It smells bad in Northern Cyprus

You love Bülent Ersoy, you don’t like her, if you have a bit of music taste, you’re definitely fascinated by her voice. So is İbrahim Tatlıses. It’s a great sound. Lifestyles are their own business

Bülent Ersoy was once banned from performing and making music in Turkey because of her personal preferences -- she had a sex change operation -- by the “Nu painter Pasha” coup. It was outrageous what the “Nu painter Pasha” – by the way, he was an awful painter – did, and as such, he badly failed in that endeavor. As a matter of fact, Ersoy survived that period and was loved by Turkish people for her voice, despite all her excesses, spoils and even physical “ugliness.”

Of course, she doesn’t need any money. She doesn’t need to engage in any sort of wrongdoings. Indeed she arrived a few days before the planned concert, settled in her luxury hotel, waiting for the day of the concert to arrive when news broke that her team had been detained at Ercan Airport due to fake PCR test reports.

A journalist friend of mine serving on the island gave me some details. Staff in charge of PCRs at a hotel in the Bafra region was detained by police. Three people are being sought, one of whom is a policeman. Of course, these are organized works, but there seems to be some serious stupidity involved, after all. My friend joked, making me remember those Lucky Luke comics and the Dalton brothers, notorious but not very hardworking thugs. They hardly had any brains, as they were so stupid that they printed pictures of themselves on counterfeit money. The modern Daltons gang in the TRNC seems to be doing very well. Before the men arrived on the island, they prepared fake PCR documents for who knows for how many people from the TRNC health institutions. Of course, a few questions come to my mind. Is the TRNC in the hands of so many incapable people? Since the costs of these transactions are covered by the hotel management, the whole sham cannot be the work of the person responsible for the PCRs alone. Hotel managers could be involved as well. That’s not enough. If the documents were issued, signed and sealed as PCR tests were carried out on people who did not even come to the TRNC yet, even if not in the Health Ministry, some health professionals and hospital executives could be involved in the “organized” wrongdoing. In order not to “see” all this, someone in the police should take on the task of “making things easier.”

There ought to be some sort of malfunction somewhere in the matter of Ersoy’s team. Either not sufficient bribes were distributed at Ercan Airport, or some decent officials decided to do their duty.

While all this was being discussed, Prime Minister Ersan Saner’s video came into the limelight, showing him drumming as if he was a member of a music troupe in front of a huge crowd. Apparently, the video was taken on Saturday – when Ersoy’s musicians were trying to find a way out of Ercan so that they can perform at the hotel for Ersoy.

Unfortunately, as if they are all large adult sons, many politicians in North Cyprus are on social media with their postings or posts about them. I am sure, for instance, that the prime minister was not the drummer member of that team but was drumming just for fun. But, for God’s sake, as a responsible person occupying a responsible seat, should not he and the people in that packed-up hall around him wear masks, maintain some distance between each other? The video was awful and a real killer of the political prospects of any politician in any serious democracy. I am sure nothing will happen in TRNC.

The judicial process is launched. I am hopeful that there are judges in North Cyprus. And I want to believe that fraudulent officials will have to give an account at the court. Am I a romantic? Probably so, but I must say if salt is rotten, there is no hope…