Özer Uçuran Çiller

One does not speak ill of the dead, but when the deceased is the husband of Turkey's first female Prime Minister—a man whose name was involved in dozens of corruption scandals and whose dark connections within the state were notorious—it becomes a duty to scribble a few sentences to leave a note for history.

But let us say it upfront: we did not think highly of the deceased!

Let us open the ledger...

It was during one of Turkey's turbulent periods, though perhaps not as turbulent as today.

After a few painful years, the Refahyol government was formed on June 28, 1996.

Necmettin Erbakan was Prime Minister, and Tansu Çiller had become both Deputy Prime Minister and taken the wheel of diplomacy.

She rarely visited Balgat.

But with what she said and did here and there, she provided journalists with excellent material.

The sense of state gravity, which we cannot find today, still maintained its importance in the second half of the 90s.

Politicians would think a thousand times before speaking once, and their words carried weight.

Tansu Çiller, for reasons unknown, had exempted herself from this.

She could spout nonsense with care five times a day; as long as she saw microphones and cameras in front of her.

One day she would confuse Northern Iraq with Northern Cyprus, Iraqi Turkmens with Turkish Cypriots, and the Council of Europe with the Council of the European Union; at an international meeting, she would suddenly claim that Ceyhan, where Azeri oil reaches the Mediterranean, was on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

She did not even know when and why NATO was founded, or that Rauf Denktaş had come to power in the TRNC through elections.

OSCE, WEU, OIC, continental shelf, exclusive economic zone, and so on were already out of the question...

Over time, she had talked so much nonsense that after a while, her absurdities lost their news value.

We had even stopped keeping a list.

Aside from her innocent gaffes, she was profoundly ignorant.

Despite Boğaziçi University, America, and her professorship in economics, it was clear that she felt no need to lift her head and learn new and different things.

She had no knowledge of foreign policy, domestic politics, or the country's security issues.

She was merely saving face by selling what diplomats had said three minutes earlier in front of the cameras with an air of “these matters are my responsibility.”

She believed that being a woman and, moreover, a “blonde” would solve all problems, and she thought that making “hand-rolled meatballs” was a method of diplomacy.

The entire burden of the Foreign Ministry was carried by the Undersecretary of the time, Onur Öymen, and it fell to Spokesperson Ömer Akbel to correct the absurd statements she made.

There was no diplomat who worked with her who did not pull their hair out in frustration.

I had the chance to be introduced to Özer Uçuran Çiller during this period.

It was not easy to be graced by his presence. Everyone knew he held the strings behind the scenes. Even though he had been demoted, according to the agreement made with Erbakan, his wife would sit in the “Prime Ministry” seat again two years later.

He had come to a reception at one of the Western countries in Ankara.

As he showed himself off under the intense interest of foreign diplomats as well as journalists, his ego and the self-confidence fueled by that ego spread through the hall in waves.

He was constantly talking, explaining things, making remarks to those around him, calling bureaucrats and deputies to his side with his index finger, whispering into the ears of businessmen while holding their arms, and ensuring that he was the center of attention with the laughter he let out from time to time.

In the later hours, we decided to organize a “sortie” to get close to Özer Çiller.

We were thinking about how to do it, how to manage it, when we suddenly found ourselves in front of him.

We wanted to talk about politics, diplomacy, and economics, but the subject somehow turned to spiritual matters in a way I could not understand.

At first, I thought he was joking, but after a few sentences, I realized he was quite serious.

He started with astrology and ended with reincarnation; he started with tarot and ended with parapsychology.

Fortune-telling, magic, star charts, alternative medicine, and so on...

He had an incredible collection of knowledge regarding these matters.

Since I was just trying to earn a living by writing about humble worldly affairs, what he said did not mean much to me. Spiritual matters had no news value in my eyes.

Then, saying “I’ll interrupt you,” I wanted to introduce the subject in my own way. Nearly a year had passed since the Customs Union Agreement, which his wife had signed during her Prime Ministry, had come into effect. As the people of our country had expected, neither had imported cars become cheaper, nor had the European Union opened its doors to us.

I tried to ask something to the effect of “Where will this lead?”

He fell silent for three or five seconds. With an air as if what he was about to say was important enough to change the agenda, he said, “Beautiful days await us.”

While I was thinking this sentence was a political wish, he dropped the bomb.

According to such and such an angle in such and such a house of such and such a zodiac sign... If we accept 1923 as Turkey's birth chart, with the effect of the lunar eclipse on such and such a date... Parapsychological factors on the star chart... The glad tidings of Hurufism, the prophecies of the Knights Templar... Nostradamus said this, Ibn Arabi commanded that...

A short while later, I found myself completely disconnected from this dialogue.

I was oblivious to what he was talking about. Was he joking? Was he treating us like naive fools and messing with our heads!

Then I realized, he believed what he was saying. Every few sentences, he would provide a footnote, referencing books by authors I had never heard of.

He was incredibly well-versed in these matters.

He talked and paused for about half an hour.

All of Turkey's problems, both internal and external, had solutions in the spiritual world. As long as one could look at the right places with the right approaches.

Then, a question slipped out of my mouth: “Do you convey these recommendations to Ms. Tansu?”

He let out a hearty laugh:

- How do you think the government was formed!

Then he shook all our hands and left the hall with the crowd surrounding him.

I was stunned.

The husband of the country's prime minister was dealing with astrology, tarot, fortune-telling, magic, reincarnation, and parapsychology; and not only dealing with them but using them as a tool to give political advice to his wife.

It was like a joke!

Was he really telling the truth? Or was he playing us?

Was I now going to return to the office and write, “Tansu Çiller formed a government with Erbakan because Özer Çiller saw it in a horoscope”?

I told the matter to our late news editor, Ahmet Baydar, just as it was on the phone.

He was a wonderful person, but he had a weakness for Tansu Çiller that none of us could understand or make sense of.

He would not let anyone speak ill of her. When the dose of criticism was exceeded, he would get seriously upset.

In fact, after he quit journalism, he would become the press advisor for the DYP.

Knowing that he wouldn't let a speck of dust touch Çiller, I didn't press the issue. He said, just write a small piece and let it go.

The news appeared the next day with the headline “Advice from Mr. Özer to Ms. Tansu,” the size of a matchbox. They had, in journalistic terms, “bastardized” the beautiful story.

I didn't dwell on it, but I noted it in my black notebook to use one day.

When the AKP came to power with a roar 6 years later, those in Ankara who pondered these issues a bit were looking for an answer to the question, “How did the center-right in Turkey collapse so easily?” Yet, the center-right had already begun to rot from within years ago.

We do not know if Özer Uçuran Çiller looked at the horoscope and saw that the country would anchor in the darkness of the Middle Ages a quarter of a century later, but those who pinned their hopes on Tansu Çiller just because she was a blonde woman were actually paving the way to the hell we live in today back then.

Everyone attributes Tayyip's rise to power solely to the incompetence of the Ecevit government, but let us conclude our article by saying that the irreparable mistakes made during the Tansu Çiller era had a major impact on the country being handed over to political Islamists.