As our prime minister analyzed very correctly, I am on the streets with a group of çapulcu and drunkards called “the people”, well, I was on the streets. Now, I see it as my duty and I confess: I will spoil this big plot.
You see, I am not comfortable in my conscience, I cannot be silent, my heart aches… I am restless, I want to confess, it doesn’t leave me alone as I see that the things that have been happening in the last few weeks are being interpreted wrong by everyone else except our dear prime minister, that Grand Master. I am a 33-year old citizen. I am college educated, and I have the gift of the gab. So I am not for the people, I am for the nation. But I have weaknesses, I am emotional and I am ready to be deceived. I would die for my country; I would beat anyone who says “why should you die, everybody should live, so should you!”. That’s how much I love my country and the majority of the people who live in it, namely my nation.
Despite all my sentiments, for sometime, I think for about 16-17 days I feel like I am on the wrong side. As our prime minister analyzed very correctly I am on the streets with a group of çapulcu and drunkard called “the people”. Well, I was on the streets, until the words and sentences of that beautiful person affected me. Now, I see it as my duty and confess: I will spoil this big plot.
How I became a çapulcu?
Everything started on the day I heard on tv that a group of people were protesting peafully in a place called Gezi Parki, disgustingly full of weed, ticks and bugs. I am a curious person, couldn’t take it any longer and went to the park to see it. Interesting scenery: Simple tents were set up; there were young people, men and women together, with books in their hands, with ipads, some destructive slogans on placards here and there etc… the message was “Gezi Parki, should remain a park. What next! We would all get Crimean–Congo Hemorrhagic Fever and my nation will perish because of the pandemic! We won’t be fooled.
Unfortunately, just as I was being sorry in my emotional state of mind and just thinking “What am I doing among these wretched people?”, a blond, blue-eyed woman approched me. The minute she talked in her imperfect Turkish I understood she was a foreigner.
“Are you here to support our protest”, she asked“ I don’t know” I said, “Actually just because I am curious…”
“Allright, wouldn’t you like to support our protest?
“You wouldn’t do anything for our country, just lay on the grass here, sit still and then ask me, a prominent citizen, to support you. I don’t know…”
With this right answer I gave, she was stupefied. She thought I was one of those people who were numbed in their brain. She wasn’t expecting that answer. She was trying to be calm. As if to change the subject she gave me a glass of tea and a sandwich. “Eat, if you are hungry” she said. I was hungry and I ate it. As I was sipping my tea she started to tell me something: How the government will be toppled, that the people in this resistance will win at the end, how the world will be behind these protestors, in fact how this resistance will make the state more powerful. As she told me more I realized that my perspective has changed, maybe that I started finding answers to my questions. At the end of an hour that she mentioned many times that how much someone like me, a prominent, charismatic, effective, patriot citizen be helpful to this cause, she asked me, this time her blue eyes directed at mine: “would you like to support the resistance?” As I quothed before my biggest weaknesses are to be curious and being emotional; “okay, I will try” I said.
How did I find out the Cosmic Room?
That night I found myself descending into the lower levels of a big hotel that I don’t want to name, with a young fellow about my age, bearded and unfortunately who had an earring. He was walking in dark and labirentine passages, opening one door, from there entering to another corridor, saying passwords like “IntLob”, “vandaljohn” the enemy of the nation” “long live the coup” to the sunglass wearing, grouchy security staff and we were entering the rooms. The last door we encountered was the biggest one. When he said the password, it opened with a squeak. I can describe the room like this: Everywhere there were columns that had crosses and the Star of David, red carpets on the floors, weird lights that create a semi-dark ambient, a big round table in the middle, 8 people around the table with black suits, sunglasses and cigars…Actually I always watch documentaries but this room was the same as Ergenkon rooms that I caught with the corner of my eye a few times on Samanyolu TV while I was trying to get to the documentary channels.
Somebody brought a chair next to the table that read “protestor” on the back and told me to sit down. I sat down. They asked me my name, job, income and how come I was so charismatic. I told them. They started to tell me their action plans. They told me in detail what will happen within the next few days. I should admit that everything they told me happened in days followed. I asked” what do you want from me?; I was still suspicious. “ We want you to be among the 12 people who will be in the frontlines of the protests in Istanbul” they said and added “looks like today you impressed one of our friends a lot.”
I thought, about a few minutes. On one hand I was so excited that for the first time in my life somebody was realazing my true value, on the other hand I was worried that I didn’t know exactly what kind of a plot I was entering into…. “Allright” I said. “Let’s start!” I cannot tell you how much those 8 people around the table were impressed with my English answer; so much so that one of them took of his sunglases, which I didn’t understand why they were wearing in the dark in the first place and winked at me with his left eye. As I was thingking why that man winked his left eye and what would that mean, the young bearded, earring wearing fellow who accompanied me here said “Let’s go, we are leaving” while holding my arm. We left.
