Even if we leave aside the lover, for the politician who fears ridicule as the worst possible end, the ability to laugh at oneself is not so very easy.

"Look at the way French President Nicholas Sarkozy reacted to the voodoo dolls made in his image," said D. "He wanted to have those dolls banned and took the matter to court."

Now, honestly, this would be unthinkable in Turkey. Nobody would actually object to voodoo dolls in the image of Sarkozy being sold with a set of 12 pins and a manual explaining how to put a curse on him.

"It is even marketable, you know," said D, three generations of business administration in his genetic makeup. "All we have to do is to add a quote about Turkey where he can be poked."

With Mr. Sarkozy’s determined silence on Turkey ever since he took over the European Union presidency, a recent quote may be difficult to find, but who am I to argue with a business genius?

Take me to court
Mr. Sarkozy, not too unlike Mr. Erdoğan, in his haste to hit back at offenders in press and business, has already opened six lawsuits.

Ms. Royal, who recently lost her party chair after her loss of the French presidency, also has a voodoo doll in her image, but decided not too sue the company. "One has to have a sense of humor," she said, while expressing amazement that the presidency "had the time" to deal with such trivia as voodoo dolls.

A Paris court threw out the request, on the grounds that the doll was protected by the right to humor Ğ even when provocative.

In a country which has created the "Guignol d’Info" Ğ a political satire with life-size French politician’s puppets Ğ and international model of political humor "Charlie Hebdo," the decision hardly comes as a surprise.

Toying with politics
The idea of political toys is a good one. One wonders whether it would be advisable to have Karagöz-Hacivat puppets of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and main opposition leader Deniz Baykal. Mrs. Çiller, Turkey’s ex-prime minister, would also make a wonderful cabbage patch doll. How about paper dolls that can alternate between headscarves and wigs, according to the "public space" and "private space" debate?

And how about a board game, in the style of "snakes and ladders" to describe Turkey’s path to the European Union? Throw the dice and come across: "You have just amended Article 301. Go forward three places;" "Ooops, Parliament blocked new law on associations. Go back two places," or worse, "Political/ constitutional/ economic crises have erupted. Stay at your place and do not touch the dice for two years!"

This, of course, presupposes a good sense of humor and let us be fair, just imagine what would have happened if we had Erdoğan voodoo dolls. We are talking of the man who sues cartoons Ğ a far cry from late President Turgut Özal who framed caricatures and pictures of himself, including one that showed him and his family as gaudily dressed country singers.

"Just imagine a t-shirt, which uses the O in Erdoğan’s name as a target for bullets," said D. "He would sue immediately," I said.

"Yes," said D. "That is what Sarkozy did."

Those two may have more in common than we believe in terms of sense of humor and other virtues.