How did the world's biggest boycott drive a government crazy?
How did the Turkish people manage to drive a government crazy with a one-day boycott?
One of the world's biggest boycotts took place in Turkey today, If I have to evaluate today's (April 2) nationwide boycott, I can say that it was a boycott that made history. The shops were empty and even many shops closed very early, realizing that people were not going to come. Yesterday evening, right after the president of the main opposition party invited the whole country to boycott, all government ministers and media channels suddenly declared those who boycotted as traitors. yesterday I watched A haber, one of the most partisan news channels. They accused the main opposition party of being a dog of Israel, accused them of trying to ruin the country's economy, and said that their aim was to create chaos.
Today many famous people were fired from their jobs by the government after they announced their support for the boycott. one of them was Aybüke Pusat, a TV series actress, the only thing she said was that she supported the boycott, but she was fired from the TV series she was in by the government. Taking to the streets and protesting didn't hurt the government much because they had as much police and pepper spray as they wanted, but not spending money hurt the government a lot because the biggest source of income in Turkey is taxes collected from the people, and the CHP voters (the main opposition party) are middle and high income group voters. The government's own voters were from a poorer group, they didn't have the power to boycott and some ministers called for a boycott against the boycott and asked their own voters to shop as much as possible in the markets today. but this call was a funny disappointment for them. because their voters who went out to shop were only able to do enough shopping to fill 1 bag, which they mostly failed to do, and some people on social media took 2 loaves of bread and took a selfie and wrote “I boycott this boycott” and made the whole Turkish people laugh. in all the pro-government media, the country's ministers go on TV and say that there should be no boycott. And throughout the day the pro-government channels made it look like the CHP's boycott had failed, like everyone was shopping, but in fact the streets were empty, people didn't even go out to spend money...and the boycott caused so much damage that pro-government companies called CHP, yes a political party, on the phone and talked about how much they love CHP. many companies mentioned on social media that they have nothing to do with politics. some pro-government news channels suddenly started broadcasting neutral news. No one knew that the impact of the boycott would be so great. One by one, companies were breaking their cooperation with pro-government individuals/companies/media.
The owner of an entertainment production company that brought singers from abroad shared a post on social media saying that those who supported this boycott were traitors. Thereupon, the CHP crowd reached out to these foreign artists one by one and told them about the situation. As a result, all these artists supported the boycott and stopped doing business. And these things got much faster and all of a sudden the whole people started to boycott much more harshly. Not only those who were against them but even those who were not speaking out against the government anymore started to boycott. It is not known what will happen tomorrow or in the coming weeks, but it is not difficult to think that the opposition party and opposition voters will continue this boycott by increasing it.
I am writing this article with some fear, I can't help but wonder if I will be taken in by the police at the crack of dawn. Please be aware of the events taking place in Türkiye and don't even make money for Turkish businesses abroad and ensure that this article is shared in more places.
About the Creator
Agementos
a University student trying to be free.
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