Of cats (and Politics)

Istanbul has been quite tense for the past few weeks. you know why; the elections. In case you are asking my opinion, my only explanation for the ruling party to sweep overwhelmingly 45% of the votes is soul pollution. Considering the corruption we are mired in on all levels, be it moral, social or financial, the results are inexplicable. Exhausted of reading self-critical articles -sheer mental-masturbation I would say- andÂ being blamed as a white Turk, I decided toÂ take a break from flagellation for not being able to relate to my people. Let me shut up for a while, and meditate on the situation without deliberately thinking on it, (yogic wisdom) which is not that difficult for Turkish, my mother tongue, is the language I use for keeping silent. Here, we are exposed to so much violence, injustice, violation of human rights, corruption and oppression that whenever I put my head on the pillow, all I have is nightmares. So I am done with polishing my empathy skills. At least for a while! Cats would be a nice distraction? Hmm but let’s not forget that anything can become an agenda of the country at any time. It did not take a long time for the cats to be blamed for the black-out that occurred in 41 cities in the country on the election night. Quite a coincidence that these were the very cities, where results were highly contested. So cats have become our second national symbol overnight. In case you are wondering why the opposition party lost Istanbul to the ruling party in the municipal election, here are the culprits:)

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