Impoverished Turkey! Risking humiliation to 'ask...'

I have always thought that the street, the people, are a mirror. A giant mirror that shows us the truth...

The poverty and misery that the AKP government has brought our country to in 21 years, the reality of the 'economic problem' that they have managed to cover up despite everything, can no longer be hidden on the streets.

Impoverished Turkey is facing a new culture...

People are trying to hold on to life. Through various methods and ways...

People are now on the streets and in markets, trying to explain their plight in the shortest sentences possible, risking being bruised, rejected, and humiliated just to ask...

Yes, they are asking...

They ask for pasta, they ask for water, they ask for diapers for their babies, they ask for cooking oil. Sometimes they ask for one or two pieces of fruit. For example, an elderly aunt who asked for a banana really saddened me. She said, "We can't afford to eat it."

They approach you with an uneasy expression. They first try to gauge how you will react.

They ask, shyly and hesitantly, if you can help them complete a missing necessity.

After making their tiny purchases with whatever they have in their pockets, they try to meet their absolute needs in a way that won't burden others' pockets either.

For instance, they ask one person for margarine, and someone else for something similar.

I think these people are generally elderly, above a certain average age, retirees... At least all the ones I encountered were women over the age of 50-55.

Cleanly dressed, ordinary people who have no resemblance to the typical beggars we are used to... Ordinary, like my neighbor, like a relative of mine...

They are definitely not focused on money, they act based on need.

I have never witnessed them asking for money. We usually encounter them in the so-called 'three-letter' discount supermarket chains.

Meanwhile, in this period where the pro-government media uses all its skills to hide it, the poverty that is 'thought to be hidden' also appears in other ways.

For example, those waiting for products that have expired or are about to expire form queues in front of large supermarkets. They scramble for food dumped into trash bins. I have witnessed it with my own eyes.

A giant supermarket chain that dumped packaged products nearing their expiration date into trash bins on the street in Üsküdar stopped doing so when they became uncomfortable with the 'visual pollution'.

When I say 'visual pollution', let there be no misunderstanding; I am not talking about the trash, but the crowd, the people pushing and shoving each other while scrambling for expired chicken.

I had interviewed a worker at the market and received detailed information. The fact that the poor, who had figured out the trash disposal times, gathered in front of the market bothered them, so they decided to dump the trash inside.

The market set up in my neighborhood on Mondays is the same... The market in question is one that has been held for many years in Üsküdar, where I live.

We face painful truths here as well.

In the past, those who bought bags full of summer and winter vegetables or produce for canning are now heading home with a few flimsy bags. The entire market is toured from end to end several times. Everyone is grumbling, complaining about the high prices.

When it gets dark, the real poor appear. Those who need the vendor's final discounts and, even more painfully, those who collect what is scattered and spilled on the ground.

What is happening has become the reality of the street, of a large part of the Turkish people. Our vital dynamics are being reshaped. Our culture, our perceptions are evolving.

So who sees what the people are going through, the painful poverty? I don't think it is seen from the palace, from the mini-palaces, or from the Bosphorus-view mansions of those who receive giant tenders.

I don't think it is seen by those who owe their existence and wealth to targeting the secular Republic of Turkey and its founding leader, either. Because they are showered with awards...

The only ones who see it are my fellow citizens who insist on not seeing some even greater truths.

My fellow citizens who, while facing deadly poverty, ignore the causes, do not hold anyone accountable, and prefer to believe the fairy tales they are told and be happy with that.

Just as I was talking about fairy tales and writing this article, a news report came in: "Unemployed father's horror! He killed his three children and his wife, then committed suicide."