Basically, he was telling me how wrong I was because of my journalistic attitude regarding the Ergenekon investigation. According to him, those who defend the idea of an expansion of the investigation are tools for foreign powers. These powers, like always, are just trying to make Turkey weak. He nearly said I was a traitor to the nation. I don't know how, but during his very long monologue I suddenly discovered that he was talking about the Netherlands. (I have to admit that as happens every time I am trying to have a conversation with him, I was not listening to him carefully because his arguments are extremely nonsensical to me -- so I missed the link between my alleged traitorousness and the Netherlands.) Anyway, he was repeating the same old boring discourse about the "foreign powers" working around the clock to divide Turkey. His target was Europe, but especially the Netherlands. Again, I missed a link as my ears had gone temporarily deaf, but I think I heard "extreme and artificial sensitivity regarding human rights."
Under the influence of the newspaper that he reads, after the plane crash he praised the Netherlands because it lowered its flags as a sign of mourning due to the accident and the lives lost. My relative was saying this under the influence of the newspaper that he reads -- most of his ideas have been developed under the influence of this newspaper, anyways.
He began one of his very long monologues about how the lives of Turkish citizens are worthless, how our politicians don't know how to handle the crisis, how they should learn a lesson in humanity from the Netherlands and so on and so forth. (Did he say something about the prime minister and bicycling?)
It was a great opportunity for me to make him think, so I asked him, "But weren't you saying a couple of days ago that the Netherlands was an enemy, that it hated Turks and Turkey and wanted to make Turkey very weak in order to eliminate its main rival in the tulip trade?" Maybe he didn't say the tulip part, but nor did he object to it when I said that; maybe he thought that it might be true, since he and a very large group in Turkey have a tendency to think that European countries are hostile toward Turkey due to economic interests.
He was puzzled and admitted that he hadn't thought about that. It was time for me to say, you never do anyways…
Then it was my turn for a monologue: "Look, whether you like it or not, it comes with the package. If a country is sensitive about human rights, it lowers its flags to half mast if there is a disaster. Since they respect humanity, they insist on obtaining permission from families of victims before making victims' names public. Have you ever heard that someone is a great cook but can't prepare a good salad? In the civilized part of the world, we call this whole package democracy."
"Here, unfortunately, forget about the nine people who lost their lives in a plane crash, many people lose their lives in road accidents, and do you know why? Because our democracy is not strong. If it was, we would have better roads. If we had a developed democratic culture, people would respect each other's rights and would not turn traffic into a zero-sum game. All of these things are in some way connected to each other. Yes, I defend the idea of expansion of the Ergenekon investigation, because to my understanding, the expansion of the investigation is a sign of respect to citizens. If some people wanted to create chaos in order to strengthen their power, then there is a huge problem there. If the enlargement of this investigation will shake the state structure, that is fine with me too, since I do believe that the organizations which are called 'state' exist for the benefit of its citizens, not vice versa."
He replied by asking if my mother had been around because my kitchen smelled like her special soup.
