Sister Selvi, not madam

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is nearing the 200th kilometre on the Justice March.
Let us be clear that, when speaking of 200 kilometres, we are talking about the covering of two hundred thousand metres, some of the time in the rain, some of the time in the baking sunshine of the steppe and most of the time in the frost of the roadside verge, in places on asphalt and in places on dirt roads.

Above all, this is the resistance of a 69-year-old citizen without much in the way of a sporting past; yesterday’s civil servant and today’s party leader.

The honourable revolt against injustice in Turkey by, as the thousands and tens of thousands who are following him put it, ‘The hope of the people Kılıçdaroğlu.’

Speaking of a man of the people, the way he was hosted at a ground-level dining table in a Yoruk village close to Kızılcahamam, waving his spoon at the kashkek soup in his tray and nibbling on lettuce plucked from the field a few hours earlier dunked in salt out of a saucer possibly conjures up memories of the legendary ‘People’s Leader, the black-haired lad Ecevit’ in the mid-1970’s. This is not fiction, either. From the account given by Erdoğan Toprak and Bülent Tezcan, the village headman invited him and Kemal, saying, ‘With great pleasure,’ joined the Yoruk sundown meal.
Speaking of the people’s leader, the focus of interest for the entire world and Turkey, and especially the gutter press, is the president’s, prime-minister’s and leader of the main opposition party’s private life. For example, the pro-regime and mainstream media even waxes lyrical about the gold leaf adorning the edge of the glass from which president Erdoğan quaffs water at the palace. It never even tires of telling us how white tea costing four thousand five hundred lira per kilo is consumed at the palace. We, like the character Ertürk in Adalet Ağaoğlu’s novel ‘The Night of a Wedding,’ say, ‘He deserves it, all the same.’

Well, you will rightly say, what truck does Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu have with this luxury and this splendour?
It was probably on the seventh day of the march. Selvi Kılıçdaroğlu, who is accompanying her husband while in ill health, ran out of breath at one stage. The consultants summoned a vehicle so she could rest. A minibus came to a halt and the person on duty inside called out, ‘Here you are, sister.’ Those around her were not calling Mrs Kılıçdaroğlu, the prospective ‘First Lady’ in 2019, ‘madam,’ but were addressing her as ‘sister,’ probably because these staff members working on an average civil servant’s salary saw the CHP leader’s wife as one of them.

I made some inquiries, and it seems that Mrs Kılıçdaroğlu cannot participate for the full duration of the march due to the medication she is taking and she rests and then accompanies her husband. On breaks, she drinks tea brewed in the one-square-metre kitchen that is sold in supermarkets for ten lira per kilo, and out of a cardboard cup to boot!

On this subject, the sports shoes that Kemal is wearing on the march have featured in the gutter press. Saying they are 300 lira or 400 lira per pair. While passing over the specially made Italian shoes with a four or five thousand lira price tag worn by the prime-minister and president’s family, for them to pick up on Kemal’s sports shoes is certainly an ethical scandal in its own right, but something suddenly dawned on me. The entire team accompanying Kemal have the same brand of shoe. I looked into this, too, and he had seemingly said, ‘Regardless of what kind of shoe you recommend, get the same as the friends who are going to walk 450 kilometres. There’s to be no favouritism.’

As to security ...

It must be stressed that both the police and the gendarmerie are working all hours to ensure the safety of the CHP General Chair and his procession. While climbing the Azaphane Slope, the forested area surrounded by rocky escarpments caught my eye for a moment. This was similar terrain to that from which an attempt on Kemal’s life was made. But, this time, the gendarmerie had taken precautions and posted snipers in risky spots. This is because they know, too, that this revolt by Kemal is a historic step taken, not for a party organisation, but for the freedom of hundreds of thousands who have been incarcerated unjustly, not least detained member of parliament, Enis Berberoğlu, and including all the Akın Atalays, Turan Günays, Güray Özs, Hakan Karas, Murat Sabuncus, Musa Karts and Ahmet Şıks.