The poem itself, the poet reported, has nothing in it that attacks the president either by name or by position. However, especially when Erdoğan is losing support rapidly in the face of a collapsed economy, he cannot tolerate anything that he thinks puts him in a negative light. Literature experts and political pundits are still trying to find what could have insulted the president personally in that poem.
Imagine the surprise poet Yılmaz Odabaşı must have felt when the Turkish authorities charged him with insulting the current president when he wrote a poem back in 1987.
That is how sensitive Erdoğan is these days.
Erdoğan was not the president in 1987. He wasn’t even the Prime Minister. He was just a representative to whom nobody paid any attention in 1987.
After he became the president, he evoked the “insulting the president” act tens of thousands of times to threaten or imprison all his critics. Even children who criticize or mock Erdoğan on social media are detained and even convicted for “insulting the president.”
The fact that Erdoğan was not even the president when the poem was written did not prevent the president’s appointed officials from charging the poet, even if there is nothing that could be remotely understood as insulting anybody.
The poem itself, the poet reported, has nothing in it that attacks the president either by name or by position. However, especially when Erdoğan is losing support rapidly in the face of a collapsed economy, he cannot tolerate anything that he thinks puts him in a negative light. Literature experts and political pundits are still trying to find what could have insulted the president personally in that poem.
What is bizarre about the charge against the poet is that his poem is about loneliness, love, being unable to express feelings in loneliness. The poem’s title is, “If I speak, it is silence; If I leave, it is departure.” It is not intended against anybody, leave alone the president.
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