Election

In case you haven't heard, Turkey is having an election this coming Sunday. I'm sure you can find out plenty about this from other valuable news sources, but I am not one of those. I am merely an apolitical U.S. citizen who is living in the capital city of Turkey, and who works at a school on the main street of town, on the seventh floor of a building opposite the prime minister's office and the park where political protesters tend to gather. What this means is that I hear a lot of noise.

Most of it comes from the trucks that come down the street every ten minutes or so blasting music loud enough to drown out whatever's happening in class at the time. Yes, trucks. With music. Apparently the thing to do here in Turkey is have a campaign song to help your cause. It's a little bit reminiscent of O Brother, Where Art Thou? where the candidates drove around with a live band on the back of a truck. Here are some songs from the main parties in Turkey. I'm fascinated by the various styles that they use to advance their message.

The MHP has gone all out with a rap/hard rock sound, which I personally find a bit unnerving as part of a political campaign.



The CHP, on the other hand, has opted for a more traditional sound.



The AKP prefers a fusion of traditional Turkish sounds and techno.




While I haven't been following the campaign too closely, there is one thing that I have picked up from my students, who've been posting mysterious videos about "puskevit" on Facebook. Turns out in Turkey, as everywhere else, politicians are falling prey to YouTube, where notorious moments from their speeches can be immortalized through increasingly ridiculous remix videos.



The gist of this viral clip is the guy saying, "Kids are sitting at home, and they see ads on TV for chocolate and for cookies, and they start to ask their mothers, 'Mom, I want chocolate too! I want cookies! Why aren't you buying them? WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANY COOKIES?'"

It's a pretty bizarre little quote in itself, compounded by his pronunciation of "bisküvi," the Turkish word for cookie, as "püskevit." The youth found it hilarious. Soon things like this started popping up:




"Mom, why don't we have any püskevit?!"

Or this, which I've seen more frequently.



"The kids on TV have chocolate and püskevit. Where's my chocolate? Where's my püskevit? Mom, why don't you buy them for me? Why don't we have any püskevit?!"


I'm not sure what, if any, coverage the election is getting in the USA, but I'm quite confident that these aspects of the campaign haven't been on CNN or Fox News. There's probably a reason for that. So, that's the view from Ankara, for whatever it's worth.