Taxitalk Turkey 2019

Every year when I fly to Turkey, I am already looking forward to the conversations I can have with the taxi drivers. Mostly we talk about the current situation in Turkey. These include politics, work, money and religion.

The taxi driver told me that he does not like the situation in Turkey at all, but he has no other alternative and therefore always votes for Erdoğan.

He himself is an anarchist and does not want to have a government because he thinks they are destroying the state. As a background, he has given all current governments as an example.

The taxi driver was convinced that the coup attempt in Turkey was a rebellion of certain groups and did not intend to take over the government. He said that, in the end, countless innocent people are in prisons.

This taxi driver was convinced that the coup attempt in Turkey was an inside job, but nothing can be done. He also mentioned that the people who are now hunting for the people who made the coup, would adore these people a few years ago.

He also recommended the bus company Pamukkale Turizm to us and said that he always drives with Pamukkale himself. We could not talk so much because I wrote with a friend who was waiting for me at the bus station and did not have much time to talk.

I talked to this taxi driver the most and I had the opportunity to talk to him about most things.

He is a supporter of the MHP, but he believes that the AKP offers no one else the opportunity to be elected. I told him that the CHP was elected in Ankara and in Istanbul and that this means a change. However, he said that when the CHP comes to power, Erdoğan will simply cause a revolt throughout Turkey and then blame all of this on the CHP. After that, he regains power with the argument that the CHP is not capable.

I got into the taxi in İstanbul and immediately noticed a camera in my direction. I looked at the taxi driver and asked:

This man felt that the airport was built in a completely wrong place and it only causes problems. It is far too far from the city center and the connections are very bad.

Even for the planes that arrive in Istanbul, it was not good. That’s what we came to when I told him it was rainy and he said it was only there and the weather in the center of Istanbul would be better. It really was like that.

When I asked why this was being built, he said that Erdogan and his family were only shunting each other’s money to get as much money out of the treasury as possible.

This taxi driver was for me a symbol of the guys, whose father bought some taxi numbers in Istanbul and who make you fat on pants.

It was impossible to talk to him on a normal level, because he consistently meant that we in Europe are used to too much order and Turkey is better at everything.

Through him, I’ve seen a person who has a lot of money in Turkey become a person who lowers respect and tolerance at the lowest level.

I assume that his father forced him to take a taxi, because many drivers are currently on vacation and he is used to just “eating” the money from his father.

This taxi driver was the biggest AKP trailer I’ve ever seen in my life. When we started talking about politics, he first showed me selfies with various politicians in Turkey. Among others, the Minister of the Interior and the Former Mayor of Istanbul.

He said:
I know what Turkey and Istanbul were like before the time of Erdogan. Today’s youth can not know that. The AKP has worked and made Turkey a better place.
The new generation is far too spoiled. They have grown into the system, which the AKP has made possible for them, and that is why they think that every other party will work the same way.

What baffled me, however, was that he said that he did not trust his own wife or his own sons and that in all respects he only relied on Erdogan. He also said he would kill someone even for Erdogan if someone made a false sentence about him.