Murat Ülker speaks out on 'bribery'! 'Even to get what is rightfully ours...'

Murat Ülker, who ranks first on the 'Turkey's richest business people' list published by Forbes with a fortune of 5.4 billion dollars, made a noteworthy post on the social media network LinkedIn. 

'NOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE TO PAY A BRIBE EVEN TO GET WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS'

According to the report in Patronlar Dünyası, Ülker commented on the 'bribery' debate initiated by Kaan Sidar, Chairman of the Board of the Turkish Food Industry Employers' Union, on his social media account, stating that the decay in the business world has reached a new dimension. 

Responding to the long post Sidar shared about 'bribery', Ülker wrote: "Dear Kaan Sidar, bribery is, as we know, a two-way street. It is taken and given to obtain something one is not entitled to. However, the situation we are facing now is even more dire. Because they say that now, you may have to pay a bribe, or rather extortion, just to obtain what is rightfully yours. The remedy is known, but..." 

'BRIBERY IS A PLAGUE' 

Meanwhile, the post on bribery shared by Kaan Sidar on his social media account is as follows:

"I am sharing with you the article by our teacher Hilmi Yavuz regarding Bribery, a plague for which a cure has not yet been discovered.

The disease of bribery has had no cure for centuries. Vaccines, antibiotics, all are in vain. However, there are those who are immune to the Bribery virus. These are people who do not value worldly goods, who are honorable and have strong character.

Let me start with what everyone knows: With the line by Fuzulî, 'I gave a greeting, they did not take it because it was not a bribe!' This is the first saying I remember with every new bribery news! And also, 'Is there a document for a bribe?'

Bribery is a plague! This plague also has a history. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Mumcu, in his work titled 'Bribery in the Ottoman State', reports that bribery is 'seen in all societies that have reached the stage of statehood'. In the preface to the 3rd edition of the book published in 2005, Mumcu states that 'preventing the crime of bribery is impossibly difficult', but that even if it cannot be prevented, the degree of danger can be reduced, but that 'taking the economic, moral, and social measures to ensure this reduction in Turkey is an extremely difficult task due to the increasingly deteriorating value system'. It is indeed so! As a matter of fact, the 'value system' that Mumcu touches upon is the Islamic moral values of the Muslim Turkish society. It is extremely regrettable to observe that this value system has long since collapsed and that there is no felt need to repair and fortify it, especially by governments that have Islamic sensitivities.

But it seems that those who are afflicted with this plague, to use an old expression, unfortunately emerge from among the people at the head of the state: For example, Rüstem Pasha, the son-in-law and Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent. Prof. Mumcu reports that Rüstem Pasha 'opened the way for the sale of civil service positions in the state and was the first important representative of the corrupt administrator'. In the genealogy of bribery at the level of Grand Vizier in the state, the man at the very top: Suleiman the Magnificent's son-in-law, 'kehle-i ikbal' (the louse of fortune) Rüstem Pasha...

Mumcu says the following on this subject: 'Indeed, documents show the various corruptions of this statesman, including making appointments to many positions by taking bribes, and embezzling money.' Again, according to Mumcu, in the final periods of Suleiman the Magnificent, bribery dominated almost every branch of the state mechanism. Moreover, bribery was 'equated with honest administration, because various reasons have now made bribery a necessary part of state administration'. Bribery becoming the norm! Gazi Giray expresses this situation with these lines:

The infidels plundered the lands of the people of Islam

Oh God, you fearless ones, you take bribes and sit...

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbeck, who was sent to Istanbul as the ambassador of the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand, reports in his 'Turkish Letters', translated into Turkish by Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın in 1939, that he offered a bribe regarding the signing of a peace treaty with Austria, and that the Pasha accepted it."