For me on one hand days of hardship and chaos, on the other hand pleasure and joy had started. The envelope they handed to me the same day was full of US dollars and Euro. I was allotted a car and a driver. The best quality gas masks that we can use during the protests, supposedly anti-acid filled bottles, which I believe filled with a white liquid that subliminally creates aggresiveness and hostility to the state, and helmets which to this day I believe had chips in it that controled our brains were put in the trunk of the car. The driver told me that lots of protestors from Istanbul, actually from all over Turkey were being bussed to Taksim, that these protestors were going to walk around here and there; towards the morning, with the order of our man within the police force, the police were going to enter the park, all the while behaving like they were sparking the events and the operation was going to start. My god, how fast everything was developing for me. Actually I knew that the people sitting in that dark room had started running this operation months ago.
Let me summarize the first few days: All day long the people most of whom were young and specially chosen by the deep and secret forces were hanging around in the neighborhoods near Taksim as if they were clueless; and when they got the coded text message ( like VandalJohn, ResistJohn) they were getting into action. We, the 12 protest leaders, were waiting on the roads that lead to Taksim ( never in the frontline), directing the protestors who were going towards the roadblocks, handing out gas masks to the ones who didn’t have one, spraying those who had been tears gassed with the subliminal spray. We were kind of coordinators who were telling the protestors certain things according to the messages that we were getting from the cosmic room, sometimes giving money to them and saying things like “my friend, if you want more of this, you should work harder, for example you should join that crowd who were toppling the bus”. When the police were able to disperse the crowd, we were going back to our cars that were parked on small roads, getting rid of our t-shirts and wearing our white shirts and certainly putting on sunglasses and getting into the cars as if we were clueless about what was going on. We were resting in the most luxurious hotels around, eating gourmet food that Interest Lobby was providing, evaluating the new orders and when we got the go-ahead, we were getting into the backseats of our cars and going to the areas again where the protests were happening.
Where was that Lady I saw in Gezi Parki?
On June 1st, when the police retreated, we handed out trucks load of flags of different organizations and political parties that were also provided by the Interest Lobby to the tens of thousands whom we assembled and entered Taksim. Each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of people that we sprayed with the subliminal spray were under the influence of it and were extremely joyful and victorious. I walked around the whole square with a proud and triumphant face knowing that I would be rewarded with a huge bonus because of this scene. That was the second time I went to Gezi Parki. I looked for that lady who invited me to the protests and who also introduced me to the Lobby; I couldn’t find her. This time there were foreign agents disguised as journalists among the people whom I knew were with us. Everybody knew eachother at the park because we all were from the same organization. Left and right I was hearing things like “ how we have concocted, didn’t we babe?”, “ he understood that he cannot do anything when we are backed by USA and Israel”, “Babe, shall we make love under that tree, in the middle of everybody?”. I was approving things that normally I would not, blinded with the bonus that I would get, I liked everything.
While I was among the most important pieces of this plot, my viewpoint started to change when our dear prime minister Tayyip Erdogan made a speech at Ataturk Airport. Now I am thinking regretfully that how he saw the whole truth, how he told us, the nation, the truth with his beautiful smile. But unfortunately I wasn’t enlightened quickly. Although the prime minister had revealed all our secrets in front of the nation, the organization was not daunted; on the contrary, it got stronger because of the traitors who joked with “Interest Lobby”, “International Forces”, and “Ergenekon”. Obviously the devil is sly as a fox, and he makes the whole world believe that he is not alive. The other obstacle in front of us was the patriot media. The channels and newspapers who saw this plot coming were not showing our protests, they were even ignoring the gathering in Taksim of hundreds of thousands of our organization’s members. Again, I get it now that they were the honorable people who wanted the well-being of our nation, who were following in the footsteps of their prime minister, our prime minister. I wish we saw the truth as early as them, I wish, we were not deceived, I wish we didn’t start working for the Interest Loby.
How was I enlightened?
I was already confused. At the end of 10 plus days that I spent either on the streets, by the roadblocks, or by the pool bars, the love for my nation was even stronger. Moreover, during the protests I was seeing the situation that the police were in, the police who protect us and I was feeling sorry for the beautiful children of this nation. I have always been on the side of the oppressed because of my emotional character and my political stand. Now I had more empathy for our dear prime minister, our governer, and the police as I was witnessing their situation. The more I thought the more surprised I was that I had been on the same side as the cruel people on the streets. Exactly at a moment when my thoughts were like this, I learned from a text message that I had been relieved of my duties in the plot, for now. The 12 people had fullfilled their duties and now the international media was at it. The text message ended telling us to trust our comrades at CNN International and that they were just as humble. This was the moment I was waiting for! Immediately I removed that helmet that had a chip in it off my head, threw away the subliminal spray, tore my tshirt like the green giant Hulk( never “halk” which means “the people”) and started running away from Taksim towards Cihangir, and from there to Tophane. I was crying as I was running and while running I was shouting “my dear prime minister, would you forgive me?”. Then around Tophane a group of patriot youth stopped me and said “why are you shouting like a donkey and starting beating me with their fists and bats. I didn’t care; I know that I was enlightened more and more with each impact of the holy bats. Because one of the young men asked as he was beating me:
“Don’t you love your country?”
I couldn’t answer at that moment because my teeth were knocked out but I can answer now:
“I love my country, my state a lot, a lot. I would die, I would kill for my country. Especially my nation; I am madly in love with it.”
Mahmut Çınar
15 June 2013
Source; bianet.org
This post is also available in: Turkish