Dance the Paperwork Shuffle in Turkey

Editor's note: Dancing in Turkey became more chaotic in July 2016.

Fill us in on the exciting and rousing conclusion from October 26-31, 2012 to be exact, said Zeynep.

Here we go. The alert went out on Saturday 27 October before Halloween when Sit Down, a native with a degree in Business Management from Tupperware College living at home with mom and dad and working as admin guy at the TEOL school in Trabzon, tried to reach Lucky in Giresun - cherry in Latin - 2.5 hours away.

Sit Down needed his documents to apply for a residency permit.

The all knowing, all seeing, all powerful and all believing Turkish government of bored drones, wanting to force everyone in the food chain to be accountable so they could maintain their power and authority game had told TEOL:

You, Profit Before People running an educational business intent on brainwashing and dumbing down children, young adults, old adults and diseased heart-mind dead humans in quest of an English certificate from your institution have, according to the grand and glorious proclamation from our dead fearless and forever glorified leader Ata Boy, ten calendar days - yes only ten  - act now before its too late - to file the required paperwork requesting work permits for your native speakers born, raised and reared outside our glorious land of sea, sky and succulent tomatoes with their clear pronunciation, these specific barbarians,after filing for their residency permits.

Failure to do so said Authority, Means 1) they cannot be employed by the state of Confusion & Sorrow & High Anxiety 2) they cannot order Allah cart in Kofte diners featuring grilled shit burgers slathered with yogurt 3) they will be decapitated at dawn tomorrow by a sad warrior hero on a white stallion waving a diamond mind blade.

Failure to comply with our Ten-Day Decree means you will need to start the complete bureaucratic sham process all over again. You will lose face. You will suffer personal + national humiliation + our brutal revenge.

You will become a hunted dog in Armenian forests and massacred like 1.5 million. We do not acknowledge this genocide in 1914. We erased the Armenians. We deny their existence.

Prove it.

Denial kills you. Anger is expensive.

Failure to comply and lie with intentional cunning means you will have to haul more word shit and process tedious official documents. You will spend years seeking a stamp from a performing seal of approval. You will raise your greasy baksheesh palms to heaven imploring Ali Baba the leader of forty thieves for redemption and solace.

Tell me you love me. Love and passion create suffering.

WE, Authority do our best to make the paperwork process cumbersome, illogical, frustrating, idiotic, mind numbing, depressing, sushi ideal and heavy real deep shit for brains.

We love paper. It’s why, as you've seen in Bay (male) or Bayan (female) toilets absence of paper products. We use holy water imported from the Vatican via Soapy Arabia to blast orifices. Water is sweeter than pleasure principles smothered with honey.

Everything here needs a permit: breathing, laughing, dreaming, dancing, drawing, writing and meditating. A government issued signed stamped official document.

No paper no chance.

Please note this text message to Lucky from Sit Down.

The Language Company

words discuss words

Words had a discussion.

They discussed choices. Cause and effect.

They negotiated a fine line.

SMILE- WE WILL HELP YOU PRACTICE

Do you feel my pain?

Animate and inanimate objects.

Mindfulness in the moment.

Hope is the greatest evil. A myth. POWER. CONTROL.

Thoughts are shadows of our feelings - always dearer, emptier, and simpler.

Dreams, wishes, fears. Dreams are repressed wishes.

Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.

Living safely is dangerous. 

country of amnesia

We'd like to say hello to all our friends in China.

They cannot read this because 50,000+ internet gremlins block it from their bleeding eyes.

Words like June 4, democracy and freedom are scrubbed.

Today the Country of Amnesia says to the 1.7 billion sheep:

ATTENTION COMRADES!

June 4th, 1989 did not happen. Collective brains were wiped clean. Just blend in. 

Leo remembered hauling buckets of night soil shit to fertilize fields near his straw and mud hovel in the Gobi.

It was the price he’d paid for quest-ioning Authority at Beijing Normal U.

- Why do we have to read Mao’s little red book? It's mush for pigs, he’d asked Authority.

- Because you are a tool of the state, said Authority.

- This shit stinks.

- Here, said Authority. Carry some more.

After that melancholy loss Leo didn’t take shit from anybody. He escaped to Australia.

Living in exile with silence and cunning he burned through levels of existence.

Survivors heard a voice screaming from a classroom: Quest-ions are forbidden, said overworked, underpaid and undersexed Chinese teachers named Authority and Social Control.

Ask at your peril. Anyone in the 2% group raising their hand to ask a quest-ion with confidence is shamed or silently beaten into silence. We will murder your family.

You will be condemned to a Reform Through Re-education Labor Unit near the Gobi.

Fear and ignorance are great motivators, forever and a day.

Conformity breeds conformity. Get in line and shut up.

brainwashed

One day it happened that a senior female Chinese university student majoring in English found the courage to say, I don't speak-talk English. My English is poor.

I have no self-esteem. I am too shy.

I am afraid of losing face if I make mistakes in front of a foreigner.

My parents, peers and teachers in socialistic group-think (Oh, George Orwell, where art thou?) reality taught me, or perhaps a better word is brainwashed me into believing, heart and soul that if my English isn't perfect I shouldn't try, especially in front of foreigners.

I’ve learned the less I do, the fewer mistakes I make and the less criticism I face.

I feel safer. I am a robot.

Autonomy and independent critical free thinking are anathema in my comfortable world.

On the other hand, give me a cell phone and I can set world records for text dial-a-log.

Especially when I am sad, lonely and bored.

I know people in the West use the Internet to seek information. Here it’s about entertainment.

I love chat rooms and the TV idiot box where I can give away my consciousness.

Anaemic

My name is Yeah Yeah and here's one of my favorite fairy tales.

Once upon a time I was in power since 1900. A century is nothing. I am not going anywhere. A black hole named Greed swallowed my country. Delicious. Burp. 

Greed is good.

My buddies go to the bank in Land Rovers. Cruise control.

China is my best friend in the whole wide world. They've invested a cool $12 billion since 2002.

They know BIG profit when they see it, smell it, hear it, taste it, feel it and cash it.

Money in-money out is their mantra.

Here's some recent World Bank numbers to verify our stellar accomplishments.

1. Our economy expanded at an annual rate of 7.2% in 2012. Domestic consumption is up. Toilets are expensive and rare. Cell phones are cheap and plentiful.

2. Direct foreign investment last year was $1.5 billion.

2. Our per capita income is $946 a year. Thailand is $5,474 and Indonesia $3,557. 

3. Less than 14% of my people, by the people and for the people are enrolled in tertiary education. Education wastes time and money.

4. 55% of our children under five are anaemic. I don't know what that means speaking of vigor or energy. I hope it's not contagious. If it is we need another hospital filled with empty rooms to impress foreign investors.

5. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies costs my country $146 million each year.

6. Malnutrition and poor health stunts the growth of 40% of our children. 

It's a numbers game.

Robust growth is one thing. Inclusive growth is another.