Thread by @canokar

AKP-affiliated social media is heartily laughing at a video which mocks, demeans and belittles a woman who appeared in an earlier report from the BBC about Turkey’s economic downturn.

This is real “let them eat cake” territory - is the claim that there is no poverty in Turkey?

Ostensibly, they make fun of this woman, a domestic cleaner, because there are photos on her social media where she went to a party, once, which was presumably on a rented boat. That’s it.

One assumes for the AKP, if you’re poor, you should never have fun or leave your home.

The mocking video itself is filmed from the banks of the Bosphorus, a place where most of the properties are multi-million dollar mansions called “yalıs”. It is just remarkably tone deaf at a time when poverty escalated due to increased cost of living and rampant unemployment.

I just don’t see what the political calculation is behind a video like this. The AKP could once legitimately claim to be a party for the poor and disaffected.

Do they now punch down on the most vulnerable in society if they dare say everything is not perfect?

Of course, this is widely suspected to be a product from a well-funded splinter group colloquially known as the Pelicans. I hope they won’t take offence when I say this kind of material is deeply counterproductive and makes the AKP look divorced from reality.

Not a good look.

I think I should add, the mocking video is really unfunny. Like without wit or reason.

It basically implies that poor people in Turkey are only struggling because they want 1,000 people weddings. And that they’re faking it anyway.

Just awful stuff. Should be taken down.

Anyway, there’s an important maxim to remember at infuriating times like this: