You must know Adrien Brody. You know, the actor who won an Oscar for the film The Pianist, in which he starred in 2002… He has made many films, but you must have seen “The Experiment,” in which he and Forest Whitaker did a wonderful job. The film is actually a remake of the 2001 German film Das Experiment. (In other words, the classic Hollywood approach… ) Anyway, the film is about the famous prison experiment on how the personalities of those in positions of authority and those being governed—a concept that social research enthusiasts now consider a cliché—are changed. The film’s information section describes the experiment as follows: “The aim of the experiment is to determine how the roles assigned to people, and those roles’ ability to take over an individual’s true self and alienate them, affect how quickly this happens, and whether, in this process, the person has the will to adapt to this alienation and the role assigned to them, or to preserve their own identity.”
Ultimately, the film shows what people who take on roles that are not really theirs might do if they gain power. When those assigned the role of guards oppress the people playing prisoners, the prisoners unite and oppress the guards. In other words, the film ends in chaos and bloodshed.
The other day, I needed to see a doctor friend of mine at the outpatient department of Lefkoşa Dr. Burhan Nalbantoğlu State Hospital. As always, the outpatient department was extremely busy and crowded. People were waiting their turn to receive healthcare, while the doctors were trying to do their jobs. In the midst of that chaos, one man managed to catch my attention. He wasn’t wearing any distinctive clothing or an identification card, and I thought he was doing everything he could to keep us from figuring out who he was or what he did. He was shouting at the top of his lungs and berating the patients there! Yet his words were having no effect, and the chaos was not easing. Still, the man continued shouting and berating the patients. As this went on, I wondered for a long time, “What is this man’s job?” Suddenly, the film I mentioned above came to mind, and I reached the following conclusion: I suppose someone assigned this man a role and sent him there to carry it out. But apparently he feels that he has been given power and is oppressing everyone who crosses his path.
In fact, you can encounter this kind of person in many areas of our country. In my view, their fundamental problem is that they take on roles that have been given to them temporarily. For this reason, my advice to those who make appointments, both at lower and higher levels (and these senior appointments will increase with the formation of the new government), is to make appointments based on personality assessments and to monitor those appointed, protecting the public from injustices. Otherwise, it is the people who will be oppressed. Then perhaps, not like in the film, but at the ballot box, they will certainly crush them! Take note…