What a summer in Turkey! Three train accidents within 3 weeks. Dozens dead and wounded. God save Turkey from a fourth one, since no official takes any responsibility whatsoever for these multiple disasters and everything is attributed to "bad luck" and "evil eyes"! Crisis management a la Turca.
Bombs exploding in Istanbul. Tourists wounded at the height of tourism season. An Al Qaeda affiliated organization claims responsibility. But Turkish security forces point at PKK.
Political scandals in Van and Diyarbakir, unbelivable stuff on the level of "Susurluk scandal" of 1996 for those who care to remember.
In Van, a drug dealer caught by the Turkish police is "liberated" from the police headquarters by a daring ambush. A former member of the Turkish Parliament and his son are somehow involved in the affair. The drugs in police custody are missing as well. A local tribe chief warns the central government to "keep your hands off." The main opposition CHP is threatened that "there may be consequences" if CHP insists investigating the matter. AKP keeping silent, red faced.
In Diyarbakir, a terrorist (I assume he was pro-PKK) kills a night guard (bekci) and wounds a couple of police officers, and he himself gets killed after a hot pursuit. Diyarbakir's nominally SHP-member (but actually, with a pro-Kurdish DEHAP background) Mayor, together with four other subprovince mayors, visit the slain terrorist's family with their official cars, to officially express their condolences! Hello? They claim they've also visited the family of the slain night guard but the guard's family deny knowledge of such a courtesy visit. The State's official representative in Diyarbakir is expressing his regrets and condolences to the family of the guy who has attacked, killed and wounded the other officials of the same State? What is going on here? Translation please...
And that's not all...
President Sezer, a former justice of the Turkish Constitutional Court, vetoing major bills on the grounds that they contain provisions that would violate Turkish secularism.
President Sezer, as well as the Turkish General Staff, decline to invite to their official cocktails and receptions those wives of the AKP cabinet members who insist to wear turban in public.
Continuous minor earthquakes in various parts of the country, as if just to turn the pressure up a few notches.
And it is not even mid-August.
The only bright spot: Prof. Erdal Inonu, the world-renown bright star of Turkish science, could leave Turkey to go to Mexico and receive his prestigious Wigner Award on August 4.
Believe it or not, Erdal Bey was not allowed to travel abroad due to some silly court case regarding the debts of his brother-in-law Selim Sohtorik.
To his great credit, PM Erdogan signed Inonu's permission to travel abroad in his plane just about Erdogan himself was on his way flying out for a foreign visit. That's how Turkey was saved at the last moment from the great embarrassment of not allowing her greatest physicist ever from receiving a top physics award.
(The big brains among you can check out Inonu's paper on the subject... It's definitely out of my league.)
Turkey suffers from an ancient Chinese curse which wishes "may you never have a dull moment."
A dull day or two would be such a relief. It's actually what a summer is supposed to be all about, isn't it?