I’ve realized that my recent columns have been full of pessimism and dead ends. I suppose I’ve been spending my time lately with pessimistic people who are at a dead end—or perhaps I’m the one like that. Whatever the case, the result is the same: my columns are about pessimism and dead ends. Today will be the same!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but lately we’ve begun to turn into a society that is surprised by nothing. Whether it’s drug dealers, rapists, political misconduct, or absurd practices, our tolerance for being astonished by anything has reached its highest level. In other words, we no longer express surprise or react, and nothing astonishes us… On the contrary, we normalize these kinds of things by saying, “This is the TRNC.”
The other day, while chatting with a friend who is a real estate agent, he told me about an ex officio tax assessment he had received in the past. My friend described his reaction when he received the tax notice for 400,000 TL in these words: “Cem, can you believe this? Our business potential is clear. How can there be a tax like this? But this is the TRNC; anything can happen here. What’s even worse is that the state sends you a tax bill, then sits down and negotiates with you. If you’re going to send me such an outrageous tax bill, collect it! Is this any way for a serious state to behave?”
After this conversation, I realized that lately I’ve been hearing a lot of sentences that include the phrase “This is the TRNC.” Looking at the content of the conversation, you might say: “There are, of course, people who evade taxes in this country.” Yes, there are—but don’t you think the way to prevent this is through inspections?
I don’t think anyone has the right to make the seriousness of the state a matter of debate by introducing absurd practices because you can’t carry out inspections—and even using those practices as a political weapon! I hope this practice is abolished as soon as possible and that those who have suffered as a result stop saying, “This is the TRNC.”
Of course, we could give more examples of these kinds of absurd practices or the absurdities we encounter in everyday life… But I suppose I have no right to rub salt in anyone’s wounds either! So the best thing is to say what needs to be done, briefly and to the point: The government needs to take serious action on the incidents that prompt people to say, “This is the TRNC.” Our people are fed up with these kinds of absurdities and with the costs of failures in governance being passed on to society. What’s worse is that hopelessness has spread like a virus through every level of society. Our people want someone powerful standing behind them! They want a resolute approach to governance that defends the public’s interests. They want a system in which the state trusts them and protects them from injustice. Almost every segment of society is aware that the system in question is unsustainable, and everyone is complaining about it, especially those in government… A system that even those with the authority to change it complain about is driving society toward the brink.
Can we expect a society that normalizes even the worst events to be made up of individuals in good mental health?
For this reason, those who aspire to govern and take up positions of leadership need to stop complaining and start coming up with solutions as soon as possible. Otherwise, our society will continue to normalize everything that happens by saying, “This is the TRNC,” and one day, when we look back, we will realize that it is already too late. For weeks, I’ve been using this column to issue warnings and try to put the public’s concerns into words. I hope that people will soon pull themselves together and start doing what needs to be done…