Photo by: Hannah Rosenblatt
The comedy club at the Tekirdag prison in Turkey welcomed a new member earlier in the month when local comedian Ersin Ozince was sentenced to twenty mega-years in Turkey’s premier mega-prison after calling President Erdogan’s hairline “the real migration crisis”.
Video of Ozince’s stand up has largely been removed from the internet at the President’s behest, although copies of it continue to pop up across the web. In it, Ozince is seen telling jokes at Erdogan’s expense, his smile growing with each joke.
“I mean really have you seen the man’s head? First he loses Turkey’s Security Council seat at the UN, then he yells at United States VP Joe Biden, and still his eyebrows are isolating themselves from his hairline faster than he’s isolating our country from the rest of the world. All I’m saying is our economy isn’t the only thing here in recession.”
The President’s head of media relations Fusun Tumsavas put out a statement denouncing the jokes told. “Mr. Ozince has never seen the President’s real, luscious mane. It is a well-known fact that the President dons a balding wig in order to seem more personable in front of the ugly masses.”
Ozince’s arrest has sparked protest all over Turkey, uniting voices from all cultures in dissent of Erdogan. Two professors from Bilkent University in Ankara have reached across academic departments to come together on this matter. Professor of Human Biology Huseyin Yalcın and Professor of International Relations Kemal Meral spoke of their new paper, “Thinning of the Herd: The Hairy Migration Situation.”
“Ozince is not wrong, in the strictest sense,” began Professor Yalcın. “If you not only take Erdogan as head of state, but take the state as the head of Erdogan, then it becomes easy to divide up his scalp as countries on a map. Place Syria at the left ear, Greece at the right, and his nose raised up in his usual smugness at Egypt.”
Professor Meral continued. “From 2012 to 2014 we saw massive amounts of movement from ear to ear, people using Turkey as a midpoint from the war torn lands of Syria to Greece. However since our President started wearing his skin-yarmulke, legal migration between the nations has decreased dramatically.
“The international community must come together to bridge this gap between countries and get people moving again. Our recommendation to the UN can be seen in figure three,” the Professor finished, referencing the paper’s full size photo of a Rogaine canister.
The seminal paper has made its way from university to university. “This is not just about the comedian Ozince anymore, although he has figuratively noogied all of academia onto this new path of learning,” stated a professor of psychology at Koc University.
“I put forward that we do not look at the President’s ever-shinier head as a metaphor for a map of the Mediterranean, but rather as a model for the temperament of all Turks in the country. As Erdogan removes rights and privileges from his people, he makes a wider and wider divide between the ruling and working class. And when all of the hair is gone from the middle of the head, only two options remain — shave it all, symbolizing a revolution and equal start to Turkey, or cling to a fickle ring of hair, continuing to disseminate hate and losing all suavity with any women at bars.”
No new statements have been released from the office of the President. However, a source near Erdogan has leaked details of the President Googling the phrase “move mustache hair to head.”
Barak Tzori is an MQ Alum and was Editor-in-Chief for the 2016-17 school year.
